Читать книгу Real Hauntings 5-Book Bundle - Mark Leslie - Страница 62

Two types of skeptics are regularly converted after spending some time in the Bytown Museum: those who believe that Ottawa has always been a quiet, mundane, and somewhat sleepy capital, and those who believe that ghosts are merely the figment of an overly hyper imagination.

From the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Huron people who settled in the area dating back as far as 8000 BCE, through the French explorers and Jesuit missionaries of the 1700s to the Great Fires of 1870 and 1900, there was rarely a time when the region could ever properly be considered quiet or sleepy. On a self-guided tour of the Bytown Museum (1 Canal Lane; www.bytownmuseum.com), armed with a headset and audio player, patrons move through a series of numbered locations and are treated to a uniquely wonderful immersion in the various stages of the city’s and the country’s growth. Presented with artifacts, sounds, videos, and authentic descriptions it would be hard for anybody to leave the Bytown Museum without a deeper respect and understanding of the various intriguing trials, tragedies, and triumphs that echo through the ages.

And in the same way that the museum helps history come alive, so too does it often cause visitors to speculate in the manner that Hamlet did of there being “more things in heaven and earth … than are dreamt of” in our philosophies. Many believe that the building is haunted by a man from the very earliest days of the building’s long history.

The Bytown Museum, seen in the background, helps history come alive for visitors.

Author’s collection.

Dating back to 1827 and being marked as the oldest stone building in Ottawa, the Bytown Museum was originally Lieutenant-Colonel John By’s commissariat. A commissariat is a type of warehouse where military supplies and funding for workers and contractors are stored. And, being a place where items of great importance and value were kept, it was believed to be an easy target for theft.

The building was guarded by a supply manager named Duncan Macnab. Macnab, whose job was to protect the gold and silver, the military arms and supplies, and the thick rock walls, must have been quite effective because there is no indication or record of there ever being any theft from the treasury or stores of the building while he was in charge.

Some believe that Macnab, so obsessed with the protection of the building, still lingers there long after his death, ensuring that his vigilant presence is felt.

Some speculate that the haunting is due to the thousands of workers who died in the construction of the nearby Rideau Canal, due to accidents and the spread of diseases such as malaria.

Still others believe that Lieutenant-Colonel John By, the founder of Bytown, who died in 1836, still wanders along the canal that he oversaw the completion of between 1826 and 1832, and is an additional presence in the building.

About one third of the way through the self-guided tour of the museum, visitors are instructed by the audio’s narrative to peer out the second-floor windows to see, directly across the canal, at the edge of Major’s Hill Park, a statue with the likeness of Lieutenant-Colonel By. I couldn’t help but be overcome with an odd feeling of being watched, perhaps even scrutinized. Was it just the statue of Colonel John By? I wondered, suspecting the phenomenon came from within my own perception. Or is there something else … someone else, someone inside watching me?

I had, after all, heard the story of how two museum employees were discussing the possibility of the building being haunted by By when the computer in front of them turned itself off all on its own. When it booted back up, again on its own, the only thing that appeared on the monitor over and over were the words:

Lt. Col. John By

Lt. Col. John By

Lt. Col. John By

Lt. Col. John By

It was almost as if the colonel had been listening to the conversation and wanted to make it perfectly clear that he was still around, still watching and listening.

That might have been the way Glen Shackleton, director and founder of Haunted Walks Inc., initially felt when experienced something odd at what has been described as one of Ottawa’s most haunted locations.

Shackleton, who heads up the historic ghost walks of downtown Ottawa, has also spent a significant amount of time in the Bytown Museum acting as one of the building’s volunteers. Having heard plenty of ghost stories associated with several different locations from many different people, Shackleton was aware of the possibility that a spooky historic location combined with an overactive imagination might very well be the real cause of the stories he had heard about the museum. But a series of incidents that happened to him in that very building changed his mind.

One of the stories that has been repeatedly shared about the museum involves the stairs. Visitors regularly indicate that they heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs behind them, but when they stopped and turned there was nobody there. Despite this fact, they would claim to hear the footsteps continue on past them.

Shackleton’s original belief was that the old wood of the stairs could possibly be making the noise, due to them being compressed by the visitor’s own upward steps and then slowly released back a second after they moved on, creating the eerie footstep-like sound.

But one afternoon in 2006 he was in the middle of a conversation with the museum’s program coordinator, Steve, while the two of them were walking together. When Shackleton headed up the stairs, he kept talking, positive that the other man was following directly behind him. When Shackleton turned to ask a question, he realized that Steve was no longer there. He had forgotten something and turned around, remaining behind on the main floor. But despite being alone on the stairs, Shackleton not only heard the distinct sound of footsteps but also felt a distinct presence lurking around him.

After previously being skeptical about the reports he had heard, Shackleton stopped discounting the phenomenon of the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Other phenomena shared about the building include motion detectors going off in the middle of the night when the building is securely locked and empty. The historical videos, which are typically triggered by somebody pressing a nearby button, have also turned on and off all by themselves.

One employee at the museum believed that the ghost was a mischievous fellow, and found the incidents more annoying than frightening. One afternoon she was working in an adjacent room and the audio of Wade Hemsworth’s classic folk song “The Log Drivers’ Waltz” kept turning on by itself.

