The Oaken Snuggery Part 17

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART 17

BY TED CURRIE

     I can so clearly remember the afternoon at Suzanne’s family’s cottage, on Lake Rosseau, in the Village of Windermere, when I came face to face with a most unusual weather related event that, at the moment, seemed more of a paranormal occurrence to this witness. It was on a windy day in late October of 1989, and I was getting ready to drive into Bracebridge with our sons to pick-up Suzanne from her job at the High School. Our family had been staying at the old Muskoka cottage, that her grandfather Sam Stripp had built in the early 1900’s, awaiting the closing date for our house here in Gravenhurst, which would be known in my writing thereafter as Birch Hollow. It was a grand two story house in the old Muskoka tradition, and it was set within a hillside cluster of tall pines and woodland beyond, and on a windy day as it was then, the wind made an eerie sigh as it passed through the low hanging boughs. The house itself always seemed to me a little bit haunted but not in a bad way. It was full of friendly family ghosts reliving the good old days of lakeside living and cottaging. It had begun its history in this place as a family residence for the Stripp family, and later was acquired by Suzanne’s parents, Harriet and Norman, to be used as a summer cottage. It was most definitely an enchanted place, and on this day, I had been working in the sunroom overlooking the lake, writing some feature material for the Muskoka Sun, where I was an Assistant Editor to Bob Boyer, a well known publisher and Muskoka historian.

     I was just locking the porch door, and felt as if someone was watching me from the woodlot adjacent to the driveway. When I moved from the porch to the steps, I was suddenly attracted to a strange situation happening at the top of the hillside, and the packed dirt driveway down to the cottage. From where the “Little Cottage” (for guests) was located, on the hilltop, across from a small garage, I watched as a small twister of leaves and dirt began a descent of the slope, weaving back and forth as one would expect a tornado to move forward, except this one was only about three feet tall. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was what you would expect of a tornado, from the news reels and movies, except its size. What was unusual more so, was that it had been formed inside a pretty substantial tunnel of venerable and imposing pines, that we providing a substantial wind block at the time. In other words, it was quite a protected area, and the fact that it had formed in an area of thick vegetation, and on the very top of the obstructed landscape, where the wind should have been diffused by the natural qualities and quantities, as well as the two buildings that should have inhibited the whirlwind’s route down the slope.

     The little funnel cloud, with leaves and dirt caught in its vortex, I watched as it proceeded down the long and fairly steep lane, bobbing and weaving only on the length and width of path, never veering off the travelled portion. I was still on the top step of the verandah that afforded a pretty good view of the weather event coming my way in miniature. The whirling air system bypassed my car, as if it had a mind to do so, and it slid down alongside the cottage, as would someone coming to visit, (or return), and as I stood there with my chin on my chest, the twister came right to the bottom stair, and took an immediate right turn, as if to go up the next step. It ended its journey coming up into the side verandah, right through my legs, finishing up at the far end where it rattled in a cluster of old metal porch chairs being stored in the corner. Having had a lifetime of strange situations like this, of the paranormal variety, I just assumed that I had witnessed the arrival of a former resident of this cottage, that wanted me to know of the visit, and the cottage was being watched by the ultimate in security personnel, invisible as they were except for this matter of a three foot tornado. I don’t remember now what Suzanne said when I told her this story, later that evening, but let’s just say she wasn’t surprised, as all her family members had greatly enjoyed their time spent at this welcoming place on the lakeshore. I told her that I believed it had been the ghost of her mother Harriet, who had visited with me on that afternoon. Harriet and I had co-written a book, “The Legend of Tall Pines,” shortly before her death, and it was largely based on the inspiration of the cottage and its forested property. In fact, the cover photograph of the book, looking up into the tall pines at the side of the cottage, was snapped only a few feet from where the mini-twister had brushed my legs on the verandah. Maybe it was a weather event. I think it was a good natured ghost. It certainly didn’t come with any malevolent intent, and there was no frightening aspect to the occurrence. In fact, I felt rather privileged to have had the experience.  

