Nova Scotian journalist Craig Ferguson is digging up old ghosts to shed light on some of the province’s most intriguing scandals buried beneath cemetery headstones.
But he’s not chasing the usual ghosts. It’s true crime and history that haunt the cases he tackles in Bell Fibe TV1’s Graveyard Detective.
“It’s stories that begin and end in the burial ground, in the cemetery, and because of that, there is an inherent spookiness,” Ferguson said during an October Zoom conversation. “I was looking for a writing project that had some engine in it.”
It all started through his social media account, Dead in Halifax, where he shared stories from his walks through local cemeteries. In the series, he presents three true crime stories over four episodes, including the 1925 murder of Cape Breton coal miner William Davis, the discovery of a skeleton at the site of Fort Anne in Annapolis Royal, and the killing of Everett Lewis, husband of folk artist Maud Lewis.
“You can walk through a cemetery every day, and if you’re curious about the stories of the people who are buried there, you can keep yourself busy for the rest of your life,” he said.
That curiosity has led him to explore how those buried lived their lives and how the world around them changed.
Along the way, he digs into the history of coal mining in Cape Breton, the many occupations of one of the most contested plots of land in North America, and even the Victorian system of poor houses in Nova Scotia — the same system Everett Lewis grew up in.
Research is a big part of telling these stories, but it’s familiar ground for Ferguson. He published Dead in Halifax: Stories of Adventure, Scandal, Heartbreak and Heroism with Formac Publishing in 2022.
“It’s everybody from prime ministers to people whose stories have never been told before,” he said of the book. “People I call the lesser memorialized. Once they’re dead, they’re sort of forgotten unless somebody’s still telling their stories.”
This time, he’s focused on stories beyond the provincial capital, using the TV series to explore Cape Breton Island and beyond.
Interestingly, Ferguson grew up in London, Ont., far removed from the coal mining labour his great-grandfather and grandfather endured in Nova Scotia.
“I got to learn a lot, really fast, about the conditions in the 1920s in coal mining in Cape Breton, which is some of the hardest living and working conditions anyone in this country has ever experienced,” he said.
With 52 strikes in five years, it’s no wonder. The United Mine Workers of America, District 26, clashed with British Empire Steel Corporation between 1920 and 1925. Miner William Davis, whose story appears in Graveyard Detective, was killed by company police during a confrontation at a power plant in New Waterford.
His death is remembered each year on June 11 as Davis Day. While researching, Ferguson also sought out the unmarked grave of his own great-grandfather.
“We found the place. But, as you know, unmarked graves are hard to find,” he said. “We found the cemetery and we found the neighbourhood my grandfather grew up in. I felt like I was learning a lot of my own story along the way.”
There’s a spiritual journey woven through his research as well.
“You have to scratch the paint off the window to see through to the other side, which is a lot of the attraction of paranormal stories or spooky stories,” he said. “They’re a way of reconnecting with a history we feel like we’ve forgotten or lost touch with, and a lot of what happens in cemeteries is about getting as close to that veil as you can.”
He gets close to the veil surrounding local lore, too, as he explores the life and death of Everett Lewis, husband of celebrated folk artist Maud Lewis.
Maud died in 1970, and Everett was murdered nine years later. After his death, investigators found he had $30,000 hidden away.
“Meanwhile, they were living in this public-facing poverty, where people worried she didn’t get enough to eat, and he’d socked away this small fortune,” Ferguson said.
Some of the most striking details involve Everett’s final hours, including a moment of penitence when he spoke to Reverend Stephen Wade the night before he was killed.
“Reverend Wade told me Everett asked if there was any hope for someone like him, and he knew he was late in his life,” Ferguson recalled. “Before he could ask God for any kind of forgiveness, he was attacked during a robbery and killed. “So, he never got the opportunity Pastor Wade offered him for some sort of absolution.”
Ferguson and producer Donna Davies explore all these stories in the four episodes of Graveyard Detective, which premiered on October 23 on Bell Fibe TV1.
Photo courtesy Craig Ferguson