The Long Neglected Folklore of Muskoka and all the Assorted Superstitions of the Rural Habitations

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

     As a writer-apprentice, my tutors were regional historians. Not novelists that's for sure. My work-load with the Muskoka Sun, for example, was to be a human copy producing semi-historian, who could fill the open space between the ads with something readable. The Editor in my time, was Muskoka historian Robert Boyer, and his summer season publication had a huge audience around the lakes who really enjoyed our array of historical features each week. I can sort of remember our few years living in our little haunted cottage near Golden Beach, sitting in our back room overlooking the beautiful backyard, and then looking back down at my typewriter carriage, with yet another story for the paper half-written. The whole time I lived in that bungalow-cottage, with its big windows and pinery, I was quite literally a space-filler for all the papers Muskoka Publications was releasing each month. If ad sales were up, so were my expectations, because I could produce huge amounts of editorial material based on a wealth of archives material the paper owned and what I already possessed as rookie antique dealer specializing in books.

     Most of what I produced back then, was fact-based regional histories, representing the six member municipalities of the District of Muskoka. But imbedded in my research, every now and again, there would be an author's mentions of something or other that wasn't hard-fact history; but instead, a wee gem of two of folk history which I absolutely adored. The Muskoka Sun readership wasn't too keen on it, but I kept putting these occasionally found stories that involved some aspect of folk history or the occasional paranormal account, in a separate file folder to use some day down the proverbial country road. I loved those country roads by the way, and they led to those charmingly haunted homesteads I've written about previously in these posts. It was a gradual re-positioning, you might say, of general interests in what I chose to write about, and after leaving Muskoka Publications in late 1989, I decided it was time to broaden my research and writing horizon, and find something more exciting to explore in the vastness of Muskoka heritage.

     Back a few years, in about 1981, shortly after joining the editorial staff of the Bracebridge Herald-Gazette, the writing staff got the idea, as a means of competing with another paper in town, that we would try for a number of full page features on one particular subject a week. It was on a trial basis, and the publisher gave us a little wiggle room to win him over. The advertising manager wasn't pleased with the idea of a one hundred percent copy page. Our newspaper operated on an ad content of sixty to sixty-five percent, versus 35 to 40 percent editorial copy. Dedicating a full page to editorial copy, meant that the ads that would have made up sixty percent of that particular page, had to go somewhere else. It was a month long experiment, so the publisher backed us for that length of time. If it worked, we could do it at least once a month. But when the ad manager found out that the first full page features would document a local haunted house, and would contain four or five other tales of the paranormal, he tried everything to de-rail the plan. I won, he lost. He had predicted that our clients would pull their ads from the paper and give them to the competition because of my full pager all about haunted residences and things that went bump in the night. Well, I still consider that a milestone victory for a young editor in training, because the page was a huge success, and no one pulled their ad copy for the next edition. I had comments from readers who felt it was an excellent change of pace from boring politics and reports about sewer and water upgrades, and the latest unimportant business news that most often only served as space filler. We made it through the month, but I was told by patrons, that the ghost piece was the most interesting.

     From that experiment, which was quite on purpose, I began gathering research material about other local haunts and hauntings, and the published feature did provide me with a dozen or so leads on a number of other paranormal situations said to have happened to local citizens going right back to pioneer days. And it was later in the 1990's working as a freelance writer, that I began putting some feature stories together, which were mostly utilized in the early years of this new century in out-of-the-region publications, with a large and responsive audience; that once again, was willing to share more stories about Ontario ghosts. And, by the way, it was in the early 1980's, just after my first foray into the universe of the paranormal, that famed Canadian author, and sleuth of the paranormal, John Robert Colombo suggested that I put together a book of Muskoka Ghosts. Getting this kind of push from a writer with his vast accomplishments was incredible to me, still considered a junior writer with a big want list. Later in the 1990's, John actually wrote a series opening column, for my newest 22 part Muskoka Sun series on Muskoka Ghosts and Hauntings, but I can't remember just when that went to press. But it was incredible for me to have John help launch the special series, and in fact, the columns that summer generated many more calls and letters from folks around the Muskoka Lakes, who had some interesting cottage and resort stories of the paranormal to share.

