The Oaken Snuggery Part 10

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART TEN

BY TED CURRIE

     In my early years in this history - antiquing thing, of which I have now spent most of my life, I spent a great deal of my free time, wandering the back roads of Muskoka, looking to find, and obviously explore, abandoned farmsteads. I did, if opportunity presented, poke around in the dumpsites each homestead possessed, some having as many as five, depending on how long the home and farm were occupied. But truly, the most interesting aspect of visiting these over-grown former homesteads, most having had their buildings destroyed by neglect and the imposition of the rolling year, especially the winter snow load that most often broke the backs of these log cabins and simple frame farmhouses. I have had many strange moments alone, or so I thought when I entered the half-fallen buildings, when all of a sudden, I would get a clear message that someone else was in the same place, just not in the physical sense. There were times when I could have sworn I heard someone else breathing close to me, or whispering something or other, yet I wasn’t able to find the source. I remember on one beautiful spring day, on a property just off Golden Beach Road, settling down to eat my lunch, on a slight ridge of topography bordering what appeared  to have been, at one time, a significant pasture for cattle or sheep to graze. Sitting on a fallen birch, I could see the remnants of the old log house through the canopy of overgrown pine and cedars, the roof line showing a substantial degree of collapse, with the brick chimney crumbled down tot he roof line, broken pieces and dust coloring the old shingles. The sun was bright, and set in a magnificently clear blue sky, and the warmth on my shoulders was soothing. I had been digging bottles all morning at a dumpsite behind the homestead, and I was feeling pretty good about the blue sealer jars and cobalt blue flasks I had found, with two rare torpedo soda bottles, which might sell, when cleaned up, for a hundred dollars each.

     All the while I had been sitting there, looking out over this emerging spring paradise, with its colorful pioneer lilacs, and early wildflowers, I would suddenly turn after hearing footsteps coming from behind; or when I thought I heard children laughing or someone talking but, upon turning, finding no one present. I stood up, brushed the crumbs of my sandwich off my trousers, took a final swig from my canteen, and turned to tuck my lunch-ware back into my pack. I took one last look out upon the pasture, before departing, and offering a silent farewell to what I knew was a very haunted place, I headed back to my car parked just up the road toward Bangor Lodge. I had only taken a dozen steps, before I felt a sensation in my left hand, outstretched at my side. My right hand held the strap of the backpack, while the other was strung over my shoulder. I thought my hand might just have fallen asleep, as they say, while I was sitting on the log having my lunch. I tried moving my fingers and shaking my hand, but to no avail. It was as if something was squeezing my fingers tight, as the tips, as one might feel when a child’s hand tries to grasp an adult who is leading the way. It was an eerie experience, because it didn’t pass quickly, and I felt it get tighter on my fingers, and it additionally felt as if I was pulling something, or in this case, someone along the pathway back to the roadway. I stopped in my tracks, and tried to life my arm, but the weight upon it was much to great, and I began to think I might have suffered a stroke, yet there was full feeling in my limb. I stood there for a few moments trying to regain strength and independence in my hand, and to free my arm from whatever was weighing it down to my side. It was then that I felt several tight squeezes, before the release, where once again my arm was unencumbered, and my fingers free from the squeezing sensation. It certainly seemed as if the spirit of a wee person, a child from antiquity, had been holding my hand, seemingly to stop me from leaving the property. I felt a sudden wave of melancholy, and for a matter of seconds, I spotted several strange misty shapes blowing through the pasture, as if small whips of wind-borne smoke from a fire. There was no fire. There was no wind. Might it have been the ghostly images of several children who once played in this same pastureland, on days just like this, when this farmstead was a going concern. It was as if they had invited me into their own private history, to see what their lives here had been like a century or more before. I never forgot this strange moment when I may have met, and connected with a past life, when all I had been looking for that day, were a few old bottles from the farm dumpsites. Random meetings of this nature represent a majority of ghost sightings and interactions however, and we are only being human to experience a temporary panic and fear, before we realize that these spirit-wanderers mean us no harm.

     Before breakfast, with it being such a brilliantly illuminated morning, after the wild weather of the night before, I decided to take a walk around the property to investigate a few more realities of the substantial acreage, once part of a free land grant in the late 1860’s to an emigrant family.  There was something stranger than the haunting about this property and I’ve made a few calls to my wife Suzanne, at home, who is a Cracker Jack researcher, specializing in local history and family history and not just our own. The first situation was to prove or disprove the existence of the homestead cemetery, which the owners, the Bosevelts, claim, is occupied by up to five former residents of the property who were never identified on a memorial tablet or individual stones. It’s likely there were wooden crosses or plain markers on the graves, that simply rotted away over the years and were never replaced.

      Suzanne is going to do a property search, beginning with the 1878 Guidebook and Atlas, that contained township maps showing property ownership up to and including that time period. Working on the names of the homesteaders listed on the map will help her then check it out using an ancestry service, that has proven itself time and again, to be the dividing line between what was fact, and what became, over the centuries, not much more than folk history and plain old hearsay. But we needed to know who was occupying those graves and both how and when they passed away. Many who perished in the early years of pioneering in Muskoka, were indeed buried without paperwork, so to speak, and without registration, their remains will continue to surprise home builders pushing development further into the hinterland where they rural homesteads existed.

     The morning was cool but showing great spring-time promise. The heavy rain during the later part of the storm has etched away some of the packed dirt pathways up the hillside, rising about the pond, looking quite murky and muddy at present, and there are still visible trickles of water coming down the slope to drain into the pond. Thus explaining its brown hue on this bright sunlit morning. I remain fascinated about this story about the pioneer cemetery, and would very much like to have this information available as soon as possible, because I have a hunch that whoever is occupying those graves, beneath the lilacs, has contributed to the haunting of my client’s Bed and Breakfast, here in the ghost hamlet of Rose Hill. Yet, this is the easy way out for a researcher, to blame it all on the obvious deceased, because it seems the convenient fit, to have earthbound spirits wandering about the countryside they knew in life, and visiting the charming Oaken Snuggery to unleash a little bedlam on unsuspecting guests. I just wasn’t convinced however, that it was going to be as easy to attribute, as the Bosevelts have already committed, in their minds, simplifying it all because of cemeteries always being haunted. Right? They told me about a friend of theirs who had been walking with a friend on the outer edge of a municipal cemetery, late one evening, when the two of them noticed up ahead, a woman in a white Victorian dress, attempting to step over a portion of wire fence, that had fallen due to a broken post. The woman was struggling to free the hem of her dress from the wire, and the two passersby called to her, asking if they could be of some assistance in freeing her from the entanglement. She vanished almost instantly, although they both agreed that before she vanished, she had taken a look back to see who was calling her. This was their evidence that a cemetery was a gathering place for ghosts, and to be honest, I had to agree that if any place in a community could be legitimately called “haunted” it would be a church or public cemetery. A graveyard! I think it’s generally accepted by the citizenry, that if one goes on a late night walk in that particular area, it shouldn’t be any surprise should such a mysterious man or woman, or child, show up in a vaporous form, and travel about the markers, looking for a way out. I’m pretty sure that if I was a resident of one of these graveyards, I’d be quite eager as a wayward spirit, to get out and attend my more pleasant haunts, known during my mortal travels about town.

