In the pitch-black prairie nights near St. Louis, Saskatchewan, an eerie glow might catch your eye. North of the village, on a private farm, lies the scar of an old railway line—a stark reminder of how essential railways were to the development of Saskatchewan and Canada at large. It also serves as a symbol of the colonial drive to bind the country together across its diverse landscapes.
Given the railway’s importance in Canadian history, it’s no surprise that tales of spectral trains have arisen. Some claim to see the ghosts of old steam engines hurtling through the region. Others tell a gruesome story of a train conductor or engineer decapitated in a tragic accident on the tracks during the 1920s.
Though there are no official records of such an incident, Jo-Anne Christensen included the tale in her 1995 book, Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan:
“Legend has it that the unfortunate man was doing a routine check of the tracks when he was struck down by a train and decapitated,” she wrote. “Locals say the light is a sign that he is still looking for his head.”
However, Christensen also pointed out that the dramatic stories surrounding the light’s origins don’t match the actual phenomenon, noting that the glow resembles the light from a swinging lantern rather than a train.
A fixture in the community
The phantom light has become a hallmark of St. Louis, with residents passing down stories of the train conductor and his ghostly lantern through generations. For decades, locals and visitors alike have ventured to the old tracks in hopes of witnessing the mysterious glow.
Rita Gareau, co-owner of the Chez Nous Bed and Breakfast, remembers a night in 1976 when she and her friends, teenagers at the time, went to see the light.
“We were more interested in partying and each other than the phantom lights,” she admitted. “We did go for a walk on it when it wasn’t barred up because now you can’t get to it.”
Despite their casual attitude, the light didn’t disappoint.
“We did see a light in the distance coming towards us,” she recalled,” and then it would disappear and reappear further back and come at us again. But every time we got close to it, it would just do the same thing, but further. The distance would always be the same away from us.”
With that, the teenagers’ gaggle turned around and returned to their cars. These days, the best viewing spot is on private property, meaning residents must break trespassing rules to uphold the century-old tradition.
History of the region
Ken Guedo, a volunteer archivist at the Prince Albert Historical Museum, has worked tirelessly to preserve Saskatchewan’s history. He explained how St. Louis, originally the Boucher Settlement, was founded in 1882 when Jean Baptiste Boucher and several Métis settlers journeyed along the Fort Carlton Trail. By 1914, the railway’s development led to the settlement relocating upriver, forming the present-day village named after King Louis IX.
Guedo has also experienced the ghost light firsthand. He visited the site with his family, curious to see the phenomenon but skeptical about its supernatural origins.
“There are lots of explanations for it. Whether it’s a ghost light or not, I don’t know,” he admitted during a 2023 phone conversation.
When Gueda and his family visited the site 10 kilometres north of Saint Louis, they saw a light in the distance. However, Gueda believed it was simply the refracted headlights of cars on a distant highway.
“We’re standing there waiting for something to come down the tracks with the hair standing up on the back of our necks, but nothing did come down the tracks,” he recalled.
Provincial importance
Kristin Catherwood grew up in Radville, Saskatchewan and pursued a career in folklore and history. She’s the Site and Visitor Experience Manager for the Fort Battleford and Fort Walsh National Historic Sites, but she’s keen on the history of Saskatchewan in general, especially when it comes to the province’s ghostly lore.
Based out of Moose Jaw, Catherwood has a deep interest in all that transpired during the shaping of the province. And she’s always being approached about ghost tours for both Fort Battleford and Fort Walsh.
When it comes to historical sites, the idea of haunted history is not a trend. It’s always there and has the legs to keep walking.
“A lot of tourism things are faddish and they come and go, but ghost tourism seems to just have longevity,” she said, during an October 2024 phone conversation. Which explains the fascination within the province, and abroad, with the Saint Louis Ghost Light.
But for the residents of the province, as well as across Canada, the phenomenon is well known. It’s so well known in Canadian folklore that the Canada Post made a stamp back in June 2014.
“I would say it’s very recognizable,” Catherwood said of the Saint Louis Ghost Light, which is a five-hour drive from where she grew up in Saskatchewan. “I knew about it as a child. It’s not something I just learned about as a folklorist or as someone who worked in culture and heritage in the province.”