     It was the series of articles that inspired local ghost sleuth Audrey Thompson, of Kilworthy, to give me a call one evening, to comment on the series to that point, which if memory serves was at the halfway point in the season run. I was immediately intrigued by Audrey because she was so excited about the subject matter, which she told me had been a part of her life since childhood, and the paranormal enchantments she had experienced in an around where she and family had resided. But most of all, she was looking for even the smallest anecdotes from local neighbors, friends, and general acquaintances, regarding paranormal phenomenon. Not as a hardcore researcher, or a fact finding adventurer. She was low key in her approach but persistent, and dedicated to by a hunter-gatherer of these stories over time. A long, long period of time. Yes, her lifetime. So there was nothing hurried-up about gathering information for a quick publication, to meet the book seller needs of the region. She wasn't in competition with the other regional writers on matters of ghosts and wayward spirits, who produce books just to say they did; trying to use up all the paranormal stories they can harvest to brand themselves as ghost hunters. Audrey Thompson was slow and methodical, and she didn't share her plethora of stories with just any one. A career crafter who was well known in the Gravenhurst and Kilworthy neighborhood, she was an exceptional story-teller and a hobby folklorist, who loved any opportunity to spin some tales for a willing listener. Suzanne and I entertained her calls frequently over the years, and I can still hear her voice so many years since, telling me about the ghosts that continue to haunt the Highway 11 corridor; being the earth-bound former victims of fatal car crashes. She told me about the places where these ghostly wanderers used to appear on rainy November nights, haunting the crash sites, looking for their rescuers or trying to wave down passing traffic to help them extricate others from the wreckage. She was a talented story teller, and by her own admission, she had probably talked twice as much as any other person her age. And she was elderly by this time, but still had a powerful voice and just as powerful conviction about what she was talking about, at any time, on almost any subject. She was a knitter extraordinaire, and well known for her excellent handiwork.

     Audrey had many stories about the Muskoka Navigation steamships of old, and even the new, and she shared tales of ghost-ships that had been heard and seen on misty autumn nights, as the sailing season wound down before the onset of winter. She was well versed on the sinking of the Muskoka Lakes steamer, Waome, near Beaumaris, during a wild wind storm many sailing seasons past, and she had an historian's gift of recall, when steamboating generally was the topic of discussion. She could go right back to the earliest ships to ply the Muskoka Lakes, and should I have questioned some of her details, I soon was corrected, and rightly so. It was her passionate embrace of folklore at its core, that added to my own interests in pursuing even more stories about Muskoka's largely unknown and under valued folk tales and legends, of which there is some meat on the bone. I had been arguing this point for decades, that much of Muskoka's folk history was never harvested when it was prime for doing so, because most historians at the time, were preoccupied with the actuality of milestone events, hard realities, economic matters, dates of town incorporations, and of course, the truly tantalizing realm of local politics. I'm kidding about the "tantalizing" reference. The softer history, according to these same historians, was worth a mention but not much more in the way of expended ink. I didn't buy their opinions on the matter of folk history, and with the encouragement of folks such as John Robert Colombo and of course, our friend Audrey Thompson, the "keeper of the stories" from Kilworthy, I made it a balance-of-my-life mission to advance the worthiness of Muskoka folk history as far as possible. I suppose then, I owe Audrey in particular, a special thank you, for inspiring this extension of my interests in both folk lore and locally reported activities of the paranormal, which by the way, I am still open to receive should you be willing, yourself to offer a kind contribution. I don't want this vein of historical record to be lost, and I can tell you honestly that it makes up an amazingly important part of our highly interesting chronicle here in this beautiful district of Ontario.

     Over several lengthy phone calls, Audrey begged me to come and visit her at her Kilworthy residence, to share a social time and hear some of her other ghost stories she wouldn't tell me over the phone. These were obviously her most significant tales that she was going to put into her somewhat prepared manuscript she wished for me to read, edit eventually, and recommend to a publisher. At the time, it was simply impossible to make her that kind of commitment, because we were just putting together our present antique shop in the former Muskoka Theatre, across from the Gravenhurst Opera House. But I made her a promises that it was a priority, once we got the shop up and running. But, as life throws curve balls, she succumbed to a series of poor health events, and her residence had to be cleaned out after her departure, including the disposal of her most important literary accomplishment; her collection of regional ghost stories she had so expertly gathered over many decades. I never got to see the collection, and although I did receive some of her papers later, what a shame it was that these collected folk tales were lost. Yet Suzanne and I both enjoyed many hours of conversation with Audrey, and as far as the oral tradition of story telling, we did garner much from her spoken word, and she will always be a part of any folktale collection we publish. In the coming weeks and months, there will be many of these casually told stories popping up, thusly inspired by this kindly citizen, and friend of local history. We will keep her name prominent in this series, because she was after all, a trusted colleague in this adventure to capture elusive folk heritage, that most others have brushed off as frivolous fiction.