     When I arrived back at The Oaken Snuggery, breakfast was just about to be served, and as the Bosevelts were outstanding culinary artists, there was no way I was going to be tardy for this special event of the day. Several new guests had arrived later last evening, and I hadn’t yet met them, but that was about to be rectified. After a few pleasantries, and discussions about the storm the night before, we sat down to a most enjoyable breakfast with all the country trimmings, I might add, and I was starting to feel as a freeloader, because I was coming up with very little information about the resident hauntings that had been plaguing the “Snuggery” pretty much since it opened for business. It’s not as if I didn’t have some useful material to work with, but to date, after a week, very little serious evidence, that would allow me to write the story that would make sense of the spirited intrusions, whether a practical joker, an adult, or more, or a mischievous child, or more. I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t have this wrapped up inside a month, and, just for the record, I have refused on three occasions, Mrs. Bosevelt’s idea of introducing a Ouiji Board, between her, Mr. Bosevelt, and me. There is the potential with such boards of inviting undesirable spirits into the mix, with those who are specially invited. I don’t think we need to wrestle with any more ghostly beings at this point, to make things more difficult instead of lessened, which after all, is what the Bosevelts would like, in order to continue running their Bed and Breakfast business as a profitable enterprise. Some patrons have already had negative reactions to some of the alleged ghost sightings, and mischief, leading to their early departure from the inn.

     After breakfast, Mrs. Bosevelt asked if I could join her in a small meeting room just off the great hall, as they like to call it, where there is a guest lounge that looks out over their version of Thoreau’s Walden Pond. She said that one of the incoming guests last evening, had found a strange item in the rain water gathered along the stone walkway at the front of the farm house. She had wrapped it in a small portion of tissue paper, and when she unfolded the corners, I was stunned to see what was resting in the palm of her hand. There were two badly eroded tiny silver crosses, without their chains, that were fused together likely by the fact they had been compacted together for many years. The guest claimed that she could see the sparkled in the runoff water, probably cast down by the yard lamp positioned a few feet away. When I took the two crosses, as one, from her outstretched hand, it didn’t take long to ascertain that they were fused together by corrosion, or a thick bond of earth acting as a weld. What was obvious however, was that these crosses were held together because they had been forged into this strange union, metal on metal, for whatever reason or misadventure, by a substantial heat source. Possibly a fire. The fact that it all of a sudden turned up due to a heavy rain, where many torrential rains and spring run-off have occurred before, does seem a tad odd, but then there may also be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why it exists, and who may have dropped it on the way in or out of this dwelling place. Recently, or in the chronicle of days of this Muskoka homestead. I asked Mrs. Bosevelt if she minded me keeping the curiously linked crosses in my room for the time being, as I wanted to find out if the alleged ghosts of this abode, might wish to re-connect with the crosses, if they had a link to them in their mortal existences. Or, did they have a hand in revealing this odd icon, making sure it would be found by a passerby sooner than later.

     I needed to talk to Suzanne about what her research had turned up, if anything, because the oddities were starting to add up, and the discrepancies were making me suspicious about the collision of facts with fiction, reality with folk lore. There was much to learn here beyond the occasional spirited intrusion pretty much commonplace to old residences like the Oaken Snuggery.

     I can remember the first old abandoned house I entered, without permission, experiencing the profound sense of sadness and loneliness, as if the resident spirits were trying to impress upon voyeurs like me, how tragic it was that the building was to be demolished. It was in Burlington, Ontario, back in the very early 1960’s, and the huge old Victorian era house was situated on the chestnut tree lined hillside of Torrance Avenue, a block from the lakeshore. I was with three mates that afternoon, and we were able to pass through a tiny slit between the door and the frame, giving us access to the huge main room of the house, that sill had quite a bit of furniture left inside, including dinner ware still on a dining room table. Of course it was spooky. That’s why we were there, or at least part of the reason. I had walked by the old house daily since I began school and Lakeshore Public three blocks away. I was fascinated by it, and the way it was set so respectfully into the hardwoods on the hillside, above the ravine where I used to play almost every day of the week. I knew from what my parents had been talking about at the dinner table, that the estate was being demolished and the property bulldozed to facilitate the construction of a twelve story apartment building. I would have preferred keeping  the house, and abandoning the apartment project, but, gosh, I didn’t know anything about development economics.

     On the day we snuck into the old house, I confess that each one of us took some souvenirs, such as knives and forks off the dining room table, and a few knick knacks that were strewn about the hardwood floors, and left unceremoniously on the seats of chairs and in corners of the room, taken off larger built-in shelving units. But all the time I was in the house, which was probably about an hour, the place was speaking to me but not in a conversational way. I was learning about its history by sensory perception, and I knew full well, the former residence was still occupied by something; but seeing as I had little knowledge of what constituted a “haunting”, I just assumed the imagination my mother said was “over active,” was just doing it’s thing. In retrospect, from all these years later, I’m reasonably confident it was my first paranormal, psychic experience, and those I was sensing, were obviously ones who had resided there once, and had crossed over years earlier. I remember so vividly the day I came home from school, climbing up the Torrance hillside, only to find the house a pile of bricks and wood, with a tractor hovering over the death scene. I did relate it to a “tragic” circumstance, because the house, in my opinion, as young and inexperienced as it was, felt the residence had still been occupied by entities. I felt terribly sorry for them, to thusly be homeless. Where would ghosts go when their haunt is destroyed? Might they have stayed around to then haunt the apartment building that replaced the house? I will never know. What do you think?

The Oaken Snuggery Part 9

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART NINE

BY TED CURRIE

     I had known about my stay at the Bosevelt’s fine establishment a few weeks prior to actually taking up residence here in the restored farmhouse. During the preparation time, I spent a lot of time reading and cross referencing my archives materials, news clippings and books, of course, in an attempt to face whatever was allegedly haunting “The Snuggery” with a more scholarly perspective. I didn’t quite achieve this, in my own mind, and as I noted earlier, I don’t think I am qualified to speak on the topic of psychic phenomenon if the audience was beyond high school students. But I was fascinated to spend these weeks buried in reading material, looking at ghosts and spirits from, you might say, from all angles, without actually being in their abstract presence. One of the key books was a huge volume written by highly accomplished author, Hans Holzer, being the 1997 hardcover edition of “Ghosts - True Encounters With The World Beyond - Haunted Places, Haunted Houses, Haunted People.” This is the mother of all contemporary books on the subject of ghosts and the spirit kind, but it took almost the entire two weeks to read to the halfway point. There’s a whack of information in this book, and for a slow reader like me, I just wasn’t able to get through all the important information and theories quickly. In fact there were many pages that I read twice because I didn’t get the entire message on the first run through. My most recent foray into the religious writings of C.S. Lewis was pretty much the same. I had to read the book twice in order to, at least partially, get his message. I don’t have a lot of background in religious philosophy so I got lost frequently. With Holzer’s book I was spellbound and did understand the content. I was simply suffering from information over-load.

     “I hasten to state, that those who are in the next dimension, the world of the spirit, are indeed ‘alive’ - in some ways more so than we who inhabit the three dimensional, physical world with its limitations and problems,” wrote Holzer. “Those who fear the proof of the continued existence beyond the dissolution of the physical, outer body, and would rather not know about it, are short changing themselves, for surely they will eventually discover the truth about the situation first hand anyway. And while there may be various explanations for what people experience in haunted houses, no explanation will ever be sufficient to negate the experience themselves. If you are one of the many who enter a haunted house and have a genuine experience in it, be assured that you are a perfectly normal human being who uses a natural gift that is neither harmful nor dangerous and may in the long run be informative and even useful.” He also notes that, “The desire to remain in touch with the departed is as old as humanity itself, and despite the skepticism of die-hard materialists and the denials of conventional scientists, credible reports of ghostly visitations and other psychic phenomenon have flourished through the ages.”