     By late morning, the following day, the Bed and Breakfast guests, the Collins, had joined Mrs. Bosevelt for a short road trip of the region north of the Town of Bracebridge, and its border with the Township of Muskoka Lakes. I believe they were headed to the Lake Rosseau shore in the Village of Windermere. It started out as a bright sunny morning, a credit to the month of April, but by mid afternoon a spring storm was mustering its turbulence to the west, moving east at a fair clip. I only just made it to the front door before the first deluge hit the property. A short while before this I had been quite a distance down the dirt road, taking a break from ghost hunting, yet interested in re-visiting a spot along the road where I am pretty sure, I experienced the wee lassies at play, along the side of the laneway back a week or so ago. But then, they were mere vapors possessing none of the attributes Angela Collins had spoken to me about, having witnessed the children, in spirited form, sitting on a small couch in the hallway of the Oaken Snuggery. The Bosevelts there to meet them didn’t sense any wayward spirits, and I wasn’t there to validate her allegation of a full fledged ghost sighting. Mrs. Collins accomplished what I have taken several weeks to experience, and even then, I’ve never had the exposure she was afforded, after only mere seconds inside the Snuggery door. 

     The wind was really picking up and the daytime had been turned into night-time in only a few minutes, as the storm cell was moving rapidly over this part of South Muskoka, being its northernmost boundary. Mr. Collins admitted to me, while we both stood looking out the glass door, onto the front yard, that his wife hated thunderstorms especially driving through them. “They should have been on the way back by now,” he said, “But hopefully she had the good sense to pull off the road, or stop for a coffee at one of the cafes along the way, instead of trying to navigate the backroads to get back here.” Just as he turned away from the door, heading into what they call the “Great Room,” I yelled back at him, that his wife had just driven into the driveway with the Collins. “Actually, Mr. Collins is driving the car, and from the look of it, your wife is riding in the back.” He came back toward the door and quipped, “Well, that was the other option. Let someone else drive who isn’t frightened of nasty weather.”

     The occupants of the car sat inside the vehicle for ten minutes or so, in order to let the heavy rain let-up, as it was still better than a hop, skip and jump to make it to the front door without drowning. There was no point unhinging an umbrella, even if they had one in the car, because the wind is still too strong, and it would only be pulled inside out before they took their first steps up the path. No it was better in this case, to wait it out, as it was already looking brighter on the western horizon. There had only been a few distant claps of thunder and a minor intrusion of lightning. It was a quickly moving spring storm without much capacity to cause serious property damage. It wouldn’t have been much fun driving in however, but as far as fearing a tornado might emerge from the black clouds, the conditions were less than severe to produce anything resembling a funnel cloud. What the storm did herald was a much cooler air mass, as it had been getting quite muggy for spring.

      In about twenty minutes, from their time of arrival, the Collins and Mrs. Bosevelt had navigated the flooded walkway, wind and rain, and managed to make it to the door without too much trouble. I did observe Angela Collins stop momentarily, and pick something up from the walkway. I assumed it was something dropped by one of the other two, in their haste to get back into the house. I moved out of their way upon their grand yet unceremonious entrance, and decided to retire for a few moments of leisure, in the Great Room, to here, eventually, about their motor trip and of course, the nasty intrusion of weather upon their casual lakeland outing. All of them, unfortunately, were, as they argued with Mr. Bosevelt, “Wet and miserable, cold to the bone, and we’re going to dry ourselves off first upstairs, so please put on the tea kettle and make us a nice hot pot for when we come back down,” commanded the lady of the house upon her partner, who immediately sensed his domestic place in this situation, and would even provide a plate of scones he had baked in her absence. Mr. Bosevelt had trained as a cook as a teenager, and kept up his culinary capabilities under his wife’s tutorship here at the Oaken Snuggery.

     I had time to stoke the fire before anyone else arrived back to the room, as it had run-down after the morning’s beautifully radiating glow. The big room always seemed in need of warming up, and being at fireside was my place of choice, and that had been the case for the two weeks of my inhabitation, thanks to the kindness of the proprietors. In exchange of course, for some historical research, and paranormal sleuthing in and about the old farmhouse, to determine why their guests have reported not only seeing ghosts, but having been victims of their foolery. These ghosts, possibly children once familiar to this property, were quite interested in causing minor mischief at the Bed and Breakfast. Nothing harmful or malevolent, but as several guests checked-out early, as a direct result of this intrusion upon their privacy, it seemed prudent to find out a little bit more about the possibility the property was being aggressively haunted by child pranksters in the spirit sense.