She admitted that she wasn’t quite sure of the source that shone that light on her imagination, but she suspects Joanne Christensen played a role in her book, Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan,as well as TV shows.
Although Catherwood admitted she is not an expert on railroad history or the region, she has been to Saint Louis.
“I made it a point to drive through the town because it was well known. It’s famous for this phenomenon,” she said, adding that she didn’t look for the light after dark. “It’s grounded in my knowledge of Saskatchewan history in general.”
During her folklore undergrad at Memorial, she wrote about comparing the Saint Louis Ghost Light phenomenon with the lore of ghost ships in Newfoundland.
“I made the argument in a paper … why do these stories circulate? Why do they have such a grip on folk’s imaginations?” she recalled. “The ocean is all-encompassing in a place like Newfoundland — that was where most people’s livelihoods came from either directly or indirectly. A lot of families there were seeing their men go out onto that giant force of the ocean every day to make their living. Of course, many didn’t come home.”
That pattern of ghostly lore and phantom lights on the ocean, making themselves known to other mariners, becomes a part of maritime cultures around the globe.
But that same livelihood, and the folklore around it, could be said about the sea of land that the Prairies are. And most of the livelihood as colonialism expanded into Indigenous and Metis territory, depended on the railways.
Additionally, the brush with mortality, during the cold brutal winters in the Grasslands, led settlers to share cautionary tales of accidents along the railway lines.
“At the time, I was looking at it very much from the settlement point of view, which is that for a lot of the settlers who came out west to Saskatchewan, this was a vast, seemingly wild and untamed landscape that was overwhelming, similar to the ocean in that it was so large.
“The horizon is such a defining force of our physical life out here and it’s one of those things that unless you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to even describe how the horizon is this point of focus.”
That sense of openness for a lot of settlers was jarring, and the railroad represented the taming of that flat landscape.
“(It’s) similar to how seeing the ship coming into the harbour after a long winter, knowing that it had supplies on it; it had mail on it, was such an important feature of people’s lives in earlier times,” Catherwood added. “Similarly, the train coming into town represented that to prairie settlers. ‘Okay, supplies are coming in and letters from loved ones far away could be on that train.’”
Winters could be long and deadly on the Saskatchewan plain. The winter of 1947 has been referred to as one of the roughest on record. On January 30, 1947, a 10-day blizzard hit the southern portion of the province, shutting it down. The snow drifts blocked the railway lines and severed ties to both Calgary and Winnipeg. Environment Canada even calls the whiteout the “Worst Storm in Canadian Railroad History”.
So, the railroad has had many environmental disasters. No major railway disasters have hit Saskatchewan though. That’s not to say accidents do happen. A train derailment occurred in Gerald, Saskatchewan in October 2024. One man was killed when his tractor collided with the train.
Similar locations across North America
The St. Louis ghost light is not the only phenomenon in North America. Ghost Road in Port Perry, Ontario is another location with a phantom light. Ghost Road has been debunked by several investigation groups, including the Toronto Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society.
The original story had it that a man riding his motorcycle in either the 1950s or 1960s went too fast and crashed it, losing his head in the process. Ever since a phantom light has been seen along Pine Point Road at the Mississauga Trail in Scugog.
“The light, as examined by several Toronto Ghosts researchers, actually does exist but does not, as stated, travel down the road. It appears above the road and only if facing South. The image has been caught on film but the pictures belay the fact that the light ain’t much to look at. It appears as if it was a small plane some miles in the distance but hovering,” an investigator reported. “Even more intriguing is several people who have investigated the haunting have not been able to find any reports of the death of the motorcyclist in any of the local newspapers of the approximate time of the accident.”
The Marfa Lights in Marfa, Texas have been called both UFOs and will-o-the-wisps. Another similar explanation for them has been provided: the diffraction of distant car lights. Back in 2002, high school students Alysha Lederhouse and Shannon Dunn duplicated the phenomenon for their gold-medal-winning science fair project.
Pat Boyer, quoted in Christensen’s book, offered a compelling rebuttal to skeptics:
“My great-grandmother, she remembers when she was a teenager people talking about the light,” he wrote in response to MacPhedran. “When was a teenager there weren’t any cars.”
The persistence of these stories — passed down through generations — suggests that some mysteries leave an indelible mark on both land and memory.
Illustration courtesy of DreamUp AI Art