     I didn’t bring Mr. Holzer’s book along with me, on this stay at a haunted inn, but Suzanne is now consuming it at home, just in case we have to tag-team these ghosts, to at the very least, work out a deal of harmonious house sharing.

     Long before I saw the first flashes of lightning reflecting off the dresser mirror in my room, I was awakened by the deep ominous roll of thunder, as the early spring storm began to roll across the rural landscape. By the increasing intensity of the thunder I anticipated that this was going to be a significant event. The wind had begun rattling the shutters on my window, and there was something catching the air currents close by, that was going to be at risk if the storm became seriously aggressive, as this time of year can foster with the warm temperatures but much cooler water and ground, still having snow in shaded pockets in the adjacent woodlot.

     For awhile the thunder seemed to lessen, but the lightning flashes seemed much closer, but I was only guessing by the way the reflection sparked off the window and mirror, pretty much illuminating the room before that first great crash of thunder vibrated the whole farmhouse. The storm cell was probably right over the ghost hamlet of Rose Hill at this precise moment, which was within a whisker of two a.m., and the way the wind had picked up, with a significant roar as it etched down over the hollow of the pond, I worried a little that it might be an early morning tornado, not out of the question here in South Muskoka.

     I pulled up the cover to my chin, and trusted the century-plus architecture to hold fast to this landscape, as it has since the early 1900’s, representing a great many storms more powerful than the one currently bashing about with a heavy wash of rain. When there would be another huge flash of lightning and a booming thunder-clap, I’d recall Washington Irving’s famous tale of Rip Van Winkle, and the mysterious Dutchmen he came upon in the Catskill Mountains, bowling as a most electrifying recreation. The bowling balls hitting the laneways represented the roll of thunder echoing through the valley below. Then there was my favorite Irving tale of the “Storm Ship” on the Hudson River, the tall ship that was illuminated each time there was a lightning strike, passing along the haunted and historic river. I don’t like storms except in works of fiction, that offer no danger the imagination can’t handle.

     I was tired enough that evening, to weather even this powerful April storm, trying to uproot the whole Oaken Snuggery from its foundation, and potentially, send it spiraling through the sky to end up at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road, a bit of a hike from Oz, and a long, long way from Kansas. I digress once again. Just hope the house, as big as it is, doesn’t land on a witch because that wouldn’t bode well for anyone. Wizard of Oz? Wicked Witch of the West? If I was navigating the airborne residence, I might accidentally land on Glinda, the Good Witch, and then we’d really be in trouble. I was safely in dreamland while the storm raged on, and it wasn’t until the end of the lightning, and the thunder was down to a distant rumble, that I was awakened once more, this time by the strangest music coming from my own room. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked around to see if, in the dim light coming through the window from a patio lamp outside, I could figure out where exactly it was coming from and if a radio, I could detect the red light and then make an effort to turn it off. There was nothing to turn off. I never saw a radio in the room in the four days I’d been a guest at the Snuggery, and there was nothing else that could have contributed to the very low volume music, that sounded honestly, as if it was being cranked from an old jack-in-the-box, like the ones my sons used to have but disliked intensely because of the scary clown that popped out.

     I was pretty sure there was a logical reason why this sound, this strange music, was happening somewhere near my bedstead at two thirty in the morning, on the tail end of a rather rough thunderstorm. I pondered, while having just propped my head up with my nest arm, head cradled by my hand, what Washington Irving might have written about the out of place children’s music box, playing so close to my ear that I could even hear the gears of the wind-up mechanism. Possibly the Bosevelts, owners of the Bed and Breakfast were playing a joke on this ghost researcher, thinking that I would get a laugh out of the less than spirited intervention. But then this kind of joke wouldn’t be all that funny, considering the reason I was staying at The Oaken Snuggery, in the first place, was to attempt a detailed identification of the paranormal activities running rampant in the old homestead. They didn’t seem like practical jokers, and frankly, I hadn’t seen or heard them laugh since I took up residence on the Friday, actually Good Friday, of the Easter weekend.

     It was when I heard what I suspected was a jack-in-the-box, being re-winded, close to where I was laying, that I reached beside me, with a considerable stretch, to switch the dresser lamp on, in order to find out who, or what, was trying to scare me, at that moment in the post storm calm. The light initially hurt my eyes, and it took a few seconds before I could see much of anything in the room clearly, most of it being somewhat out of focus. But the second the light was engaged, the music and the winding of the box ceased entirely, and the only noise was the run-water from the storm, draining along and down the eaves trough, and overflowing down upon the cement patio slabs that bordered the front portion of what was my present room. I listened for a long while, trying to ascertain if the run-off water could have in any way, tinkled and vibrated in such a way as to sound musical, or mimic the sound of a music box being wound tightly. Had I simply been carrying a dreamscape into the reality in this room, under the influence of the passing storm and all this wind activity and heavy rain pounding down on the roof and concrete just beyond the window pane? There didn’t seem to be any logical explanation, other than the dream potential, but I don’t understand how a music box, or jack-in-the-box became part of my dream experience, when all that prevailed upon my conscious-self, in the moments before I fell back to sleep, was the very real possibility, the old house was going to be lifted from its foundation and sent spinning through time and space. It wasn’t a lead-up to a musical theme that’s for sure, but that’s the enchantment the mind prevails when it is in a jovial disposition. This jovial aspect was lost on me, because it seems as if the wee ghosts of this allegedly haunted domain, have once again manifested a spirit to mortal liaison, for some good reason though it escapes me now in muddled contemplation.

     I turned the light off, and after fluffing-up my pillow, decided that my best defense, for all concerns, here and now, depended on a well rested mind and body, and laying awake for the rest of the night trying to figure this one out, would degrade and hinder the process of ghost-hunting, best resumed with a clear head and an unfettered approach starting post breakfast, as I do very much enjoy the Bosevelt’s grand hospitality.

     I was jostled from a sound sleep twice more that evening, once at four, and again at six a.m. much as the way my wife would wake me to check some strange noise in the house, or to get up early for a morning appointment. You know the “rolling” back and forth procedure, that gives one in slumber, the feeling of rocking in a boat upon stormy seas. Each time I engaged the bedside lamp, and on each occasion there was nothing to see. No perpetrator, and certainly not my wife, who would definitely have remained hovering over me to make sure I didn’t fall back asleep. There was mischief going on in this house that’s for sure. I wasn’t scared of these entities, of which I was confident represented more than one spirit, or ghost playing silly ass with the fellow given the responsibility to find out who and what they were, in life and in the afterlife. After these intrusions upon my slumber, and what I had experienced personally since I had arrived, and then what Mrs. Bosevelt, my kind host, had confessed the day before, it was certainly giving the characteristic of child’s play in the paranormal context. These wee ghosties were trying hard to make contact with me, sensing possibly that I would make a suitable conduit to their situation, of being bound yet to earth and mortal-kind, likely the result of having experienced a sudden unexpected death in the midst of great unbridled contentment at their lot in life. An accident? A tragic misadventure that couldn’t have been avoided, unless they had never been bored. A terrible twist of fate? A childhood left unfulfilled and the spirits determined to have their fun if only to be played-out in the ethereal sense of a home haunting, all in good fun, of course.

