“It seems that haunted walks are popular in Canada, too. I had never heard about that kind of thing before we went to the US two years ago. We saw many of them but never attended one. Perhaps French people are too rational”. This line in a letter from my long-time pen friend in Paris was a response to a clipping I had sent her of the Haunted Walk in Ottawa. Her comment got me to thinking of how to reply to her, as most North Americans are said to believe in ghosts and the supernatural. When I think of my Ottawa base, there are a fair number of “haunted” places here: the Ottawa Jail/Youth Hostel, Watsons’ Mill, Lisgar Collegiate and the Bytown Museum…. Mustn’t forget the Ottawa Haunting and Paranormal Group! So I did a little research…
Ghosts and other spooky things can now, mostly, be explained the more we study and understand the brain and how it functions. Science is one result of the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment, as I understand it, was a development in 18th Century European philosophy and scholarship that advocated the thinking that natural phenomenon had rational explanations; it should be explored and questioned. Those questions needed to be answered, sensibly. However, as the British, Spanish and French settled North America, initially, in the 16th Century, they did not have the influence of the Enlightenment. Nor did they have the benefit of the Daily Telegraph’s article "Horrors of Hallowe'en are all in the mind" (30/10/2007), which gives plausible, scientific explanations for the paranormal. Perhaps a Celtic influence from Britain full of tales of ghouls and hobgoblins as well as ancient myths made the difference? I know someone who placed a “witch bottle” (trap bad influences) in his roof even now! But then why do the Francophone areas have some of the most famous ghost stories in Canada, like that of the witch Le Corriveau, Quebec City, the ghost of Father Renard of the Lac le Biche Mission, Alberta, and the cursed ring of Marguerite de Roberval of Quirpon, Newfoundland.
North America was a vast wilderness to the settlers arriving from the Old World. Imagine what it must have been like for these immigrants coming to a land of open spaces, of mountain ranges, of seemingly impenetrable forests. Definitely not a village in Sussex, Lower Saxony, or the Languedoc; these people faced harsh challenges in a new world so unlike what they knew, a world that must have seemed wild and uncontrollable at times. Odd things happened – still do. Naturally, they would have tried to come up with a reason for that sound, that fog, that glow… New traditions and old traditions each had their own explanations for phenomenon. Interacting with the aboriginal population also probably influenced their ways of thinking. That has not left Canada; after all, the 2010 Olympic mascots are from Native culture: the sea bear Miga, the guardian spirit Sumi, the sasquatch Quatchi and their sidekick the Vancouver Island marmot Mukmuk. Quite rightly so, the choice of these mascots echoes the land of the Pacific Northwest and the rich aboriginal culture of Canada as a whole. There is a tapestry of cultures that mingle in Canada; these immigrants, over the past 400 years, have brought their belief systems with them. For instance, there are the Irish bog hags and the Ukrainian vampires. (I’m starting to think I’ve watched far too many episodes of “Creepy Canada”.) Did this result in a giant melting pot of legends?
There has been immigration of all types of peoples over centuries to this continent. France most likely has a relatively homogenous population, even with the influx of immigrants, and its land has been settled for a much longer time than North America. So, maybe the national psyche is not as prone to belief in the supernatural. However, that does not explain the lure of the paranormal in the UK, which also has been settled for a long time with a homogenous population, until recently. For instance, ghost walks are popular in the UK too (despite the Enlightenment). I went on one in York, late on an autumn eve – the atmosphere just isn’t right any other time. Also one must not forget the popularity of such UK shows as, “Most Haunted”. I do find it interesting that on one website devoted to the paranormal there were 130 ghost stories submitted from Canada, 142 from the UK, 1273 from the US and 4 from France. Of those four, one was about a ghost walk in London, England. In Canada the Ontario Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society is not only a History Television approved site but is also listed as a resource on the National Library of Canada website. Why the disparity?
So I have a reply for Gaëlle, which clarifies and yet does not clarify anything. Does our modern North American belief in ghosts and other things that go bump in the night go back to our past, to the centuries that have passed – a build up of insecurity, a fear of the unmanageable spaces, unknown people and unfamiliar cultures encountered in the New World? If so, why do we still hold onto it, this sense of a lack of control? And yet, cultural influences aside, supernatural explanations fill a need for a reason, an explanation of the unusual or the natural – even if it is not rational. As for me, I still say there is definitely “something” on the back stairs of city hall’s heritage building. I wonder if Gaëlle will believe me.
