Ottawa's Ghostly Past
Article By: Hugo Paradis


Most people react with laughter or scepticism when they hear about
Ottawa's guided ghost walks. But the Haunted Walks tour guides shrug off
such cynicism, for they have an unshakeable belief in what they do, and
in the spooky tales they tell as each tour unfolds.
Lantern in hand, standing outside buildings where chilling murders
occurred long ago and misbehaving ghosts allegedly dwell to this day,
the guides recount spellbinding stories about Ottawa's darker past.
Every story has been checked and double-checked, verified through
archives, old newspaper clippings and, where possible, actual interviews
with the people involved. "Each of our stories is thoroughly researched
and documented," says company founder Glen Shackleton. "Before adding a
new story to a tour, we always seek out the evidence to substantiate
it."

Shackleton and his tour guides - unarmed ghost busters, if you will -
have been roaming the streets of Sandy Hill and other Ottawa
neighbourhoods since 1995, trailed by small groups of people who start
out intrigued and end up looking over their shoulders nervously. In
2004, 30,000 people joined one or another of the Haunted Walks tours.

Some are curious about the west wing of the fourth floor of the Canadian
Museum of Nature, which remains empty because it's reputedly haunted.
Others have heard about the séances the late Prime Minister William
Lyon Mackenzie King used to hold. Still others want to know whether the
rumours are true about repeated apparitions of the ghost of Bishop
Joseph-Eugène Guigues, founder of the University of Ottawa. But there
are many other spine-tingling anecdotes as well.

Bumps in the Night
Of all the ghost stories told on the tours, the one about the Ottawa
Jail hostel, housed on the old Carleton Country Jail premises, makes
your blood run coldest.
Hostel managers used to inform arriving guests that if they wanted to
spend the night in a cell on the old Death Row, and if they could make
it all the way through to dawn without freaking out, they'd get the
night's lodging for free.
But nobody ever managed to do it. One guest swore he'd felt the weight
of a body across his legs. Another complained of so much kicking from
under the bed, he had no choice but to bolt. Countless others simply
ended up racing down the stairs from Death Row, screaming, to flee the
hostel in terror.

Although the policy helped make the hostel famous, it was eventually
abandoned lest people hurt themselves in their headlong rush to get
away. But you can still visit the eighth floor - in daytime - where
Patrick James Whelan, the presumed assassin of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, was
held. Whelan steadfastly proclaimed his innocence right up until his
trip to the scaffold.
"There are a lot of stories about Patrick Whelan," says Shackleton. "One
time, two young boys at his gravesite were making fun of him, when
suddenly they both developed nosebleeds at exactly the same time. And on
three separate occasions on our tours, someone on the tour also
developed a nosebleed just as one of our guides was recounting the story
about the boys."

Crime Capital
But why does this orderly and rather sedate city have so many ghost
stories? "Maybe because there are many public buildings here, and ghosts
like to be seen by lots of people?" Shackleton jokes. "Or maybe," he
adds more seriously, "it's because Ottawa was once the North American
capital of crime."
Indeed, Ottawa was godless, lawless and without a police force for the
first 40 years of its existence. Crime was rampant and murders
commonplace. "Everyone laughed when this city was chosen as the federal
capital," recalls Shackleton, "because they wondered how MPs would
survive in such a hostile environment!"
On top of that, before 1809 the British laws in effect in Ontario
provided easily 100 reasons to hang anyone who broke the law. So maybe
Ontario's nooks and crannies are populated with lost souls still angry
about having been executed for a petty crime.

Whatever the reasons for Ottawa's haunting, every year the tour company
adds new scary stories to its stock of terrifying tales. "Customers are
often a great source of information,"  Shackleton notes. "Some of them
take a tour because they've had a strange experience themselves, and
they tell their stories to our guides. The guides then verify and
authenticate them, and eventually add them to the tour."

Shackleton himself has encountered a ghost first-hand, or at least
experienced a paranormal encounter. "It was at the Bytown Museum, where
I'm chairman of the board of directors. There were four of us that
night. We were leaving the museum and there was nobody behind us. We
closed a sliding door. It began to vibrate, really strongly, as if
someone on the other side was hitting it. If anyone had been there, the
security camera would have picked him up. But there was nobody, although
we heard heavy steps walking away." Shackleton believes it might have
been the ghost of Duncan McNab, once the building custodian and a
reputed prankster.

Brrr! Whether you're a sceptic or a believer, whether the stories are
true or not, a Haunted Walks tour is a thrilling, chilling foray into
another world, a realm of terror, mystery and the unexplained.

For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the
Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca.

Haunted Walks
Haunted Walks of Canada offers guided walking tours in Ottawa and
Kingston. Ottawa tours include The Original Haunted Walk, Ghosts and the
Gallows, and The Naughty Ottawa Pub Walk. Tours range in length from one
hour to two and a half hours. Tickets are $10 to $14 for adults, less
for seniors and children. For reservations, phone (613) 232-0344 or
visit www.hauntedwalk.com.
Information
Ontario Tourism: 1-800-668-2746 or www.ontariotravel.net

Hugo Paradis is a Montreal-based freelance journalist. He's been
travelling since childhood and is always on the lookout for the new and
the offbeat. His interests include architecture, culture, outdoor
activities, history, fine dining and, of course, ghosts.