Cornerstone Supernatural is marking 10 years of the Dead of Night at Haney House in Maple Ridge.
The B.C. investigators have been collaborating with the museum on an annual fundraiser for the better part of a decade. Each year, directors Paul Busch and Janine McCaw say it feels like they’re dropping in on family friends.
“One of the things we wanted to focus on at the very beginning is the history rather than the haunting,” Busch said in a late September phone conversation. “When we first approached Shea (Henry) with this, she never wanted it to be a haunted house.”
Henry has since moved on to Heritage BC as executive director, but Cornerstone Supernatural has kept working with the Maple Ridge Museum and Archives. The event started as a single night. By year three, it had grown to two.
“What we do for them is one of the largest fundraisers for Haney House,” Busch said. “The beautiful thing about this place is that 98 percent of what’s in that house is original. You never get that from historical places.”
Those items include the death mask of Thomas and Anne Haney’s first daughter, Mary Florence, who died of diphtheria in 1886 at age 11. Her portrait hangs in the parlour. The house itself was built in 1883 by the Haneys after they moved to B.C. from Paris, Ont.
Keeping the history front and centre, and staying in touch with communities around Maple Ridge in the shadow of Golden Ears Provincial Park, is current executive director Gordana Dimovska.
“We kind of let Cornerstone do their thing,” she said in a mid-September phone call. The house was handed over to the province in 1979 with most of its furnishings. “Pretty much everything in there is original, except for a few things that we bring in for various exhibits.”
Museum and Archives
The death portrait of Mary Florence
Haney.
Dimovska hasn’t experienced any activity herself. People she’s spoken with have said they’ve felt things. The house has electric lighting, but there are still corners the lights don’t reach.
“I think the house itself does have a very, very old energy to it,” she said. “It’s like people could actually be living here.”
Cornerstone investigator Gary Kroes has done mini-investigations in the room of Jeremiah and Daniel Haney.
“He always gets some activity, which is really bizarre,” Busch said. “There’s no reason for it.”
One of the most striking moments came during an investigation when McCaw photographed a mirror in 2022. They couldn’t explain why at first. The image showed a shadow figure in the background by the door, across from the piano.
“There was nothing there, by the way, until we took the picture,” Busch said. “That was shocking. EVPs are one thing — that’s probably the majority of what people get for evidence — but pictures and videos, that’s a whole other level.”
Other rooms that may pick up activity when guests visit for the Dead of Night include the priests’ room, used when travelling clergy came through the port town. Anne, the matriarch, was a staunch Catholic, and Port Haney was a little wild, with a hard-working, rough-around-the-edges workforce and a constant flow of alcohol. There was also the makeshift sanatorium set up on the verandah for Birdie, who died of tuberculosis.
“I kind of leave the door open,” Dimovska said of the paranormal. “I’m not going to come down either way — ‘Oh, there are no ghosts’ or ‘There are definitely ghosts.’
“For me, it’s kind of fun to know whatever’s out there might be out there.”
Lydia Williams, owner of Ghostly Vancouver Tours, will volunteer in one of the rooms for the October 3 night. Investigator Vanessa Zappala also works with her on tours in New Westminster.
In previous years, Cornerstone has raised over $15,000 for museums and heritage locations along the Fraser River. One hundred percent of the money raised goes to the Haney House, as well as other locations like Kilby Historic Site.
The Dead of Night runs October 2-3 at Haney House in Maple Ridge, British Columbia