It’s a late August afternoon at Ottawa’s Bytown Museum and staff member Armand is outside manning the lemonade stand.
The landmark is buzzing with activity as visitors stroll along the locks off Canal Lane, and the sun beats down on a divot of history carved out by thousands of Irish and French workers under the supervision of Lieutenant-Colonel John By.
For $6, you can get yourself a refreshing drink and a ghost story from Armand.
On this particular day, he shares the tale of a museum visitor. They were standing by the D’Arcy McGee exhibit on the third floor when a woman in the group said, “D’Arcy McGee, if your spirit is around, give me a sign.”
Armand, still skeptical, said the woman told him her phone pinged right after. It was a notification from her doorbell camera app. When she opened the live feed, no one was there.
“It happened right after she said, ‘Give me a sign,’” Armand recalled. “She was so startled she had to come downstairs and tell us at the front desk.”
Those kinds of moments don’t usually happen during the day. Most of the activity kicks off during evening ghost walks or when staff are closing for the night. But the Bytown Museum — the city’s oldest stone building — is packed with stories, many centred around the third floor, the basement vault and the stairwells.
Father of Confederation and a death hand
The McGee exhibit is dedicated to Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of Canada’s Fathers of Confederation.
Born in Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland, McGee opposed British rule and fled to Boston in 1848. Living there shifted his politics; he rejected American republicanism and anti-Catholic sentiment. By 1857, his moderate views brought him north to the Province of Canada.
Ten years later, he was elected to Parliament as a Liberal-Conservative representing Montreal West.
His about-face from fiery nationalist to monarchist, along with his denunciation of the Fenian Brotherhood, cost him support among Irish Catholics. The Fenians, an Irish republican group based in the U.S., backed violent plans to invade Canada and pressure Britain to release Ireland.
On April 7, 1868, McGee became the first Canadian politician to be assassinated, shot in the back of the head outside his Sparks Street boarding house. Patrick J. Whelan was arrested and found guilty, though Haunted Walk guide Monica Vella notes Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald unethically sat in on the trial, likely to secure a conviction.
Whelan maintained his innocence but was hanged in February 1869 before a crowd of 5,000. The execution was botched; his neck didn’t snap, and he slowly strangled in the snowstorm.
How does McGee tie into the Bytown Museum? His “death hand” is displayed in the exhibit. Normally, a death mask would be taken, but since McGee was shot in the head, plaster casting wasn’t an option. Instead, a mould of his hand was made, preserving the fingers of a poet and journalist.
Some say that the hand fuels the paranormal activity on the museum’s third floor. Staff have reported footsteps and breath on their necks, while students on field trips have experienced sudden nosebleeds. And that’s just one artifact — others include hair wreaths and Victorian death photography.
The Thomas D’Arcy McGee exhibit at the Bytown Museum, featuring the death hand.
Experiments with the occult
Some of the museum’s creepier reports — whispers, growls, phantom sighs — are more recent. One story goes that a staff member once held a séance with a spirit board inside the vault.
The vault, built in 1827, was used as storage during the construction of the Rideau Canal. The canal was a military project, meant to move arms from Montreal to Kingston in case of another American invasion.
Tour guide Monica Vella says staff have heard two men arguing in the vault, but the voices stop when investigated. Many suspect the bickering spirits are John By and General Duncan McNab.
Vella herself had a startling encounter. While giving a tour on the third floor, just as she paused mid-story about McGee’s death hand, a sigh brushed past her ear.
“I jumped out of my skin,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what to do. I asked the couple I was with if they had heard it. They hadn’t. It was one of the most visceral things I’ve ever experienced.”
Other staff say they’ve been blocked by an invisible force from entering the vault. Some liken the process of forcing themselves inside the vault to get acclimatized to the room to being in a prison cell, which explains why some avoid the room altogether.
By the By
Ottawa was once called Bytown, after the man who built the Rideau Canal. The name switched in 1855, drawn from the Algonquin word adawe, meaning “to trade.”
By’s statue overlooks the canal from Major’s Hill Park, though some say his spirit still watches the museum. Guides believe he and McNab are the ones whispering in the vault.
