haunted Canada – The Devil's Muse

Haunted Canada: The Screaming Tunnel, Niagara Falls, Canada

The Screaming Tunnel is a small limestone tunnel, running underneath what once was the Grand Trunk Railway lines (now the Canadian National Railways), located in the northwest corner of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

A local legend recounts that the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a young girl, who after escaping a nearby burning farm building with her clothing ablaze, died within its walls. Several variants of the legend exist locally, one version has the girl set on fire by her enraged father after he loses custody of his children after a nasty divorce. Another tells of a young girl being raped inside the tunnel and her body burned to prevent any evidence from being found. All versions of these legends ends with the girl screams filling up the tunnel as she was burning to death.

Learn more about the Screaming Tunnel and how one version of the legend has become a rite of passage for local youths on Creepy Canada:

The information above about the Screaming Tunnel is from Wikipedia: Screaming Tunnel.

Haunted Canada: Hotel Vancouver’s Lady in Red

“The Hotel Vancouver is haunted by a benevolent and elegantly dressed ‘Lady in Red.’ She’s often spotted on the 14th floor, and is also seen in the ground floor lobby near the guest elevator doors. She sometimes passes through elevator doors on those floors and glides along the hallways. Most intriguing is that the 1st and 14th floors are the only ones with elevator doors that lead to a dummy elevator shaft. The ghost has been seen passing through those disused, locked doors.

“The Lady in Red is also encountered in some of the guest rooms. Once, a Japanese family that checked into a room on the 14th floor called the front desk to ask whether their room had been double-booked. They described seeing the Lady in Red in the room, which had caused their confusion.”

Read the full story as well as other ghost stories from Vancouver, Canada, at Ghosts of Vancouver.

Haunted Canada: The Ghost of Peggy Cove

Peggy Cove in Nova Scotia, Canada, is home to a grieving ghost:

“The site of the famous Peggy’s Point Lighthouse in Nova Scotia is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who took her own life in 1800. According to legend, the woman—whose name was Margaret—was the survivor of a shipwreck that killed her children, and, in her grief, would often wander the rocks at the edge of the sea.

“One day her husband, in an attempt to cheer her up, was dancing on the rocks, slipped, and suffered a fatal head wound. Shortly after his death, she took her own life by jumping into the sea at the spot where he died. Today, there are reports of a mysterious lady in blue who looks poised to jump into the sea. When someone tries to help, she disappears.”

For more Canadian ghost stories, visit 5 classic (and totally creepy) Canadian ghost stories.

Haunted Canada: Hamilton Ghost Story

In honor of my going to the Rue Morgue Dark Carnival Expo in Hamilton, Ontario, in July (I’m very excited!), here is an excerpt from a ghost story from that town from the Cold Spot Paranormal Research blog:

“So fast forward a little bit, Christmas season fast approaching. We’ve settled in now. We’ve heard noises that we can’t explain, we hear footsteps in the middle of the night. We assume it’s just our imaginations. We have a Christmas party. A good friend of ours comes up to my wife and says, ‘This house is haunted.’ ‘Why do you say that?’ my wife asks. ‘Well I just watched as that door slammed shut!’ He was speaking of the same door that caused me so much paranoia when we first moved in. Prior to this we’ve told no one of our dealings with this situation. He would not be the last to tell us how creepy our home was.

A few days later after the party it’s around nine o’clock at night. Our kids are in bed. My wife and I are sitting in the living room watching TV when all of a sudden the room goes dark. The tv turned off, the Christmas tree lights go off and the window Christmas lights go off. We automatically think power outage but soon realize it’s just the living room. So I try to turn the TV back on, it doesn’t work. It is then that I discover it is unplugged, as is every other item in the living room. All the Christmas lights are individually unplugged. I felt this really horrible chill run down my neck as I realized there is absolutely no logical explanation of what had just occurred and as I’m considering this the back bedroom door closed. We heard it click. It was once again locked.”

Haunted Canada: Banff Springs Hotel

Built in 1888, the Banff Springs Hotel—also known as the “Castle of the Rockies”—is a grand building in the middle of the forest in Banff, Alberta. Some famous guests have included Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth II and Helen Keller. sicklongshot4 The hotel is one of Canada’s famous haunted locations. It is most well-known for a ghost story about a phantom bride. The Hammerson Peters blog, which shares tales from Western Canada, describes the phantom bride’s story:

“According to the legend, a young couple was married in Banff sometime in the early 1930’s. It was arranged for their wedding banquet to be held in the Banff Springs Hotel, where the couple was renting the bridal suite. Before the beginning of the banquet, the newlywed bride ascended a marble staircase up to the Cascade Ballroom to join her husband, who was waiting at the top. As she did so, her wedding gown brushed against one of the candles that lined the curved staircase and caught fire. In the panic that ensued, the bride tripped over her wedding dress, fell down the flight of marble stairs, broke her neck and died.

“It is said that her ghost has haunted the hotel ever since. Over the years, various hotel patrons and staff have reported seeing a phantasmal bride dancing alone in the Cascade Ballroom, or ascending the marble staircase on which the tragic incident is rumored to have taken place. Others have heard strange noises emanating from the bridal suite when the room was not in use.”

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