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| Photos by Suzanne Currie |
A HAUNTED ATTIC AND A WRITER IN RESIDENCE AND AN ANTIQUE SHOP
After the first night living in the charming McGibbon House, on the Main Street of Bracebridge, I knew it was haunted. I also came to know, that as a fledgling writer, I really needed a mentor. From this life or from the so called “other side,” it didn’t matter. I was results oriented, and my gosh, working in this wonderfully occupied residence, brought forth a fountain of inspiration, and I do believe I owe these occupying spirits a lot of credit for my early accomplishments in a notoriously difficult profession. That is, trying to make a few bucks to survive as a writer for the small time press, in yes, a small town, with a small market place.
The year I graduated from York University, in Toronto, with a freshly inked degree in Canadian history, I arrived back in my then hometown, of Bracebridge, and commenced getting involved in everything I could. Community events and initiatives that had even the slightest heritage fringe, must have needed my help. Or so I thought. I guess you could say I was "pumped" to get involved.
It was the spring of 1977. Within weeks of settling in, we had launched plans for a family antique business, which involved a move to the mainstream. I begged some column space from a local publisher, and got my very first byline on a weekly column entitled simply, "Antiques and Collectibles." Before the end of the year I had held an inaugural meeting of a proposed Bracebridge Historical Society, in the attic of the wonderful old McGibbon house, we had just moved to, in order to operate Old Mill Antiques. The Historical Society's objective, when officially launched, would be to save Woodchester Villa, an octagonal home, built by Henry Bird of the well known Bird's Woollen Mill on the Muskoka River. It wouldn't be until 1978 that the Historical Society was officially recognized but it had its seed in the attic of Dr. Peter McGibbon's former Manitoba Street home.
I was overflowing with ambition, some of it misspent. I somehow believed that the rolled up diploma, now tucked into a dresser drawer, entitled me to fire off in all directions, and be successful no matter where I hurled myself. It didn't proceed quite as I'd hoped, but 1977 was a good turn-around year, particularly as a writer in this splendid, early 1900's residence. The best part of the new digs, was that I was able to turn the large attic portion, in the three story house, into a great place to write. With a huge window at the front, affording a panorama of Manitoba Street's, maple-line Memorial Park, I could watch a lot of comings and goings at all times of day and night, over the four seasons. As a fledgling writer, there was always something to make notes about, or expand from observation, into another short story. It was a luxurious, inspiring location that most writer's would have killed for, especially the solitude. Street noise was always muffled, it seemed, even if the window was open.
We had a three room shop that first year, an apartment in the back, and access via the back stair, to the attic room, which stretched from the back of the main house to the front, as the south wing, along the main street, had only two stories. I would work in the store, or in the basement refinishing through the day, and following dinner, I'd spend the rest of the night, and well into the morning, working at the attic window, where I set up my desk and typewriter. For several years, I wrote like a man possessed, and I dabbled in poetry, play composition, short stories, non-fiction, and of course my weekly columns for the local press. Sometimes I'd wake up with a start, head hung down over the typewriter, where I'd fallen asleep mid-sentence. It was a non-threatening, comfortable, subtly inspiring studio set-up, and I wanted to tap into it for everything and anything it could, as inspiration, to motivate a budding but unaccomplished author.
Even as a kid, I've always been keenly sensitive to my environs, and whether I'm writing, or just lounging, the aura of the room or the abode generally, factors deeply into my psyche. It will show up in my writing in any number of ways. It has taken four places of lodging, since, to have found my perfect writing place again, after leaving the McGibbon house, when my wife and I got married. Even though Birch Hollow, for me today, is a great and nurturing place to write, it is nothing like what I'd benefitted from in that main street attic.
As I've been aware of house-vibes, every place our family has ever called home, during the past 56 years, I instantly knew the McGibbon house had a positive aura, from the moment I stepped foot inside the main foyer, on that first look-see with the property manager. Working in the attic, I always had the feeling there was a resident spirit, or more, moving about the house, on the back staircase, and occasionally around me in the attic. I'd suddenly feel a strange draft of cold air, and hear footsteps coming up to the landing-door, when everyone else in the house was sound asleep. I sometimes felt as if a watcher was looking over my shoulder while I worked. Admittedly, I had moments when I felt mildly uncomfortable, but a lot of that came from Hollywood depictions, of ghosts and hauntings, such as the move "The Changling." But the positives of the place far outweighed the occasional sensation of spirits wafting around me. I got used to their presence.