     Eventually the Collins returned downstairs to partake tea and scones as served by the diligent Mr. Bosevelt, and in short order his wife and business partner was at his side, offering minor critiques about the setting of the silver tray and the plate used to serve the scones. He laughed it off, and she returned the good humor. “I’m only kidding. You did a wonderful job for a carpenter trying to play host.” As the storm clouds continued to tumble and whip ominously across the horizon, as we could witness by the panorama afforded by the large windows looking out onto the back of the property, toward the pond, it was comforting to settle down in the spreading warmth of the small crackling fire deep in the hearth. It had turned quite cold in less than an hour, and the wind was still gusting long after the storm cell had moved off to the east. Conversation was light and lively, with the Collins, and I heard all about what had begun as a pleasant motor trip up through the hamlet of Beatrice along the town line, and then turning right at the crossroads at Bardsville, toward the community of Milford Bay, then turning onto the Dougherty Road, connecting a few miles of hard driving to the Windermere Road. This, they all agreed, was the sheer poetry of the outing, especially going down to the shore of Lake Rosseau, beneath the towering architecture of Windermere House on the promontory above, the lake only just becoming ice free after a long and bitter winter that dug in its proverbial heals by mid-November. It was a pleasant social time before the dinner hour, and when all the tea had been consumed and the last crumb of the scones had been enjoyed, all parties, including myself, adjourned to our respective quarters, to gather our wits about us, before being summonsed back to the harvest table for supper.

     As I was getting up from the armchair, which is ridiculously comfortable, making me want to sleep there by the fire, Angela Collins tapped me on the shoulder, informing me she had something I had lost previously from my room. She held out her clenched hand, unfurled her long slender fingers, to reveal the two fused metal crosses that may have belonged to the young ladies considered prime suspects in the Oaken Snuggery hauntings, if ever I was looking for a title for a forthcoming book on the subject. She dropped the strange bonded together icon into my hand, and took my fingers with her hand, and folded them up to hide the object of our mutual interest. I was hushed by the secretive Mrs. Collins. “We’ll talk about this later,” she whispered, “Keep this on you for safe keeping from the girls. They won’t take it if it’s located somewhere on your person. Only if you abandon it will it disappear again. We’ll talk more after supper tonight. They’ve got an incredible story to share with us, take my word for it; I’ve never had anything like this happen before, and I thought I had experienced a lot of weird stuff in my dances with spirits.” She turned quickly and rejoined her husband who had stopped at the bottom of the stairs to talk about the Stanley Cup playoffs on television that evening.

     I held onto the welded crosses with my bare hand for the next hour, sitting on the edge of my bed, pondering where the icon had been found this time, although I did have suspicion it was what she had bent over to pick up, on her way into he house during this afternoon’s wet arrival at the Snuggery. I was obviously anxious to hear more about Angela’s paranormal hunches about the children, and what they want from us mortal inmates of this curious old farmhouse in the ghost hamlet still fondly known as Rose Hill amongst long time residents who remember when it was a close-knit neighborhood made up of descendants of the earliest homesteaders to have braved the region in the late 1860’s.

     I don’t relate ghost stories in order to scare folks. I have been unsettled by ghost encounters in the past, but never to the point that I wanted to run-off or hide from whatever and whoever had just made my acquaintance, without prior notice of a social interaction. I think most of us are seriously tainted by Hollywood’s depiction of ghosts in the past, such that a chance encounter with a ghost-like entity is more threatening than enlightening. I would rather be enlightened by a so-called paranormal experience, than acquire all my knowledge of ghosts from books and film. In the case of the Rose Hill hauntings, I am invigorated to uncover the truths, rather than feeling as if my life might hang in the balance, if the spirits object to my bold investigation into their affairs. Of course, my opinion, in a document like this, won’t stop some guests at The Oaken Snuggery from being frightened, and begging out of their stay here, based on the mischief of two lasses with attitude, haunting those who wish not to be disturbed. The quest continues.