The Commissariat, built in 1827, became a museum in 1917. The Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa moved in by 1951, later opening membership to men and becoming the Historical Society of Ottawa. Parks Canada helped renovate it in the 1980s, and the Bytown Museum reopened in 1985.
The entrance to the vault in the Bytown Museum, where two men have been heard arguing.
Finding his passion for the paranormal
Mark Leslie Lefebvre honed his love for the paranormal when he moved to Ottawa from Sudbury to attend Carleton University.
The author of Creepy Capital: Ghost Stories of Ottawa and the National Capital Region is en route to his high school friend’s home to help him move. Steve Gaydas, to whom the book is dedicated, is the person he’s helping.
“Ottawa was the place where I fell in love with researching those stories,” he said during a late August phone interview. “It was going on the ghost walks of Ottawa that turned me on to history.
“I’d always been fascinated with the paranormal, but it was actually going on a ghost walk and realizing, oh my God, history can be interesting and fascinating because you have all these ghosts and you can’t tell a good ghost story without history.”
What really brought his interest to the forefront was a collection of dolls that used to be on the third floor of the Bytown Museum. It was first brought to his attention in Joel Sutherland’s book, Haunted Canada 4
“That really captured my imagination because it was just one of those exhibits that’s no longer there, but it was the story about hearing whispers coming from where the dolls were, hearing sometimes crying, and I have to admit, when I went on my first tour after learning about the haunted dolls, I was both relieved and disappointed that the exhibit was no longer in place.”
He picked up more tales from Haunted Walk founder Glenn Shackleton: phantom footsteps on the stairs, the backbreaking labour of the Rideau Canal, and the restless spirits of those who died building it.
“There’s something about that story that lends itself not only to the Bytown, but even to the Chateau Laurier and several other stories of haunted locations that are adjacent to the Rideau Canal,” Leslie said. “With that many people, with that many spirits, who died doing really excruciating, backbreaking work in not good conditions, speaks not only to the element of the ghost, but also speaks to the power of the human spirit.”
A piece of forgotten history
The Commissariat sits on the unceded territory of the Anishnaabe Algonquin people, and was once a prime fishing ground.
Before entering the building, guides sometimes share one of its darkest stories. According to oral history, British soldiers raped and murdered an Algonquin teen girl during the canal’s construction. Her spirit is said to still wander the canal and Parliament Hill, seeking justice.
“It’s a really powerful story,” Vella said. “It’s actually a hard story for a lot of our guides to share, myself included, because it’s a really emotional thing. It’s a thing that’s still a part of our history, part of our present-day society where these women and girls are being murdered.”
Artist Janet Kaponicin, who grew up in Ottawa, has fought to keep the story present. In an article for the Ottawa Citizen, she recounted the tale told to her by her grandmother, Angelique Kaponicin Maheux.
The full story goes that a group of Algonquin people were travelling up the Ottawa River from Lake of Two Mountains (Mount Calvaire d’Oka and Saint-Joseph-du-Lac Hill) and returning to Maniwaki. The bluff that Parliament buildings now reside atop was called Barracks Hill, and there was a British army barracks built there during the construction of the Rideau Canal.
On one particular night, the teen Algonquin girl left the group and didn’t return to their camp. Her mother went searching for her and spotted her body, sitting on the stump. Indigenous women never left their hair unbraided, and the mother knew something was amiss. A party of warriors found that she was dead, the victim of rape and murder. Government men were seen climbing back up to Barrack Hill.
Angered by the violent act, the Algonquin warriors wanted justice, but the chief said no, leaving justice to the girl’s spirit. They collected her body and interred her elsewhere, never to return to the site.
The oldest stone building in Ottawa
The Bytown Museum might look unassuming, but it has a vibe.
“Every time I approach this building, I feel uneasy, like something is waiting inside,” Vella admitted. “Even if nothing happens, it feels like we’re not supposed to be here.”
Still, for anyone into ghosts and history, the Commissariat is a must-visit. The Haunted Walk tours run until November 8, leaving from their Sparks Street office.
Superstitious Times readers who order their tickets online can use the promo code “SUPERSTITIOUS” to get 15% off tickets for Ghosts of the Bytown Museum through 2025.