Until one late night encounter, that is! I had worked late to finish a newspaper column. As I did every night, I began at the desk, turning off quite a number of sources of light, two floor lamps and two overhead fixtures, before I'd reach the attic door that was kept closed when I was working. Once the last overhead light was turned off, the only light to guide me down the back stairs, was the hall light on the next floor. When I'd get to that landing, I'd flick off the switch, close the door, and count on the illumination of the ground floor kitchen lamp, to get me down the last flight of stairs. On this occasion, when I had turned off the landing light, and taken a few steps out onto the platform of the second floor, I had an experience never to be forgotten. I had walked into a brilliant, white, cold, scented vapor in the otherwise dark staircase.
For several seconds, I was consumed by this cloud, and could see nothing else but the brilliant light all around me, and the chill-air like one would experience walking into a freezer on a hot summer day. It wasn't a frightening experience at all, but unsettling by its sudden arrival in that location of dimly-lit house. It passed as if it was moving up the stairs, as smoke, and I just happened to get in the way. But there was no doubt in my mind, once it had passed, that I had just enjoyed a one-on-one experience with an apparition. I got down to the bottom of the stairs, sat down on the last step, and tried to recall the sequence of events. Could there be any other explanation to the encounter, than to admit to myself, "I'd just seen a ghost?"
As I sat there, I felt a similar cold draft of air, slide down the back staircase, and it was so strong, it actually ruffled my hair. Seeing as this was mid-winter, and the furnace was directly below where I was sitting, and hot air rises, it seemed as if I'd had a second encounter in only a few moments, with the same passing spirit. I wasn't scared but I was definitely alerted to the potential of paranormal energy, flitting about Dr. McGibbon's former residence.
Several days after this adventure on the back stairs, while I was working in the shop, a group of people came in for a look around. I immediately noticed that they were formally dressed, predominantly in black, and seeing as we were neighbors of the local funeral home, I assumed they were visiting the recently deceased. When I heard them talking amongst themselves, about where they remember a family member sitting, in one of the rooms we had turned into store-space, I felt strangely compelled to listen more closely to the conversation. They had obviously lost a family member who had lived, for some time in the past, in the McGibbon house. They weren't of the McGibbon family, but came much later in the building's history. When I asked them a few questions, because I'm a "Nosey Parker," as my mother used to call me, one of the relatives said that a family member had died on the night I had witnessed a specter, climbing up the back stairway. Then the hair on the back of my neck, really did rise in salute, to the ways of the hereafter. By golly, I think I walked through a ghost, or possibly the ghost walked through me. If you've heard about a spirit taking leave of the places it dwelled in mortal form, during life, then it isn't so much of a stretch, to think that this sighting was just a final re-tracing of the good old days, for one last time.
I didn't say a word about my paranormal introduction, to their newly deceased relative. It wasn't the appropriate occasion, to blurt out something like, "oh, yes, I met your relative on the last go-around of the old haunt," and, back in the 1970's, it was still at a time when folks assumed you were a nutter, if you dared to admit even a slight, half-belief in ghosts. So it was our secret, the ghost and I, until much later when it was shared with Canadian Ghost Sleuth, John Robert Colombo, and it got a mention in one of his well known publications. It made working in the attic much more interesting and event-filled after this.
Animal The Cat and the Specter in the Hall
I was standing with one of my writing colleagues, outside our newspaper office at 27 Dominion Street, in Bracebridge, chatting about where we might find the best refuge from our fetters, and enjoy a frosty pint or two recalling the news week it had been for us lowly paid newspaper types. As Brant Scott and I were about to turn south toward the comfortable English pub at the historic Holiday House, a car came whipping right through the intersection with Ontario Street, and out of the window flew a small gray bundled of something, landing on the pavement about ten yards north of where we were standing. We soon realized that what had been thrown out the car window was a gray kitten of about seven months of age. We raced up to the wee bundle with legs, and were pleased to find it still alive, although badly scraped and disoriented. Brant picked it up in his arms, and in only a few minutes, it began moving about and faintly purring to our delight. I thought at that moment Brant had found himself a new apartment mate, but I was mistaken. He handed the wee beast to me, and went off toward the old watering hole without me. I didn’t have anything in my apartment at the McGibbon House to feed the kitten, and no litter or litter box obviously; so Brant had cost me my beer money, to now have to buy kitten supplies for an unexpected guest in the old turn of the century house. It would at least keep the ghosts company, and in this house there were more than a few. Friendly ghosts, like multiple Caspers you might say, but wayward stair climbing spirits just the same.
