How a few brave souls keep Atlantic Canadian ghosts alive.

"Scared by Ghosts, One Girl Faints," ran the headline in Saint John's daily newspaper, The Sun, on September 11, 1908; the story concerns two young women from Boston passing through the Old Burial Ground, when one of them, seeing a ghost flitting by the monuments, faints on the spot.

The headline "North End Family Visited by Ghosts," appears March 8, 1909, in The Sun. The story explained that the man's first wife was returning from the dead and placing covers over their sleeping children, making the new wife "rather nervous to say the least."

"An Isle of Ghosts… buried treasure and a pirate's spirit," reads a Hartland Advertiser newspaper clipping found in a scrapbook kept by historian William Ganong. The story recounts how area residents often saw a barn ablaze on the island below Hartland, NB, but when morning came, the big barn was still standing. It was widely believed that when the fire was seen, pirates were on the island counting their gold. Those who approached for a closer look would be paralyzed with fear when greeted by a ragged, sunken-cheeked pirate, who placed his shrunken, cold hand upon them as they sought the booty.

Such headlines and stories appeared regularly in New Brunswick newspapers a century ago, but are seldom seen today. Yet, as heritage activist Peter Pacey, in Fredericton, says, "People find the idea of a spirit world intriguing."

He and several others in Atlantic Canada have found ways to keep our ancestors' ghost stories alive.

Memorial University folklore professor Philip Hiscock believes the typical ghost story years ago would have been the latter of the headlines above, featuring buried treasure and the pirate ghost that protected it.

He says the base of stories today has broadened. As an example, he points to the haunted hikes that Dale Jarvis leads in the guise of an Anglican Clergyman, Thomas Wyckham Jarvis, in downtown St. John's-he delves into the mysteries of the night in dark alleys and laneways, sharing tales of vengeful hags and other spirits that haunt the area.

Combined with his books Wonderful Strange, Haunted Shores and The Golden Leg, Jarvis is known for his penchant for Newfoundland ghost stories.

The same may be said of Fredericton's Peter Pacey. Tired of traditional teaching methods, Pacey founded a group called the Calithumpians 30 years ago to present the history of New Brunswick in dramatic fashion.

He grew up in a household where his dad, University of New Brunswick English literature champion (and later, UNB acting president) Dr. Desmond Pacey, told the family many a tale-that's where Pacey recalls hearing his first ghost story.

"It obviously piqued my interest in ghostly matters," he says.

The Calithumpians' dramatic twists on local history were such a hit with Fredericton tourists during the day that 12 years ago, Pacey was asked to find a way to engage tourists in the evening. That's when his Haunted Hikes began.

The actors Pacey hires are cautioned that the telling of ghost tales is serious business. "Have fun," he tells them, "but don't mess with the spirits."

Perhaps the best New Brunswick ghost story is the Dungarvon Whooper. The story involves a cook in a lumbercamp on the Miramichi by the name of Ryan, who keeps his money in a moneybelt.

One day the men come home to find the cook dead on the floor of the camp, and the money belt missing. The men take Ryan out to the woods but, because the snow is so deep, are unable to bury him; he's just placed under the deep snow.

As the men return to camp, they hear spine-tingling whoops all around them; the eerie screams continue all night. They are the same whoops Ryan was famous for making when he was alive. They take them to be Ryan's ghost, and abandon the camp.

Despite an exorcism, the whoops continue to this day in and around the Dungarvon woods.

"I've had people play Ryan's part with such conviction that when they whooped, it sent shivers down my back," says Pacey.

That's the whole point of a good ghost tale, of course.

On Nova Scotia's South Shore, Vernon Oickle does not lead ghost walks, but he has collected and published hundreds of stories.

Oickle's interest, like Pacey's, began early-he grew up in a home where his grandmother and mother immersed him in the superstitions of the Victorian era.

"If the house creaked, someone was going to die. The old houses creaked often," he says, laughing. "And, of course, people did die."

As a young man he had a paranormal experience while living in Alberta. "My uncle, still back in Nova Scotia, appeared to me. Two days later, he died. When I told Mom what I'd experienced, she said it was a forerunning experience, and I wasn't the first to have had one in that area.

"From then on, I recorded the superstitions and stories I'd heard. I had no idea what I would do with them, but eventually I published Ghost Stories of the Maritimes and Canada's Haunted Coast."

He recalls his first eerie encounter as a young reporter.

"I was assigned to do a story of a house in Port Medway said to be haunted. From the minute I stepped into that house, I knew there was something unnatural and oppressive.

"The family who lived there had visits from a ghostly figure of a girl they had taken to calling Eleanor. She seemed to be looking for someone. It has been suggested it's her lover or her seagoing father lost in the Atlantic. No one knows, but things get moved about the house, sometimes animals will not go to the second storey, and sometimes there's an inexplicable smell of perfume.

"The apparition has never hurt anyone, and the family do not feel threatened by her appearances," Oickle adds.

Writer Julie Watson has found a rich source of ghost tales on Prince Edward Island and included them in two books, Ghost Stories and Legends of Prince Edward Island, and Shipwrecks and Seafaring Tales of Prince Edward Island.

An emigrant from England, perhaps the most haunted nation in the world, she discovered early on after moving to the Island that there were lots of tales in old journals in archives. Once her interest in the topic became known, people started coming to her with their own stories. One she has heard time and again is the Phantom Ship of Sea Cow Head, which in local lore goes back to the year 1786.

At midnight on a stormy night, people watched in horror as a little schooner under full sail seemed destined to meet her end on the rocky headland, the fate of many ships before her.

However, it was not to be. No violent crash was heard, and no shipwreck occurred. Somehow, the ship turned and headed out to the safe waters of Northumberland Strait.

Since that night, the ship has been seen by hundreds, sometimes as a great grey hulk, other times as a ship on fire. Many attempts have been made to get near enough to see the vessel's name, but she always disappears beforehand. Similar stories are told of ships in Chaleur Bay, and off St Martins and Grand Manan.

"These have come not only from archival sources, but from people I know today," Julie says.

"I believe in premonitions, in souls and spirits lingering, but I don't believe in hauntings as such."

Still, she and the other keepers of the tales are always on the lookout for a new story. Given Halloween-the spookiest night of the year-is upon us, they aren't likely to be disappointed.