Visit Canada's Top Five Haunted Sites

Like many other places in the world, Canada has it fair share of ghost tales and haunted buildings. I have researched the most active haunted places to date and came up with five that Canada has to offer.

Gibraltar Point Lighthouse

Gibraltar Point Lighthouse on Toronto Islands was first constructed in 1803 and was totally finished and operational by 1809. Local legend states it haunted by the first lighthouse keeper JP Radan Muller. Muller had been murder one misty night by drunken soldiers from Fort York looking for bootleg beer. The soldiers had cut Muller up and buried his body somewhere on the beach. The soldiers where charged but later acquitted. In 1893, a coffin was found buried on the beach with a jawbone still inside it but it has never been known if it ever belong to Muller. The lighthouse since time is no longer on the shoreline since the sand has built up, but lays 100 meters inland. It is not being used and is boarded up but people say on misty nights you can hear a mans voice moaning and even some people have reported ghostly figures roaming the grounds.

Screaming Tunnel

The “Screaming Tunnel” was built by Grand Trunk Railroad in the early 1900’s and is located near Niagara Falls. The tunnel was meant for railroad cars but shortly after finishing the structure World War 1 had begun and GTR went bankrupt never finishing laying tracks in the tunnel. Now there are two different legends but both have the same story line. First legend is said that a little girls parents where separating and her father take hers down by the tunnel and buried her alive. Second legend involves the little girl’s parents fighting over her and somehow the house catches fires. Well the little girls ends up getting set ablaze as well and runs down to the tunnel. As she runs through the tunnel screaming for help she eventually falls in the middle and dies. Anyways legend has it if you enter the tunnel, stand in the middle, and light a match, something will blow it out and you should be able to hear screams in the distance. Horrible story but makes a great ghost legend.

By Town Museum

The By Town Museum was built in 1827 in Ottawa Ontario. The building was used as storage and treasury during construction of the Rideau Canal. The building is located at the entrance locks of the Rideau Canal and is the oldest surviving stone building in Ottawa with 2 feet thick stonewalls. It officially became the By Town Museum in 1951. There is said to be a few different ghost haunting this museum. One of the people that is suppose to be haunting the museum is the builder of the Canal “Colonel John By” and another is his assistant “General Dunan Mc Nab”. Staff at the museum over the years has reported strange events like those that TV is turning on and off, lights staying on after being turned off, strange messages appear on computer screens when no one is in the room, voices of men yelling and even some angry voices saying “Get Out”. Some visitors mostly women to the museum have reported being pushed hard but no one is in the room, while other have heard children crying in the doll exhibit and seen dolls wink and move. Even to date this is suppose to be one of the most active haunted places in Canada.

Peterborough Lift Lock

Known at one time as one of the largest lift locks in the world, Peterborough Lift Lock has it ghost tails. The lift lock construction began in 1896, finished in 1904, and officially opened to boating on July 9, 1904. Many died while building the pylons for it and many died after from suicides off it. It is said that many ghost roam the labyrinth of underground tunnels within the lift lock. Even Creepy Canada has done a TV show on it. I live here in Peterborough and there is a visitor’s tour of the inside of the lift lock. Legend has it that all the deaths surrounding the Lift Lock are due to an innocent woman who was burnt as a witch in the early 1840’s here in Peterborough. This Lift Lock is still fully functionally today and still known to be extremely haunted.

Skeleton Park “Mc Burney Park”

Back in 1813 to 1865, this park was known as Kingston’s Upper Cemetery. What this was, was a mass cemetery/grave site containing more then 100,000 bodies which all died from contagious epidemics. In 1894, Municipal government tried to remove the remains but many locals objected due to fear that contagious diseases might start again if dug up. The cemetery was transformed into Frontenac Park in 1895 and then became what it is known as today “Mc Burney Park” in 1965. It is said that over the years many different remains have surfaced through out the park thus giving it the nickname “Skeleton Park”.