When you tour along with Colin Dickey in his 2016 book, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, you get the sense that most paranormal stories are a grift. There may be small details that can trace themselves back to real history, but the rest are part of a slick […]
Recent Posts
‘Haunted Hospitals’ gets the green light for Season 5
“Haunted Hospitals” has been renewed for a fifth season, and the producers are looking to revamp the episodes with a thematic refresh. “This season is a little different than past seasons,” series producer Kate Kung said, during an early June phone conversation. “We love stories from people who have spent […]
Groupthink and cults: a terrifying combination that is far too pervasive
The last week has been rather sensational for murder cults and couples. Former Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten is looking down the barrel of freedom, while Canadian serial rapist and teen killer, Paul Bernardo, was moved to a medium-security prison in Quebec. Van Houten, 73, witnessed California’s 2nd District […]
Ghost Tours of Fort George celebrates its 30th season
One of Canada’s longest-running ghost tours is celebrating 30 years. Ghost Tours of Fort George, founded by Kyle Upton and the Friends of Fort George, started in the summer of 1994. It’s one of the three remaining tours that started during the mid-1990s, which include Victoria Walking Tours, started by […]
Folklore is littered with chimeras — all the more reason to dissect the fiction
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a chimera as an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts. It seems the perfect term to use when discussing the strange creatures our ancestors first bore witness to when they were exploring the world. Imagine the first time an explorer crossed paths with a tapir, capybara, […]
Review: The Whisper on the Night Wind is the cryptozoology book we all need
Getting lost in a book is like getting lost in a dense forest. You never know when and where you’re going to get out. That’s part of the allure of writer-explorer Adam Shoalts’ 2021 book, The Whisper on the Night Wind, as he brings readers along for a good, old-fashioned […]
Peter Usborne influenced generations with The World of the Unknown books
The World of the Unknown: Ghosts is a book that sends an electrical current of energy through all of those involved in the paranormal. It connects us all. Its cousins, two further books on Monsters and UFOs published by Usborne Books, kept those with vivid imaginations hyperactive. All three of The World of the Unknown books […]
Is the paranormal seen as a liability in Canada? Investigators share their thoughts
Like an underground river, there is a large current of paranormal interest that runs just beneath the surface of Canada. Ghost stories are shared around campfires as a rite of passage. People travel to historic locations to uncover the past, and maybe to cross paths with a spirit or two. […]
Giant squids are a tale as old as time in Newfoundland
Newfoundland is swimming in mariner folklore, but no other story about a run-in with Architeuthis dux captivates audiences more than the Squires-Picot sighting on Oct. 26, 1873. Two fishermen and a boy were fishing in the tickle near Bell Island, just a few miles north of St. John’s, when they […]
Kitchener writer Travis Watson compiles Canadian Sasquatch sightings in new book
Trepidation was stalking Travis Watson like a wild animal when he was writing Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia. Much like the eight-foot-tall suspected primate of Canadian folklore, his consternation loomed over him, giving him complicated feelings, as the subject of Bigfoot is one that heightens division. “There’s just an awful […]