Rhonda Parrish - Eerie Edmonton

Copyright Rhonda Parrish and Rona Anderson, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Publisher: Scott Fraser | Editor: Dominic Farrell
Cover designer: Sophie Paas-Lang
Cover image: goodfreephotos.com/WinterE229
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Eerie Edmonton / Rhonda Parrish, with Rona Anderson.

Names: Parrish, Rhonda, 1967- author. | Anderson, Rona, 1958- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190199539 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190199547 | ISBN 9781459744493 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459744509 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459744516 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: GhostsAlbertaEdmonton. | LCSH: ApparitionsAlbertaEdmonton. | LCSH: Haunted placesAlbertaEdmonton. | LCSH: Edmonton (Alta.)History.

Classification: LCC BF1472.C3 P37 2020 | DDC 133.1097123/34dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

Printed and bound in Canada.

VISIT US AT

dundurn.com

@dundurnpress

dundurnpress

dundurnpress

Dundurn
3 Church Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5E 1M2

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word haunted describes a place frequented by a ghost. This can include outdoor areas, buildings, and houses. Books on the paranormal usually focus on the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The histories and guidebooks related to these places, some of which have existed for hundreds of years, also often recount tales of ghosts and other spooky sightings.

You might be surprised to learn that a young city like Edmonton also has a cache of haunted and spooky places. Although the city is only 127 years old, Edmonton actually has a rich and fascinating history, which includes the Klondike Gold Rush and exploits of fur traders, and history-rich locales, such as Fort Edmonton. And, adding to that, a really wild, wild west persona. Of course, the land on which Edmonton is now located was, for thousands of years, the home of Indigenous Peoples.

Edmonton was incorporated as a town in 1892, with a population of 700, and then as a city in 1904, with a population of 8,350. Pretty small pickings. Edmonton became the capital of Alberta when the province was formed a year later, on September 1, 1905. Today, the city has a population of almost one million.

So you think, How could Edmonton have a bunch of haunted places? Well, as I said, people have lived on the land that Edmonton stands on for thousands of years. Its not surprising that some of their spirits the ghosts of the sad, the angry, the deranged, and even those who just wish to remain in the place they liked during their lives should linger on. And of course, there are the spirits of those who died violent deaths: those killed in the many battles over land between settlers and Indigenous Peoples; those who lost their lives in the wars between Indigenous Peoples; those who succumbed in the innumerable fights between settlers, transients, and fur traders. The Gold Rush itself claimed thousands of human lives because of starvation, freezing temperatures, and exposure to the elements. That leaves a lot of dead people.

Now, not everyone who dies decides to haunt an area or building, but Edmonton is home to its fair share of spirits who decided to stay for one reason or another. There are some areas of Edmonton that are more haunted than others, and a couple of areas have very negative energies attached to them.

Parts of the northeast side of Edmonton and some neighbourhoods in the central west end have spooky vibes and have experienced lots of crime and violence in the past. Iconic, historic Strathcona in Edmonton is a big tourist and shopping area. It has a plethora of buildings on and off Whyte Avenue also known as 82 Avenue that are haunted. The Westmount area contains some haunted buildings, and there are many in downtown Edmonton, with the ever-changing Jasper Avenue.

Edmontonians love Halloween and really go crazy every year. The city has at least twelve pop-up Halloween stores every year, and hundreds of homes attract huge numbers of people who come to see the latest scary Halloween home fronts. There are large haunted amusements, such as Fort Edmonton Spooktacular, Rutherford House (both of them), and Deadmonton Haunted House. As well, at least thirty other major events take place in October. The city also has a hearse club, the Edmonton Bone-Wagon Association, which consists of several hearses. And many cosplay, witch, and metaphysical markets and events take place all year round. So, you can see Edmonton is a very otherworldly place.

The one bothersome thing about Edmonton and its connection to haunted places is the extreme reluctance shown by Edmonton Tourism, as well as building and business owners, to promote the fact that the city has haunted places. Edmonton has haunted pubs, restaurants, and rooms, but no one advertises any of it. Hopefully, one day in the future, Edmonton will embrace its paranormal hotspots and include them in the citys tourism and promotional advertising.

Just an FYI: This book is collaboration between Rhonda Parrish and me she is a writer who specializes in adventurous subjects and themes, and I am a paranormal investigator and psychic medium who communicates with earthbound spirits. We went into as many areas and structures as we could, and I related to her who or what I saw that inhabited them from the spirit world. Some places we could not get into because of various reasons, so I related to her past events I had seen and experienced. Other places we were told about by residents of Edmonton, as places to check out.

Note: We are not responsible for spirits who might have left buildings or taken possession of establishments during the time this book was written and published.

Rona Anderson