There’s a great opening to a very familiar gothic horror story: “True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”
It’s fitting when thinking about finding a safe place to be tell-tale hearts — somewhere to open up about things that make you wonder if you’re mad. Somewhere like Spirits with Spirits in Winnipeg.
The speaker series with open mic is a live storytelling event where people swap ghost stories over drinks — and maybe even hear something from the other side.
Canadians tend to hang on to their ghost stories. But give them a little liquid courage in the right venue, and the muscles that help us talk start to loosen.
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story aside, the co-founders of the Giving Up the Ghost podcast — Jas Flamand and Sher Sigurdson — along with lead investigators from the Winnipeg Paranormal Group, Ashley Barnes and Kelly Smith, have revived their live storytelling.
The two groups first connected when the Winnipeg Paranormal Group invited Flamand and Sigurdson to investigate the Auberge Clemence Inn B&B in Elie, Manitoba.
That was four years ago. Now they’ve reteamed to bring Spirits with Spirits back to life.
“I’m glad we found these ladies and they found us,” Flamand said. “We don’t really investigate, but we love talking with people and hearing stories … so yeah, we sat in an old nunnery with each other.”
From spooky B&Bs to historic pubs, the group’s ghostly gatherings have only grown.
This year, Spirits with Spirits was first held May 28 at the King’s Head Pub, fittingly located on King Avenue. In 2024, the event took place at Little Brown Jug Brewing Company. Not to ghost the previous venue, but the King’s Head has something a little extra.
“This place has more of the elements of what we’re about. It’s known to be a haunted place,” Flamand said during a May Zoom call with Barnes and Smith. “Very actively haunted, every day.”
Built in 1896, the King’s Head has seen many transformations before becoming a restaurant in the 1980s.
In Haunted Winnipeg: Ghost Stories from the Heart of the Continent, author Matthew Komus details two main hauntings at the pub. It’s not unusual to hear chairs moving or phantom footsteps in the basement or on the second floor.
There are also fleeting, unsettling glimpses out of the corner of the eye — perfect for anyone with a love for Poe-style supernatural thrillers. In the basement, one spirit has a habit of hiding utensils and glasses. Upstairs, there’s “Bob,” who’s a bit more serious than the prankster below.
The first hour of Spirits with Spirits is dedicated to a theme or topic. After that, it’s open mic for anyone who wants to share their brushes with the unexplained.
“People can come if they’re so inclined, and if they’re comfortable doing so, we want them to share their stories,” Barnes said. “Maybe it triggers something in others, like, ‘Yeah, that happened to me too.’”
“We want to get rid of the stigma that’s still out there about ghosts,” Flamand added. “It’d be nice if people had a safe environment where they could talk about it and feel comfortable.”
Barnes connected with the King’s Head’s current owner, Chris Graves, through a quick email.
“The space we had last year was amazing, but it wasn’t a haunted location,” she said. “So I went online and found their email.”
“It’s taken a really long time for us to establish a good rapport with people,” Smith added. “I don’t know if they thought we were dancing around the fire praying to the devil or something, but once museums saw what we were doing, a lot more people opened up to it.”
Flamand and Sigurdson launched Giving Up the Ghost in January 2019. Their first episode? Winnipeg’s spiritualist landmark, Hamilton House.
“Our biggest pull has always been our first episode, the Hamilton House,” Flamand said. “From the get-go, we were obsessed with its logic — and it’s right across from Elmwood Cemetery, the second-oldest cemetery in Winnipeg.”
Bring up the spiritualist movement in Canada, and it won’t be long before someone mentions Dan Aykroyd’s family. But that’s a story for another day.
Whether you’re a skeptic, believer or just in it for whetting your whistle, Spirits with Spirits returns June 25 to summon stories. The Winnipeg Paranormal Group will also host a public ghost hunt at Dalnavert Museum on July 4.
Photo courtesy Giving up the Ghost podcast