     When I lived in the former home and medical office of Bracebridge’s Dr. Peter McGibbon, on upper Manitoba Street, on the north corner opposite St. Thomas Anglican Church, my work-space of choice was in the large open third floor attic, with its panoramic view of the maple line Memorial Park across the road. It was, by far, the most haunted part of the early 1900’s building. I would work at my desk, positioned below the long horizontal window, as I very much enjoyed the privilege of looking up from time to time, to see who was, at that moment, crossing the triangular park with its cenotaph and bandshell on the south end, and the huge Norway Maples flourishing along Manitoba Street and Kimberly Avenue, just to the west. I would sometimes work until well past midnight, and there were many times that I heard footsteps creaking upon the wood floor at my back, and feeling the cool drafts of air that seemed to companion the footfall. I’d always look around half expecting a human visitor, but suspecting that in more than likely was the immortal remains of a former lodger in this beautiful old home with its own historic maples giving it a venerable distinction. I might, at points, hear voices near the back stairs, but no mortal would ever emerge from the darkened doorway. As a fledgling writer I knew that this experience of being in a haunted attic, in a very haunted house, was a gift to any aspiring author, looking longingly for sources of raw inspiration. This was an apprenticeship with a ghostly, spirited energy, apparently looking for someone to haunt, and seeing as I was available, and wouldn’t run away, the tutoring continued for the next six years, and although my office location changed, the apparitions and the footfall always wound up in my general area to interpret and exploit free of charge. It was an incredible learning experience in psychic phenomenon, and I was sad at having to move away, after Suzanne and I were married. The apartment wasn’t big enough for all our belongings and Suzanne wasn’t nearly as interested in sharing our residence with the, well, largely unknown. I still think fondly back to those days spent at the McGibbon house, but feel quite confident that the ongoing experiences there, will help me sort out the entities occupying The Snuggery in the present tense.

The Oaken Snuggery Part 8

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART 8

BY TED CURRIE

     In the past decade I have read a hundred or so books on the paranormal, supernatural, spirits, ghosts and all other entities that can rankle the complacency out of a household, and in fact, making day to day living a tad unsettling. In this same time I have read many conflicting opinions that remind me how difficult it is to be a ghost expert. I didn’t know that a spirit wasn’t a ghost, and a ghost wasn’t a spirit. Apparently, the two are quite separate and like it that way, but from my perspective, and the opinion of the Bosevelts, owners of this fine old farmhouse, it doesn’t really matter unless there are specific wants of each paranormal quality and quantity, so they can barter for some peace and quiet at the inn. I have never once felt scholarly enough in this enterprise of documenting ghosts, and related phenomenon, to haul myself upon a stage, waddle over to the podium, clear my throat, and give a dissertation about such post death activities of either spirit or ghost. Let alone trying to analyze something that is largely invisible, acts like a public school prankster, and topples books for sport onto the floor. Oh yes, and likes to scare the guests of this Bed and Breakfast for, let’s say, spirited recreation. I think if I read a thousand books on the subject of ghosts, spirits and their ilk, I would still wind up sitting here, babbling like an idiot, when one or other paranormal entity might sit upon my lap to make its presence known, first of all, and comfortable, as a secondary consideration. I am a writer and not a theologian, and I’m as far away from earning my stripes as a professor of such studies, as to feel quite out of place squaring off against these mischievous waifs, having their way around this place at all hours of day and night. I’m probably more proficient as a parent, having been a Mr. Mom for our own lads, than being an expert on ghost and spirit identification, as if bird watching or insect hunting. I have known quite a few ghosts and such in my years of wandering about local haunted buildings, houses, commercial enterprises, including train stations, theaters, opera houses and lakeshore cottages and boathouses. Instead of cataloguing them, for posterity, I have written about them, as a sort of peace offering to quell their agitated characters, letting me tell their story, if indeed, this is what would satisfy and validate their spooky activities. I don’t think I’ve satisfied them all by any means, but their intrusions, for whatever reason of recognition, have been duly noted and placed in my ongoing journal documenting the enchantments of many local haunts.

     As far as taking a forensic approach, I don’t think it would be as much entertainment, and in a way, fulfillment, as writing a story about living with them, and experiencing their ghostly points of view, emotions, and in some cases, malevolence. The angry impatience of not being recognized sooner by the living. But then there’s the scholarly perspective that the ghosts of mortals who met sudden tragic ends, are unable to communicate, and just go about the daily routines they knew in life, before the tragedy struck. I have never once felt that I was encountering a ghost or wayward spirit that wouldn’t communicate if given half a chance. The first step is to validate their present situation amongst the living, by acknowledging their presence, and carrying on a conversation, if without speaking, such that a relationship is established, and they, the entities, know you’re aware of their presence and wish to know why they haunt the place of residence. No, it’s not the scholarly approach, but I’ve had a pretty fair amount of success thus far. The Bosevelt’s wee ghosts are proving a little more evasive than I’ve experienced in the past, but I do get the sense they aren’t displeased with my intervention, as the story seeker, and the eventual story teller. With this reality, they might come to feel their story will be told, and their burden, carried to the grave, may finally be lifted and heaven, I suppose, forgiving the sins of a past mortal existence.

          “I shall never forget that trip from Gravenhurst to Bracebridge. The scenery was glorious, and as we would our way in and out among the islands and up the sinuous river, I really felt as if earth could not exhibit anything more wonderful. There was not a ripple on the water, the reflections of rock and woodland and sky were perfect. Occasionally a small cottage was to be seen peeping from the dense foliage, but for the most part, on all sides was primeval wilderness. The handiwork of man was hardly to be seen in the way of clearings or buildings. We passed immense booms of logs tied to the shore, the sole guardians of which appeared to be judicial looking cranes which stood gazing soberly into the water, waiting for a swift peck at some passing fish, or stalked in a solemn manner up and down the logs like wary sentinels. Now and again a loon would bob up unexpectedly near the boat, give utterance to its weird cry, and dive out of sight, or a flock of gulls would rise in a body from some rock and follow in the wake of the steamer in search of stray fragments of food thrown out from the cook’s quarters. The river was as beautiful as the lake, and all along the shore could be seen immense groups of ferns of the stately Osmunds regalia variety. The bayous and reaches were filled with lily leaves and shoots of the strange water-plant, the Sagittarius latifolia showed their heads above the water presaging a wealth of color in the works to come. The trip was all too short but quite long enough to imbue me with the feeling that what my uncle had told me was true and that the land to which I had come was indeed a sportsman’s paradise.” (The passage was written by emigrant farm hand, Roger Vardon, from his famous journal dated 1878,” which was published as “English Bloods,” as a first edition hardcover, by the Graphic Publishers Limited in 1930)

     I am nosey as a rule, having been an investigative reporter and news editor for a number of local Muskoka papers, over forty years of dabbling in the print media, and of course, being a bibliophile of equal weight to the historian bound-up in my psyche, I had not choice but to examine closely the Muskoka books kept in the corner book shelf of the great room, by the Bosevelts, proprietors of the Oaken Snuggery. I was surprised to find a first edition copy of Roger Vardon’s well known journal, “English Bloods,” because it is one of the rarest of all the Muskoka themed histories published since Thomas McMurray’s guidebook, “Muskoka and Parry Sound,” which is most definitely the most difficult to acquire in readable condition. It was reprinted a number of years ago but as I admire first editions, I will be satisfied to own a rather ragged copy that was presented to me by my wife’s mother Harriet, a descendant of the Shea family, who pioneered in the hamlet of Ufford as early as 1862.

