There’s always a layer of history left behind with hauntings.
It’s a salient line proffered by Corine Carey in episode two of “History’s Most Haunted,” where the Beyond the Haunting team investigates some of Montreal’s darker moments in the 20th century.
Carey, Kelly Ireland and Leanne Sallenback are returning to the paranormal beat once again to explore six haunted cities in North America as the prologue for T+E’s Creep Week event.
“It’s not just new in the sense that it’s a Canadian team; we’re all female and sisters and best friends,” Carey said, during a late August Zoom conversation with the team, “But we do focus on the history and we do focus on telling that through a paranormal lens.”
Outside of Montreal, Beyond the Haunting visited Bell Island in Newfoundland, Salem, Mass.; New Orleans, Charleston and San Antonio, and explored each of the community’s unique histories.
While in Montreal — in the depths of a Quebecois winter —the trio investigated the Laurier Palace Theatre fire, the Lion D’Or and the Monument-National, home of National Theatre School, with a focus on the Sin City era of Montreal.
Built between 1891 and 1894, the Monument-National’s basement exhibition, the Eden Musée, was a cabinet of curiosities that exploited people through circus sideshows. Edouard Beaupre, an eight-foot-tall Metis man, was one of those victims that the Beyond the Haunting team tried to connect with.
Ireland, who is an empath, said that Beaupre was slow to approach the team, but eventually, they were able to sense the spirit’s emotions.
“I don’t want to say that his current emotions are what came through there,” she said. “He was conveying to me that he had felt in that layer of time. So, it was this hidden sadness that he would’ve held in.
“It felt almost like I could see through his eyes; people looking at him like he was just an object for us to laugh at, pay a quarter to see, but he was so much more than that.”
Their second Canadian stop was Bell Island (a.k.a. Ghost Island) is an hour’s drive west of St. John’s. While there, they explored the iron ore mines, the only Nazi U-boat attacks on North America during World War II, as well as the infamous Bell Island Hag.
“I was quite shocked because I’m a history teacher, and I’ve never seen that in a textbook,” Carey admitted, about the Nazi attacks in September and November 1942, which sunk four merchant ships. “When we investigated it, I was like, ‘How do we not know this?’ That’s a big deal. That needs to be shared.”
For the hag investigation, they ventured into Dobbin’s Garden, in the middle of a snow-ridden February night, only to get the cold shoulder from the entity.
“It was very, very cold, so therefore we weren’t able to stay as long as one would hope in February,” Ireland said. “Bell Island is definitely a place that we want to go back to. Every square inch of that place is haunted.”
The British Columbian trio first made their presence felt in “Haunted Gold Rush”, which premiered in October 2022 on T+E. Sallenback said the team hopes for a second season, but they’re mum on the details.
“We really hope audiences love (“History’s Most Haunted”),” she said.
With all of their investigations, there is a goal of helping both the living and the departed co-exist, and the trio will continue to bring that sense of empathy to their work.
“That’s just who we are. We’re not acting. We’re our authentic selves, and when we go into a place, we’re there to help people, and we’re there to help spirits,” Carey said. “If we can bring a little bit of peace or a little bit of resolution, or even validate what they’ve experienced … it gives them a release.”
“History’s Most Haunted” premieres on Sept. 8 at 10 p.m. ET on T+E during the channel’s free preview from September 4 to Nov. 5.