The abridged version is that Animal and I got along pretty well, except that I wasn’t home for most of the day, and often bar hopping until the wee hours with my cronies (I was young and foolish in a profession known for its excesses). When Animal was about a year old or slightly more, it developed a strange after-dinner habit. When I did come home to make dinner for both of us, it was always the case, that at about seven that night, Animal would jump off the sofa in the living room, and trot diligently to the hallway from the kitchen leading to the back staircase of the three story house. It was on the same staircase, on the same landing which was just outside my back door, where I had witnessed what I could only believe was a traveling spirit of a former resident of the abode, taking a final look at the, well, old haunt. I knew later that someone had died who had lived in the McGibbon House some years earlier, because, as the story above denotes, I met the family after my encounter, on the day of the local funeral service for this individual. It may have been, I suppose, the case, that the deceased never really left that part of the house, or that this was another paranormal quality of the building, but every evening Animal had a guest hovering in that small dark hallway.
The fact is, I never really thought too much about it, because Animal was a little eccentric at the best of times, most likely having something to do with its cruel exiting from the moving vehicle that day. After about a month of watching this daily vigil in the hallway, I decided to see if it was possible, if indeed it was something paranormal, if I could capture some image on film, by using a powerful flash unit and a motor wind on my camera. I waited for the cat to attend the scene once again, and positioned myself quietly to get everything in the framing with the lens, to capture any evidence of a ghostly visitation. The odds weren’t good but what the heck. I had lots of company film and a motor wind to whip of a roll in a matter of seconds. When I finished with picture taking, some with flash, some without, Animal looked up at me, as if to say “thanks ace, you just scared off my new friend.”
When I gave the film canister to my darkroom technician at The Herald-Gazette the next morning, I didn’t tell him what the subject material was, or that I had hopefully captured a ghost in one of the frames. There was a lot of other spent film coming in that morning, and it was just as well he didn’t think I was just adding to his work load for frivolous reasons. He called me into the darkroom at about mid-day to show me the negatives, and several photo images he had done quickly, pondering if he could have a look at my camera, because something was wrong with the lens. He said I had a strange lens flare that was showing up on five or six of the 36 frames, the others just showing Animal staring into the darkness of the unlit hallway. The lens flares appeared as a significant mass of vapor at the top of the doorway, and when I took a ruler and created a line of vision, from the cat’s eye to the centre of this floating mist, it was bang-on perfect; as if Animal was looking at a ghost. My photographer friend studied my camera lens, and tried to figure out why this had appeared on only a small fraction of the frames spent. He finally turned to me and asked quite seriously, if I believed in ghosts. He hadn’t been prompted in this regard, and when I asked why he would ask such a question, he answered simply, and without any emotion, that he had studied alleged “ghost” photographs in his many years working in the industry; and this had all the hallmarks of a paranormal occurrence. When I answered affirmatively, he didn’t show much emotion at all, but volunteered to do a few blow-ups for me, so that I could get a better look at what was visiting my apartment uninvited each evening. It sure gave every appearance of a specter, and for the balance of my stay in that residence, the visits were nightly, and varied, including the somewhat disturbing sound of footsteps coming up the back stairs, belonging to no one in the visible sense, and then occasionally, outside my front door, on the second floor landing, when on once occasion, it apparently tried my doorknob and that of my neighbor, who heard the same sounds, at around the same time of night.
As I’ve noted about the McGibbon House, and the family that had built and enjoyed the charming property for so many years, the paranormal activity in the dwelling-place was never threatening or particularly unsettling, truth be known. The residents, in my era, just accepted the house was haunted by its past, but not in a bad way. This was not a Hollywood style haunting that you could wrap a story around. It was the contenting neighborliness of more than a few spirits that felt compelled to stick around after their mortal demises, and in all honesty, that was okay by us. We were young folks, dumped by love interests for a bachelor’s lifestyle, and we all actually came to welcome these strange intrusions, that really weren’t intrusions at all. They had obviously been residents here long before us, and they needed housing too. I often wonder where they went, when the old house was torn down a couple of decades a go, and a new building put in its place. I think about them every time I drive by while on a business run to Bracebridge.
A majority of my ghost stories based on real-time, up-close-and-personal encounters, are all pretty much the same; harmless and in no way frightening, or something to disturb a good night’s sleep. But each contact came with a clear message. “We’re out there and we don’t care who knows it!” Happy Halloween to you.
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