     There are the typical “coffee table” style picture books, that certainly fit into the decor and mood of a tourist operation, including this handsome Bed and Breakfast establishment, situated on a former pioneer farmstead, that as well, dates back to the 1860’s, in and around the period when free land grants were being offered in this district to encourage emigrants to Canada from Europe. Of thirty Muskoka themed books, Vardon’s book was certainly out of place, and rather precariously lumped in with the other less valuable texts that could be replaced if damaged. Vardon’s book is worth up to two hundred dollars in good condition. The other Muskoka books were valued as used books, so a coffee cup stain on the cover wasn’t going to devalue them further. I made a note to mention to the Bosevelts that “English Bloods” should be put in a special case with a glass covering, and loaned out for consumption on the understanding of its heritage value.

     The most relevant content of Vardon’s book however, is not how beautiful and tranquil the scenery of Muskoka appeared during that leg of his trip into the interior of the district. If one got past the glowing review, it would become evident slowly but profoundly, that hardships multiplied substantially once the picturesque qualities were witnessed, and set to memory as the best part of the long trip into north Muskoka. The journal profiles the immense difficulty of travel on pioneer roadways, full of ruts and remnants of stumps, complicated by the corduroy construction, meaning felled and de-limbed logs were laid down side by side in the Muskoka mud, in order to make them even halfway passable to horse drawn carts. Work on the pioneer homesteads clearing the timber and building the first dwellings was back breaking, and had proven deadly many times in those first thirty years of the government plan to settle what had been not much more than wasteland prior to the 1860’s. Life was difficult and dangerous, and the story of Vardon’s experiences working on such a pioneer homestead, clearly demonstrates just how much suffering had to be endured to establish even a modestly successful homestead and related farming economy. It is relevant to the Bosevelts, because their Bed and Breakfast business, is located on a property that had experienced all types of hardship and untold suffering, as the first two log cabins, were destroyed by fire shortly after being constructed. The farmhouse used by the Bosevelts for “The Oaken Snuggery” was built early in the 1900’s, I’m told, after a lengthy period where nothing else was built on the homestead acreage, following the second fire. The dreams the emigrants had, when registering this property for their homestead, turned to nightmares, as tragedy replaced the romanticism of the new country, the free land, and the bounty of a thriving wilderness. I wondered how much local history the Bosevelts really knew, before refurbishing the old farmhouse on this multi acre parkland, that appears so heavenly and full of promise at sunrise.

     Following dinner that evening, I had a chance to chat with Mrs. Bosevelt, about what she herself had experienced in the way of the paranormal, although she had confessed early-on, in our preamble arrangements that brought me here in the first place to investigate reported ghost sightings, witnessed by several guests in the previous month. She had been reluctant to talk about these in the past, because she quite honestly didn’t believe in such things as ghosts, but felt the guests were being straightforward about what they had seen trespassing in their rooms late at night. She told me that on more occasions than she could count, the spirits, if she could call them that, contented themselves with acts of mischief, more than what one might expect of a ghost trying to get validation. Books would be pulled off the shelf frequently, when no guests were in the house, and her vintage doll collection would be knocked over, or toppled onto one another at least twice a week. She couldn’t figure out how the old Oaken Snuggery cat could have energized itself all of a sudden, from its usual perch on an old quilt top, on the Windsor chair near the kitchen, to dart in and out of the dolls to make them collapse into a heap, or lay face down in a row along the bedroom wall. In the kitchen, after the couple had gone to bed, cupboard doors would be opened, including those on the fridge and stove, and even the cutlery drawer. All left closed when the lights were extinguished prior to bed time. She didn’t think of these happenings as a significant haunting, especially in light of patron claims that a ghost had actually been witnessed in several rooms and a hallway on the second floor of the old residence. One guest claims to have seen an old woman, wearing Victorian era clothing, to have been rocking in an old chair in an open room, noticed when the individual walked by on the way to the bathroom to get a glass of water. When it was checked out later by the woman’s husband, there was nothing to see, the apparition having disappears, is that is, it have ever been there in the first place.

     “Oh, yes, and then there are the wind chimes we hear every night at around the same place,” said Mrs. Bosevelt. “What’s odd, is that we don’t have wind chimes anywhere in the house or in any of the other outbuildings on the property. But we can hear them, glass crystals, chiming away as if they are hanging from the verandah. It’s where the sound is coming from, and when we open the door to check it out, to see if we can determine where it’s coming from, the tinkling stops. We even thought it was something to do with the closed verandah door, so we’d position ourselves inside and out, with the door closed as it was when the chimes began, but nothing could be heard, not even faintly.” “And we’ve heard feet coming down the main staircase since we moved into the house, and at times we’ve gone to check it out, expecting that someone had broken-in, and was about to enter the room where we were sitting, or sometimes dining. Then it just stops as if the person has arrived at the bottom and just positioned themselves there waiting for something or other that never happens. The footsteps never go up the stairs,” she added. “Always down, and then suddenly stop where you would expect them to, and we’ve counted the steps compared to how many are required to come from the top down to the rug at the bottom, being the first floor. We were told by the people who did the renovation work, that the noise in the staircase had more to do with the way the house was originally constructed, air currents above and below, heat, cold, humidity, and other details relating to the settling of an old house we all hear about but only partially believe. So we just never worried too much about the sounds, whether footsteps or chimes, because there was never anything bad discovered, and we never witnessed what could be called a ghost. Nothing. But I suppose, with all that has been going on around here in the past year, we probably should have told you about these intrusions to go along with the other reported sightings. Sorry about that!”

     This new information definitely added to the adventure of discovering what entities, real or paranormal, were causing the disturbances, and contributing to the feeling of unease permeating the old dwelling place, cheerfully enhanced as a popular Bed and Breakfast business, situated in the picturesque former hamlet of Rose Hill, Ontario, north of Bracebridge on the northern-most boundary of what can be considered the region of South Muskoka. What was going on within the building, and for that matter, on the property as I had experienced on my walk-about, and how was I going to identify who was responsible for the haunting, and why it was becoming so active in the past year. The Bosevelts had lived here for a number of years while reconstruction was underway, and Mrs. Bosevelt told me that it wasn’t a concern whatsoever, until the past year, when the Bed and Breakfast had finally opened on the property, the fulfillment of years of planning, as their retirement business. They had expended a considerable amount of money in doing so, and she admitted to me, that if the haunting continued to chase away guests, leaving before their booking was up, with of course the bad publicity that could spin out of the events, they might be faced with a severe financial hit, thusly bringing a nightmarish scenario to what had been a romantic dream of operating an history B&B. I had my work cut out for me, and I wasn’t at all sure where to start, and just how many pieces were going to be involved in the so-called bigger picture of The Oaken Snuggery puzzle.

