Butts Edward - Ghost Stories of Newfoundland and Labrador

Ghost Stories of
Newfoundland and Labrador

EDWARD BUTTS

GHOST STORIES OF
NEWFOUNDLAND
ANDLABRADOR

Copyright Edward Butts, 2010

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

Editor: Nicole Chaplin
Design: Courtney Horner
Printer: Webcom

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Butts, Edward, 1951
Ghost stories of Newfoundland and Labrador / by Edward Butts.

Issued also in an electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55488-785-9

1. Ghosts--Newfoundland and Labrador. 2. Haunted places-Newfoundland and Labrador. I. Title.

BF1472.C3B88 2010 133.109718 C2010-902416-8
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10

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 Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation

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

J. Kirk Howard, President

Published by Dundurn Press
Printed and bound in Canada

www.dundurn.com

In memory of my grandparents,
John Butts of Harbour Grace and Mary Nugent of Kelligrews

Table of Contents

I could not have completed this book without the help and contributions of many people. I must first thank Michael Carroll and Kirk Howard of Dundurn Press for giving me the opportunity to work on this fascinating project, and Nicole Chaplin for her editorial assistance. I am indebted to John Robert Colombo, Canadas greatest collector of ghost stories, for his contributions and for his many excellent books. I had the good fortune to meet online at least Diana Leadbeater of the Newfoundland Paranormal Society, Gene Browne of the Newfoundland Paranormal Investigation group, and Matt Massie and Frank Pottle of the Ghosts of Labrador group. They made invaluable contributions to this book, and were of inestimable help when I was getting started with my research. I owe thanks to author Jack Fitzgerald, a Newfoundland icon whose books on everything from ghosts to criminals I highly recommend.

My request for personal stories about experiences with ghosts and the infamous Old Hag reached people in communities across the province, and even in other parts of Canada, thanks to Shawn Tetford, the Executive Director of Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries. Thanks to all of the Newfoundland and Labrador newspapers that kindly ran my letter to the editor, as well as CBC Radio in Grand Falls, for which I was interviewed about the project. For stories that I received by email and by post, I thank Bernard Maloney, Rita Alexander, W. Rex Stirling, Judy Newhook, J.Y. Ferguson, Sean Clarke, and Donna Barr. My gratitude also goes to all the people who answered my request for stories, but who wish to remain anonymous. I am grateful for their compelling accounts, and for their trust. My thanks to Drew MacGillivray for his perspective on the Old Hag. Finally, I thank Wayne Butt and David Liverman for their help with photographs, Michelle Blackman for her drawing of the Old Hag, and once again the staff at the Guelph, Ontario, Public Library.

When Michael Carroll, the editorial director of Dundurn Press, asked me if I would like to write a book about Newfoundland and Labrador ghost stories, I immediately said yes. The project appealed to me for several reasons: I have always loved storytelling, and I was very aware of the rich tradition of storytelling that still exists in Newfoundland and Labrador. I dont necessarily mean storytelling as it is done on stage by a gifted raconteur, although that is certainly wonderful when it is done well. Rather, I mean the kind of storytelling that goes on in a home, usually in the kitchen, at a gathering of family and friends. There is no distraction from the television or recorded music just people sharing stories. As a boy I had first hand exposure to it through my paternal grandfather, a native-born Newfoundlander.

While I have lived most of my life in Ontario, I always knew that Newfoundland is a treasure trove of stories, both written and oral. The stock of tales has been building up for some five hundred years. Excluding the folk tales of First Nations, that is longer than in any other part of Canada and the number continues to grow.

I have always been intrigued by stories about ghosts and the supernatural. I have never seen a ghost, nor have I ever had a paranormal experience at least, not that I have been aware of but I have known many people, including family members, who say that they have. With few exceptions, I accept that these people have indeed experienced something that seems to defy logical explanation. I cannot say for certain that ghosts exist, but I would not flatly deny their existence.

Because of Newfoundland and Labradors maritime history, many of the traditional ghost stories involve pirates and buried treasure. Those tales are well represented here, along with those involving shipwrecks, sealing disasters, and strange events at sea. Among the ghostly entries from Newfoundland folklore are an old ballad, and two Jack Tales, adapted from versions in The Book of Newfoundland.

In addition to the traditional ghost stories that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been telling for generations, I thought it would be interesting to include personal accounts from people who have had paranormal experiences. This presented me with a new challenge: to research my previous books, I used archival records, long forgotten newspaper articles, and books so long out of print that it sometimes required serious detective work to track them down. This time, I would somehow have to reach out to total strangers halfway across Canada and ask them to share stories, on a somewhat intimate topic, with a writer in Guelph, Ontario.

By means of a letter to the editor published in newspapers across Newfoundland and Labrador, a notice posted in public libraries throughout the province, a CBC radio interview, as well as appeals that went out via email, Facebook, and YouTube, I managed to reach people who were interested in sharing their stories. Some even sent me their stories by handwritten letters.

Some of the stories with which people entrusted me are truly unnerving. Others tell of rather beautiful encounters with deceased loved ones. Then there are the ones that involve that unique Newfoundland creature of the night, the Old Hag.