My Semi-Ghost Stories

A Healthy Dose of Skepticism is Good.

In the past, I watched a lot of real-life ghost shows. There are two types of these television programs: hunting and reenactments. According to online sources, Ghost Hunting shows are fake. After watching one episode of one program, I saw where the hunters were in Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania, Romania. I realized that during that show, someone heard a ghost say something in English. I thought to myself that during Vlad the Impaler’s time, no one spoke English.

A real person can make the sound of doors closing and creaky old floors just as well as a ghost. The reason I know this is that my mother complains that I “slam” doors in the middle of the night. Although I don’t slam doors, they always make noise.

I don’t mind watching Real-Life Ghost Stories on TV that have actors portraying those ghosts. The real people who saw them are the ones telling the story. Otherwise, the reenactment ones.

With ghost stories and ghost tourism, you need a good sense of history, an adventurous spirit, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

I don’t know why I can’t see ghosts for myself. Perhaps I can feel them, but there might be other scientific explanations as well. However, I would like to share with you some sort-of-ghost stories that I have experienced myself.

The Hose and Hound Pub

The first of these stories occurred years and years ago in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I used to be a part of a singles’ meetup group. Our group just finished watching Tony ‘N Tina’s Wedding and interacting with its characters. All of us walked to the nearby bar, The Hose and Hound. There we ate, drank, and talked some more. I didn’t stay for very long. Because one man in my group was too intoxicated, I felt uncomfortable around him. I called my parents to pick me up and left.

I watched a reenactment of a Canadian Ghost Stories show the following week. I can’t recall its name. In this program’s episode, two Calgary buildings are both ‌‌haunted. One was a restaurant that was once a hotel, I believe. The other is The Hose and Hound.

Two animals haunted this bar. You can hear the ghost of a horse neighing (by the way, the horse’s name was Lightning, and it died in a fire), but the apparition that is the primary focus in this story is that of Barney the monkey.

How did it happen? The Hose and Hound Pub used to be a firehall in the early 1900s. Besides being Calgary’s first fire chief, Crappy Smart collected animals. Many of them lived in that hall. Barney was one of those animals. When Smart and his crew went to fight a fire one day, they left Barney tied to a pole, and then the monkey attacked a young boy out walking with his family.

Eventually, Smart had to put Barney down when he discovered what had happened. That monkey was dangerous to the community. Now, people working there hear the dishwasher automatically turn on, open and shut doors, things being thrown, and more.

It occurred to me ‌I had been there a week ago and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. But, if you want to know more about this building, go to: https://www.thehose.ca/history.php

A Haunted House

A year later, I went to Heritage Park on a date during the day. There were a few old buildings that were haunted. The Prince House is one of them. A ghost appears in one window. When I was inside the house, I looked at the photo of the woman who lived there. I thought she might be the ghost. I haven’t seen one there either.

My First and Only Ghost Tour

I moved to a small city in Saskatchewan 10 years ago. I found another pagan coven. There were also some people who were superstitious. There are many ghost stories I heard.

I even lived a block away from a haunted building. My apartment complex was next to a firehall museum. According to rumors, the ghost in that building was a firefighter who died there. At night, the museum workers can hear his footsteps on the stairs.

My story here, however, is about a ghost tour ‌I took with my coven. First, a little background. Just recovering from a flu, I was eager to take my very first ghost tour. I wore a mask at this event way before the pandemic. Yeah, I looked a little strange, but I explained why.

This ghost tour began at the firehall museum. The time was just after 6 p.m. We could not enter the building. Our guide asked the curator if we could go in, but was turned down.

By the way, all small businesses and the two malls in this small town close at 6 p.m. The only businesses that stayed open later were restaurants, the movie theatre, and big box stores like Walmart.

That was a bummer, because going into the building would have been more interesting than standing right next to it to discuss it. The tour guide, who could see ghosts, had an app where you could hear a hundred people talking at the same time. The idea is to communicate with apparitions whenever they appear.

I walked with these friends to another building near my house. This one was the original town hall turned into an arts center. Two ghosts haunted this one. One of them is a former musician. The other was a murder victim. Although I know little about this murder, it involved a restaurant owner who had a beef with one of his employees. The murder happened on the front of the steps of that building. We weren’t allowed in because there were classes going on that night.

We then went to the next building across the street from where I worked. The same thing happened there as with the other two: We couldn’t enter it. In fact, the area where this building stood used to be a sacred aboriginal burial ground. It is no wonder there are ghosts there. Some people who see ghosts often live or work on top of a what was once a cemetery or burial ground. I don’t understand why governments or businesses don’t tell people what used to be in the place they now live or work in. I know that the obvious answer is money. Someone has to get paid for owning land. However, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is the only place I know that doesn’t do this. I know that not all haunted buildings aren’t all built on burial grounds, either.

After that, my tour group visited a park that was once a penitentiary ‌until the mid-20th century. They hung a lot of criminals back then. Now you know who the ghosts are. In that area, I walked into something that the tour guide saw as a flash of light. I had to go back to see it again for her. Also, I saw an orb. Then again, it might have been something else, above and beyond the traffic on the road. That’s where I saw it.

Anyway, that whole ghost tour was disappointing. The buildings we visited (except for the Arts Centre) should have allowed us to go inside. No one in that town seems to be interested in ghost tourism. It would have been a good money-making opportunity. And as you guess, I never saw a ghost.

My Own Mother Can Feel and See Two of Them

Currently, I live with my mother, who thinks that the spirits of my late father and cat (both died the same year, two months apart) are still in the house. In the last instance, she told me she found the lights in one of the unused bedrooms were still on. She said my father, who slept in that room before he died, may have done it. I told her ‌she could have turned on those lights and forgotten about them hours later. I could have also forgotten to turn them off.

These stories have taught me ‌I cannot see ghosts, and that it is okay to be skeptical. Maybe I can feel them instead of seeing them, I’m not sure. All the lights may have been turned on by themselves for another reason, or something or someone else has triggered the sounds. When something out of the ordinary happens, it is nice to have some logical explanation.