     When I first began documenting ghosts, wayward spirits and haunted homes, cottages, buildings and open spaces, I got a pretty substantial number of confidential tips, but ninety-nine percent of the informants didn’t want to be identified or their building locations published for obvious reasons. There was one late Victorian era house in Bracebridge, that I was allowed to visit, on the promise I would never reveal the address or the owner, that had the ghost of an elderly woman, who only had one position as part of her haunting inhabitation. In the late evening or early morning, the woman dressed in turn of the nineteen hundreds attire, would settle on the same stair each time, and just sit there staring down the rest of the stairs, and through the front door window, which framed a small portion of front yard and sidewalk, illuminated by the town street lamp on the roadway. She didn’t wander the house, rap on the doors, jiggle the door knobs, appear in other rooms, or make any other disturbance, than to thwart the owners of the property and their children from going up and down the stairs at certain times of the day and night. She was a frequent stair dweller, but she only appeared to those preparing to go up and not down, where, of course, the resident would have noticed her back instead of her front. She was always encountered staring down at those trying to climb up, and as soon as a foot hit the first riser, the old woman would vaporize, leaving nothing to recall of her than a see-through image. Not a scent, or feeling of cold air, or anything that would suggest the woman was willing to haunt the whole house. She was the only ghost I’ve run into, in about forty years of being interested in such strange events, that was so habitual and near stationary, other than for the fact she would disappear if approached. My associates in this story moved some years later, but until their last evening, the ghost still made its appearance as usual. I wonder how the new owners treated the old girl, or if she decided to give up the ghost, when my friends moved onward. I’m told by these folks that she definitely didn’t travel to their new house with them, thankfully of course. I don’t suppose the real estate agent, who sold the house to the new owners, mentioned the ghost, probably because the former owners never offered up the information, which, obviously could have killed the deal. Ghosts and their declaration can become a stick issue if known and not reported prior to a sale, although I’m sure this situation is conveniently bypassed for obvious reasons. The Bosevelts for example, may have a difficult time selling their restored farmhouse, if and when we come out with this story after my stay here at the Snuggery. Unless we find Casper is living here or Slimmer!  It’s yet to be determined but so far, it’s been a tricky project, but the Bosevelts are patient with the spirit-kind and the writer currently in residence.

The Oaken Snuggery Part 7

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART 7

BY TED CURRIE

     There is a folk tale from antiquity, but not too distant as far as Muskoka’s history reaches back, in terms of settlement, that allegedly occurred near the present ghost hamlet of Rose Hill, not far from the Town of Bracebridge, and the former railway yard at Falkenburg. The story tells of a long-ago railwayman, who for whatever reason, fell from a steam train passing this way, toward Falkenburg, who, with lit lantern, fell from the moving train, the iron wheels severing his head that was apparently never located when the rest of the body was recovered. There have been a number of folk tales told of this alleged incident, indicating that the railway worker still walks the short section of line where the tragic circumstance claimed his life in a most grotesque fashion. Sightings have been made over the last century by railway employees, and passengers, who remark to others asking why there was a man in historic garb, with illuminated lantern, walking close along the tracks. Is it the case, like the Headless Horseman of Washington Irving’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the railwayman is simply looking for his lost crown? Where did it go after the accident? Along with this railway mystery, I’m reminded of the Falkenburg area train derailment, that may have had something or other to do with this headless worker, and the fact that the train’s bell went missing from the wreckage shortly after the mishap occurred. I am not an authority on this incident, but I have had many discussions with residents of the area where the accident occurred, and even a few railroad memorabilia collectors, who have some theories about where the heavy brass bell from the engine went, in the moments after the smoldering mass of wood and iron settled down. And yes, it is still a folk yarn that it may have been the case, the headless man decided to pay back his railway employers, by stealing the bell of potentially the train that one night years earlier, had taken his life and, possibly, made his head disappear. I love these relics of folk tales that paint in the colors on a typically black and white history. 

     The afternoon weather took a turn shortly after noon today, after having had such a remarkably warm and bright beginning from daybreak. The cloud cover began to darken over the ridge of tall pines at the far end of the property, and it wasn’t long after I noticed the lessening light, that a gentle spring rain veiled over the hollow where the pond appeared grey and turbulent, as the wind began to turn the mirroring water into one of conflicting surface currents. The temperature has also dropped significantly and it is no longer pleasant to walk the meadow trails that were so uplifting only an hour earlier. But it is all in keeping with the spring situation, and the need for moisture is constant, to support the new growth that will soon flourish in vivid, rich greenery, from the grasses and fern cover, to the canopy of maple, birch and oak leaves on the ridge above the pond and minor wetlands scattered through the former pasture.

     I have enjoyed a wonderful lunch today, served by the Bosevelts, proprietors of this establishment, nestled amidst this natural splendor, in the heart of the ghost town, or hamlet, once known as Rose Hill on the old agricultural department maps. I have had several interesting chats with guests of the Bed and Breakfast, eight in total having come from the urban south of this province, and never once did I mention my own mission to this Snuggery. I did investigate subtly, how their respective stays had been thus far, and with casual conversation, nothing was revealed to suggest there had been any encounter whatsoever with what the Bosevelts have considered to be of the ilk of the paranormal. It was the reason I was invited to spend most of this month to prove or not, that the Oaken Snuggery is at least lightly haunted. It had been the case that several guests complained of ghostly encounters, and wished to depart the establishment before the end of their registered occupancy. But what they claimed to have been ghostly, and a touch of the paranormal not part of the Bed and Breakfast package, may have been nothing more than over-active imaginations at work. It is an old house not matter that it has been restored and expanded by the new owners, and it still, so honestly, represents its heritage, creaking and knocking as century plus buildings are known to react to everything from the weather, to the ground water altering the earth around the foundation, to humidity causing swelling of the woodwork, compromising something else of its architectural integrity. It’s an over-simplification to blame ghosts for all these resident noises that are part of the character admirers of history cherish. There are those who should probably only stay in newer buildings that haven’t begun to seriously settle into the landscape, the way this old-timers has become intimate with its topography over the century.

      I have settled down here in the main room of the Bed and Breakfast with a hot cup of tea, made in the old country tradition, courtesy Mrs. Bosevelt, and have been enjoying the radiating heat coming from the recently stoked fireplace, made of some of the famous Muskoka rock found scattered around this former farmstead dating back to the 1860’s. I have been catching up on my notes, which for all intents and purposes is more of a personal diary, chronicling some of my travels on the property so far, and situations that I have found, even in a minor way, to be thought provoking, in terms of whether what I saw, felt and heard might be considered a contact with occupying spirits. Whatever they were, in my first few days here at the Snuggery, there was nothing experienced that would cause me to flee the place. These minor intrusions were gentle and alluring to the researcher, but I wanted to increase the exposure. I needed their direction, so I availed myself to their passions and possibly mischief, to become better acquainted with what the haunting was about. Some perceived injustice in the past? An intrusion upon their inhabitation at present? The Bosevelts are kind folks, and it’s not as if they wish to have the resident spirits exorcised from the property. It is not their purpose whatsoever, as I rather believe them to be content to have this king of provenance attached to their dream enterprise, that is also their retirement home. I like their attitude. I would just like to be able to prove to them that there is no devil-to-pay at work here, or any kind of malevolence manifesting within, that might wish all intrusion to cease, under the false perspective that history can reclaim the site to the period of their existences. The deterioration would be final when the house caves-in, and is devoured by the landscape, turning a home into earth, earth into vegetation, that will eventually erase all visible heritage that humans ever dwelled here.

     I awoke with a spreading pain in my leg. I had once again slumbered off, while I was holding the tea cup and saucer on my leg, the hot liquid tipping over the edge, of both the cup and saucer, burning my skin as it spread all the way to my knee, still steaming hot. I have a bad habit of letting myself fall prey to the kind of falling-off day dream that inspires this kind of accident. Thank goodness I’ve never smoked or I would have ignited myself and my surroundings much earlier in life.

