Once upon a time long ago, a young woman from Pictou Island, Nova Scotia, fell in love with a sailor who had been passing through. They decided to get married; but before they could tie the knot, he and his shipmates sank in a storm, and she promptly hanged herself. Ever since, she’s haunted the islet’s lonely roads and beaches, sobbing and wailing in a long, white gown.
According to the Pictou Island Heritage Society’s website, “The White Lady” is probably the best-known ghost story in local folklore. But it’s not the only one. There’s also “The Phantom Ship of the Northumberland Strait” which, hapless observers swear, prowls the coastal waters, its sails and rigging silently ablaze in the early morning mist. Mere coincidence, perhaps?
In fact, there’s a version of “The White Lady” and “The Phantom Ship” just about everywhere you go in the Atlantic region. Chalk it up to our salty heritage, perhaps, but we tend to look to the spectral spaces between the land and the sea for evidence of the afterlife. Even so, says Vernon Oickle, a Liverpool, NS-based author of best-selling books about Maritime ghosts and hauntings, “Sometimes, our ladies in white are blue, like the one at Peggy’s Cove. She could be the [namesake] ‘Peggy of the Cove’, or just somebody else who lost her life there.”
His point is that it’s not so much the story behind any given phenomenon on the Canadian East Coast; it’s who’s telling it and what they believe. There’s a lot more narrative diversity about unexplained phenomena in this corner of the world than some imagine. He, for one, can imagine a lot.
“I talk to people who report things—unusual things—happening in their homes, or places of business,” he says. “You know, people meeting other people on steps, but who aren’t actually there. Items, like hairbrushes, go missing for days at a time, before they suddenly turn up…Paranormal experiences are all over the place.”
Black dogs
Take, for example, the sudden appearance of a black dog, which would be considered colossally bad news even in life. Its ghostly variant almost certainly means a pack of hellhounds is on your trail. For some reason, the Atlantic provinces are full of them.
“I’ve heard plenty of stories of black dogs over the years,” Oickle says. “They’re there for a second as a precursor of an impending tragedy and then they’re gone. On the other hand, there’ve been reports of a black dog walking down the roads on Tancook Island [NS] just, you know, looking for a former owner who had passed away.”
In her seminal 1931 book, Folklore of Nova Scotia, historian Mary L. Fraser describes the Black Dog of Antigonish Harbour, which literally “dogged” the steps of at least one deeply inebriated man on his way home from a night’s carousing.
On the other hand, Oickle tells me, “this type of [apparition] can take the shape of other animals. There have been reports of horses…although, I haven’t heard any reports of white dogs.”
Forerunners
Technically, black dogs belong to the class of ghostly phenomena known as forerunners. Often, these are shadowy, human-like figures (think men in black) who suddenly appear to convey important, usually unsettling, news of the near future. Oickle says forerunner lore is so rich in Atlantic Canada, he’s writing a book about it.
“Spotting a forerunner can be fast, and it can leave you shocked. People will see a forerunner, and they don’t even know it. Most of the time, you can’t see their faces; you can’t distinguish who the person is.”
Again, though, variety is the spice of the afterlife in this part of the world, where ancient cultures have merged for centuries. According to the Nova Scotia museum’s website: “Manaidhean [in Gaelic] or forerunners [can be] birds flying into houses and the presence of a strange light in the darkness [meaning] that something bad will happen in the near future. These lights appeared where a death would shortly occur.”
Indeed, says Oickle, forerunners can be no more complicated than “three knocks at your window or your door—or sometimes even three knocks in your house—and you have no idea where they’re coming from.”
Possessions
Even good, old-fashioned hauntings Down Home aren’t always what they seem.
“In the Maritimes, you’ll hear stories of captains’ [sea] chests having spirits attached to them,” Oickle says. “A lot of museums will say that—that they have spirits [on the premises] of the artifacts that are brought to the museum. Grandma’s rocking chair is also an old favourite—a very common Maritime story. People tell me, ‘I saw my grandmother the other night and she was sitting in her rocking chair’.”
On the other hand, he notes, misconceptions also abound. “Everybody thinks that for your home to be haunted, it has to be old and rundown. Who’s to say a newer house can’t also have a spirit? Who’s to say there aren’t spirits in the mall?”
In the end, he doesn’t judge. He’s a storyteller, a chronicler of lore; and lore, he says, is alive and well in the Atlantic region. Besides, he says, who knows? “You could say that it’s just in your mind; that your mind is playing tricks on you… Perhaps…. I think anybody can have an experience, but I do think there are some who are a bit more in tune than others to this type of thing.”
And him?
“I was raised in that kind of environment,” he says. “The area where we lived on the South Shore is steeped in superstitions. My mother believed there was a reason for everything—even if you dropped a dish cloth on the floor. It was very common in our household. So, when I saw my first forerunner, I didn’t give it a second thought.”
But, then, that’s another story.