As the chorus of the song blasted out yet again, this particular employee was not at all pleased. She was so frustrated, in fact, that she yelled out, “Stop that! You know I hate that song!”

Immediately following her outburst, the music stopped.

Some believe, based on incidents like this one, that at least one of the ghosts that calls the museum home is a bit of a playful spirit. Duncan Macnab, the aforementioned guard and storekeeper of the commissariat, also had a bit of a reputation as a trickster. When some rum went missing, Macnab explained the disappearance as it having “evaporated,” despite the incident taking place in the dead of winter. And a man who had died continued to receive his full rations for a week after his death, at least, according to the records. It seems as if Duncan Macnab, who enjoyed playing tricks on people back in the 1820s, might very well still be responsible for some of the odd and playful incidents taking place in the building today, including moving pieces of furniture around, the lights and videos turning on and off, as well as a distinct disembodied male voice shouting “get out.”

Part of an exhibit of what it was like for a child growing up in Ottawa nearly two hundred years ago included a row of children’s dolls. Macnab might very well have been the one who took possession of the dolls that used to be part of that exhibit, although many think that they were being animated by the spirit of a dead child. When I arrived at the museum in the winter of 2015, eager to see the dolls I had heard and read so much about, I was disappointed to learn that they had since been removed. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because even the thought of catching one of these cute inanimate childhood playthings winking at me, or hearing soft child-like crying coming from the area where the dolls were located sets the hair on the back of my neck on end and throws a cold shiver down my spine.

The schoolhouse artifacts that were there — a desk, slate tablets, and abacus, the mirrors featuring headless children wearing period clothing (meant to make the child standing in front of the mirror see what they might look wearing those clothes), along with the black shoeprints leading deeper into the display — were quite enough to kick my imagination into high gear.

To close this chapter, let’s have a look at a situation that Glen Shackleton describes as “certainly one of the most frightening moments” of his life.

At the end of a nighttime staff meeting with his haunted-walk group at the Irish pub D’Arcy McGee’s, Shackleton realized that he had forgotten to set the alarm at the museum, which was a couple of blocks away. Two of the tour guides from his company, Margo and Emily, as well as Emily’s mother, joined him as he set forth in the dark, down the hill toward the museum.

Because they were accompanied by the mother of one of the guides, Shackleton decided to show her some of the more interesting artifacts in the museum, including the death hand of D’Arcy McGee. In the Victorian era, it was common to make plaster casts of the faces of famous people after they had died. But because McGee had been shot in the head (making it impossible for a proper face cast to be made), a cast was created of his hand.

The cast is in a display on the third floor of the museum, so all four of them ascended so that Emily and her mother could check out the display. At that point, Shackleton and Margo wandered back down to the second floor. That was when they both heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the first to the second floor. The sound was so loud and so distinct that Shackleton and Margo shared an “are you hearing what I’m hearing?” look before peering around the corner. Despite the continuing sound of footsteps, there was nobody visible coming up the stairs.

Shackleton, always looking for a natural explanation for eerie phenomenon, wondered if the noise might be the echoes of the movement of Emily and her mother on the floor above. But when he and Margo rushed upstairs to check, they saw the two women standing still at the very back of the room, reading the plaque that details D’Arcy McGee’s assassination and the trial of Patrick Whelan, the man charged with his murder.

The cast of Thomas D’Arcy McGee’s hand. McGee, a politician and Father of Confederation, was assassinated by the Fenians.

Author’s collection.

The four then headed back down to the gift shop on the main floor, and Shackleton began the process of securing and locking the building while his companions waited near the main entrance.

As Shackleton was closing the wooden sliding door that had separated the gift shop from the rest of the building, he jokingly pointed out the security display and said in a loud voice that if anyone dared appear on camera in the room on the other side of that door, he would definitely be out of there in a hurry.

That’s when an odd shaking sensation began. The sliding door started to swing and to shake; first quite slowly, but then, as the seconds passed, more vigorously. It appeared to Shackleton as if somebody on the other side of the door was violently tearing at it in an attempt to get out. Simultaneously, the souvenirs in the nearby gift shop began to shake and rattle.

Frozen in shock and in fear, Shackleton stood looking at the trembling door just inches from his face before turning to his friends to ask if they could see what was happening.

That’s when he spotted them running quickly out the front door.

Margo, however, paused and ducked back into the gift shop. Shackleton abandoned his stance by the sliding door and joined her outside. The four of them stood in the cold night air, shaking their heads, trying to catch their breath, and sharing what they had each seen.

While Shackleton had experienced something pulling at the door, the other three had heard the sound of heavy footsteps walking across the ceiling above them.

All evidence suggested that at least one person, perhaps two, were still inside.

Shackleton finally managed the courage to go back inside, set the alarm, and lock the door.

The group stood outside the building for half an hour, convinced that they had just locked a pair of unseen intruders inside and that the motion detectors and alarms would soon be activated. Once they went off, they planned to phone the police, believing they would teach a lesson to whomever was inside, playing an eerie prank on them. But the motion detectors never went off, and the four finally went home for the night.

Shackleton still talks about how, when he arrived home that night and crawled into bed, he left the bedside light on the whole night.