     Fortunately no one else was in the big room at this moment, and I quickly mopped-up the wet area of my pants with a cloth napkin the host had so kindly prevailed upon me, half expecting something like this would happen. Also in my favor was the fact none of the tea hit the chair upholstery, which saved me from having to confess my mishap to the Bosevelts. As it was, at this time, they were bidding their guests farewell at the front door of the Bed and Breakfast, and I suppose it was this din that woke me up before I could commence snoring and making a real fool of myself. Upon reflection however, there was more to this slumber-moment than just spilling hot tea in my lap. I had another minor intrusion that seemed remarkably similar to one I had the night before, possibly leading me to some area of commonplace, between the spiritual essences of this enchanting old homestead, and what the entities are trying to instill by various actions, and manipulations, to either send me scrambling away from the Oaken Snuggery, or inviting me generously, to know more about their grievances or apprehensions about the operation here at Rose Hill.

     In these vignette proportioned dreams, there are two definite entities at play, and when I suggest “play,” I mean there is some mischief involved with my emotions. As a parent of two boys, and having been a stay-at-home-dad for their childhood, I am all too aware of the art of attention-getting by youthful players. The two distinctly individual white vapors I witnessed drifting within ten feet of each other, on the upper embankment of the pond, near where the pioneer cemetery is located, were floating just above the ground as if they were kites held low to the earth by some tethering that I couldn’t identify, prohibiting them from rising unfettered into the blue morning sky. It was if the entities I had witnessed since shortly after my arrival at the Oaken Snuggery were the spirits of children, and they weren’t going to let the reality of demise, curtail their ambitions to play and play heartily in a most enchanted forest clearing. Then there was the whisper in my ear, that was distinctly the voice of a child, and then the ever so slight weight and light squeeze of an invisible hand upon my own, while resting on the arm of the same chair that I currently reside upon making these observations. It was the grip of a child, but only one in this instance.

    The daydream contained more sound than images, and it was most definitely the chatter and laughter of youth versus adult engagement. There were very abstract images of flowing white, as if long gowns filling out in the turbulence of atmosphere raised by running and twirling, as if one child is chasing the other but not finite details showing, such that I might be able to draw a picture of what I had experienced of an unconscious adventure or, possibly, the folly of wanting to believe there is something ghostly at play, thusly inspiring my imagination to manufacture my desires.

     I close my eyes once again, after of course putting the tea cup and saucer, with contents, on the chair-side table, trying to re-visit the dream as short and unremarkable as it was, because there was something relevant I needed to explore. Is it possible that I had become a kindred spirit, for whatever reason, to children who had once lived in this house, or the two shelters that existed on the property in the late 1800’s, before fire burned them to the ground. Did the children perish in one of these fires? Are children buried in the family cemetery that has never been properly researched? Is it possible I may be considered their benefactor, who can restore their identities, and their passions for this property that may have contributed to the end of their lives?

     I nodded off once again, only to wake to the soft, lovely voice of Mrs. Bosevelt, inviting me to partake of dinner with her and her husband, now that the Bed and Breakfast was void of guests until the following weekend. I was delighted by the offer and wasted no time establishing myself at the huge harvest table in front of the picture window, that looked out upon this truly spectacular Muskoka homestead. The fare was delicious, and we lingered past desert, to enjoy the art of conversation before I once again felt the pull of bedlam on my body and spirit, and wished my hosts a pleasant evening, and a heartfelt “good night”!

     As I resided in this most pleasant bedstead provided by the Bosevelts, I couldn’t help, being somewhat less interested in slumber than I had initially planned, and inadvertently thinking of ghosts and their assorted recreations, at the expense of mortal calm and complacency. I so clearly recall the expression on my wife Suzanne’s face, the day she came through the door, onto the front verandah, of our Golden Beach residence, to ask me if either of the boys, Andrew or Robert, had just been in the house. I had been watching them playing with their toy cars in the dirt driveway, while our cat Fester and dog Alf were positioned in front of the door, sprawled out on the woodwork. There is no way either boy had left my sight, and they would have had to command the pets to move, in order to navigate their way to the door, should they have desired to abandon play. Suzanne looked as if she had just seen a ghost. When I, with a touch of anecdote, stated this to her, she looked at me without any sign of doubt about what had just then confronted her at the kitchen counter. “Yes, if the boys didn’t come into the house, then I did see a ghost. There was just a little boy standing in front of the kitchen counter (we had an open kitchen and living room in our cottage), and he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and had shaggy blond hair.” “But did you see his face,” I asked her. “That’s what shocked me about the boy. I knew it was a boy but he didn’t have a distinguishable face. It was blurred, and when I tried to focus on him, because I really thought it was Robert standing there, the child just vanished. It was really unsettling Ted,” she said, still looking unsettled about the incident. What I did have were about a half dozen photographs that I’d been taken that afternoon, while I sat out on the verandah as the boys played below. Four of the images show the cat, dog, and both boys looking toward the closed front door of the house, as if they either watched something enter, or they had heard Suzanne about to come out with a tray of sandwiches and beverages. That’s what she was preparing before the brief meeting with the wee lad. The child made several more appearances in and around the kitchen counter, and we presume the wee lad had at one time lived in the ranch bungalow. We named the boy “Herbie” and the story appeared in the well known Ontario Ghost book written in the 1990’s by Barbara Smith. Suzanne still gets upset talking about Herbie because it was a sad situation, as if the child was looking for his own mother, who was no longer at the residence. There had been a theory from neighbors that it was the ghost of a child who had been hit and killed by a car many years previous, a short distance along Golden Beach Road, not far from our driveway entrance. I can feel myself succumbing to weariness, so I must, this time for sure, rest my pen, and ease my mind of ghosts and assorted hobgoblins.

The Oaken Snuggery Part 6

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART SIX

BY TED CURRIE

     “Neither Will nor Reason is the product of Nature. Therefore either I am self-existent (a belief which no one can accept) or I am a colony of some Thought and Will that are self-existent. Such reason and goodness as we can attain must be derived from a self-existent Reason and Goodness outside ourselves. In fact, a Supernatural. (This material was taken from the context of an essay written and presented by author C.S. Lewis, in a lecture to the Socratic Club, in England . “Mr. Lewis went on to say that it was often objected that the existence of the Supernatural is too important to be discernible only by abstract argument, and thus only by the lectured few. But in all other ages the plain has accepted the findings of the mystics and the philosophers for his initial belief in the existence of the Supernatural. Today the ordinary man is forced to carry that burden himself. Either mankind has made a ghastly mistake in rejecting authority, or the power or powers ruling his destiny are making a daring experiment, and all are to become sages. A society consisting solely of plain men must end in disaster. If we are to survive we must either believe the seers or scale those heights ourselves. Evidently, then, something beyond Nature exists. Man is on the border line between the Natural and the Supernatural. Material events cannot produce spiritual activity, but the latter can be responsible  for many of our actions on Nature. Will and Reason can not depend on anything but themselves, but Nature can depend on Will and Reason, or, in other words, God created nature. The relation between Nature and Supernature, which is not a relation in space, and time, becoming intelligible if the Supernatural made the Natural. We even have an idea of this making, since we know the power of imagination, though we can create nothing new, but can only rearrange our material provided through sense data. It is not inconceivable that the universe was created by an imagination strong enough to impose phenomena on other minds.”

     I have a photo copy of this editorial piece taken from “The Collected Work of C.S. Lewis,” the author of course, of the tales of Narnia and the magic wardrobe that gives the children a conduit to all kinds of magical adventures. As for understanding his expertise on the Natural and the Supernatural, I confess to getting lost in his wisdom, as a result of my own lack of tutoring in the finer details of what takes something beyond the “natural.” For example, as I’ve been sitting in the Great Room of The Oaken Snuggery, making these notes, a candle on a table to my right, has been blown out no less than four times, to the point that the proprietor has just now given up re-lighting it, muttering to herself about the miserable drafts still coming through the front windows. I haven’t noticed a draft whatsoever, and I’ve been here now for more than an hour. Still the flame has been extinguished, and relit by Mrs. Bosevelt, refusing to surrender the romance of the bright high-ceiling room, at the back of the old farmhouse. Would Mr. Lewis, if he had been available for an after-dinner beverage, have explained the nuances of drafts and peculiarities of old houses, and the extinguishing of this candle, as being a Natural or Supernatural event; four times mind you in less than an hour, in a room fronted by large brand new, energy efficient windows. I sense a spirit is playing silly ass regardless, but it is the more conservative approach to blame it on a draft, because that’s what old houses do when bored.

     “You will not like this shorn place unless your mind is attuned to the brilliance of loneliness and the hardness of nature. There is nothing of softness here unless it be the bogs and marshes all over the moor. A place, in its depths, inhabited only by cattle and horses, by wild bees in disused quarries and the mounting skylark. A place lit by the light of wide skies the colors of yellow lichen, milkwort, biting-stone-crop and the green of open space. A forgotten place of ruined cottages on the edge of civilization, crossed by horse riders, and a single plane overhead. A place of profound secrets and of and revitalizing myth.” (My Cornwall, written by James Turner, on “Bodmin Moor”)

     I was satisfied that I had located the unmarked family cemetery on the property of “The Oaken Snuggery,” quite a distance from the old farm house, past the depression of the pond and assorted marshes in the locale. The plots are in a small clearing where there is clearly a stand of leafless lilacs, an historic indication where these rural cemeteries have been situated, from as far back as the late 1850’s. There are no statistics as to how many settlers died on the homestead acreage they were trying to clear, and establish profitable farms, but I think we would find this number rather shocking, especially what percentage of emigrants who didn’t survive the rural hardships in the first year, up to five years. Odds became a little better as time went on, and the hardships were addressed. In those first few years, settlers without any experience farming in such an inhospitable region, with poor agricultural qualities and quantities, failed simply because of the difficulty clearing enough land of trees, stumps and rocks, to be able to plant a first crop, if only to use the eventual harvest to sustain the family over the winter months. Crop failures were commonplace, because of the thin soil over rock, and the short growing season. I digress. Sitting out there beside this tiny family cemetery reminds me of the great hardships these folks had, coming from the old country, and its cities, to attempt the impossible, farming under such adverse conditions. Medical assistance. It was as poor as the soil was thin. Many died long before medical treatment arrived, and there were no hospitals as such in the 1860’s and 70’s, when I would argue the need was extreme, as injuries and disease raged in the frail settlers unused to such sustaining hardship, far more difficult for survival, than if they had stayed in their places of origin.

     It was a sparkling April morning, and there was a lot of activity in the tree tops of the tall evergreens bordering this incline above the hollow where the pond, at present, was playing host to a dozen or so ducks recently returning to the region after a long winter season. There was the wafting fragrance of full cedars at my back, and the strong scent of these tall pines, mixing with the aroma of Mother Earth thawing from its winter deep-freeze. There are still a few clumps of snow visible in the shaded areas of the woodland here, and in a few other places I noticed on my morning hike along the bricked pathways. There was the rustling of tiny creatures through the layers of autumn leaves and brown needles, and the squirrel population, at present, appears to have suffered no decline over the winter months, as there are at least a half dozen foraging beneath the hardwoods to my left. It is a most pleasant panorama from here, and it is obvious the Bosevelts had the right idea, selecting this mid-Muskoka acreage to operate their Bed and Breakfast. It is quite an enchanting property all right, and even with its busy natural protocols, that I’m witnessing at this moment, it is very much a place of solitude and peacefulness, perfect for the writer-me to benefit from as long as I’m able to remain in residence.

     There was a gentle breeze washing through the upper boughs of the venerable pines, and what a haunting refrain it offered the voyeur, in his morning vigil. It was at this moment of gentle calm, that I once again felt a presence watching over me, as if the entities were lodged in the low boughs of the maples just to my right. Maybe you can remember the feeling, in such a circumstance, that you weren’t alone despite all appearances to the contrary. Possibly it was the fact several large crows had settled down on the branches of these trees a short time later, after encircling them for several moments before lighting on the leafless branches. The sun was drenching down through the pine needles and the glow was wavering strangely on the rejuvenating forest floor, where the heads of ferns would soon appear in the spring ritual of rebirth. When I arose from the stump where I had been sitting during this brief sojourn, my eye detected a faint billowing of something white, on the brink of the hillside, that was only barely visible from where I was now standing. In fact, I spotted two such visible vapors wafting in the slight wind rising up from the hollow of the pond, as if a detached mist, drifting along the tree line, visible for only seconds at a time, before disappearing frequently in the darkness of the woodlot between me and the manifestation.

     The two wisps of thin folk darted in and out of the brilliant sunlight, more visible in the low light, than when dancing through the illumination in the open spaces between tree clusters. I wondered if there was some campfire or possibly someone smoking a pipe nearby, exhaling these mysterious, small clouds, moving with some detectable intent, coming closer to me in a movement best described as a frolic more than something with a more sinister intent. The two tiny clouds of thin vapor, seemed to be able to navigate through the trees, and it dawned on me, as I stood silent and in considerable awe, that I might actually be witnessing ghosts at play, if that is possible. The closer they got to me, being about five feet apart for most of the traverse through the tree lot, the smaller the visible mist, to the point that with arm’s reach, both had dissipated into the beams of sunlight drenching the clearing where I was situated; being the border of the overgrown cemetery plot. In that moment I felt a wee shiver, and detected the slight perfume of lilac, yet it was still more than a month before these companion bushes would have their first blossoms bending down the thin boughs. I couldn’t depart at that moment, as I needed time to replay what had just happened in a most subtle yet beautiful way, as if the spirited entities of this pioneer property, had reached out to the interloper, to test his sensitivities to such things as ghosts and such, still able to play as once, when they were part of this grand mortal coil of life and times.

     As began today’s story, I shall end the same way. I have lit the candle on the table beside me four more times, in the past half hour, as Mrs. Bosevelt laughed at my ill-fated efforts to keep the flame burning. Each time, after about five minutes, the flame would be extinguished, but as I watched what was happening, there was no movement of the flame to either side, which would, of course, be evidence of a draft hitting from either direction. In four out of four occurrences, the candle was extinguished from a force coming from above, as if the ghost was using a candle-snuffer instead of immortal breath, that by the way, would smell a tad musty. I pointed this out to Mrs. Bosevelt later that evening, and she had no problem believing it was the handiwork of a resident spirit, one obviously worried about the safety of her ignited candles. Others in the room and the dining area also extinguished themselves. I’m not sure C.S. Lewis. Can help me on this one, to sort out what is natural about this old farmhouse, and what is quite clearly of the Supernatural ilk. I’ve got a lot of reading to do, that’s for certain. This haunting is complicated and I’m pretty sure we’ve got multiple spirits working the floor here at this Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast.

     Is it possible I had my first paranormal experience at The Oaken Snuggery? I would feel honored and privileged if this was the case, as it was the very purpose of my visit, and my extended lodging with the Bosevelts.