Wicked new St. John's Haunted Hike art by Rayne Gallows

I spent last weekend at the Sci-Fi On The Rock 7 convention here in St. John's. It was great fun, and smashed its attendance records from previous years, with over 5000 people through the doors. One of the things I loved about it most was that I got to meet and chat with people I might not have otherwise - fans, lovers of ghost stories, and other artists and enthusiasts.

One of the vendors at the event was Rayne Gallows Art and Design, who were selling fan art and doing on-the-spot cartoons of conference goers. I liked their stuff, and at the end of the con, I asked them if they'd be interested in doing up a new piece for the St. John's Haunted Hike.

A day later, here it is! I'll be using it as the new avatar for the St. John's Haunted Hike twitter account and Facebook page, and I'm sure it will pop up in other places too. I'm tremendously pleased with the art, and with the quick turnaround time and pricing of Rayne Gallows. If you need something like this done, definitely check them out!

Reflections on Sci-Fi On The Rock 7 for Saturday

I had a fun day today at Sci-Fi On The Rock 7! The costumes were great, the crowd was impressive, and people seemed to be enjoying themselves tremendously.

I sold bunch of books, and had great feedback from people who have been on the St. John's Haunted Hike, or who've read my books, or my column in the newspaper.  I had several people tell me how much they love the Hike, and had pictures taken with fans! Yay!

I've been letting people know that I'm running a contest this weekend. If you follow @dalejarvis on twitter or like my author facebook page, you will be entered to win a copy of "Haunted Waters".  And if you follow @sjhauntedhike or like the Hike's facebook page, you might win some free passes!  After the convention is over, I'll be taking all the new likes and follows and picking random winners. So start liking and following today!

I'll be back at SFOTR tomorrow, and will hosting the Paranormal Story Swap at 2pm. Hope to see some of you there, and I'll be signing books afterwards.

I've posted a bunch of pics into my "Pros, and Cons" facebook album, but one of the pics I like best is this one of steampunk aficionado Lilly Fisk, below! Great hat!

Gearing up for Sci-Fi On The Rock 7!

Sci-Fi On The Rock is Newfoundland's premiere science fiction & fantasy event. This is the 7th event, and it all takes place on April 26th to 28th of 2013, at The Holiday Inn, 180 Portugal Cove Road, St. John's. You can get more details on their website, Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.

It's been years since I've been able to participate in the convention. I was at the very first event, seven years ago, but for the past few years I've been out of town each year on the dates when it has been held. I had great fun at Atlanti-Con last year in Corner Brook, and I'm pleased to be part of this year's SFOTR. I'll have a writer's table with my books for sale. Stop by, say hello, and enter to win free passes to the St. John's Haunted Hike.

I'll also be hosting a ghost story workshop on Sunday afternoon at 2pm in the Lucas room called The Paranormal Story Swap.

From tales told around the campfire, to stories read by flashlight under the covers at night, everyone loves a good ghost story. And as fun as they are to hear and read, they are equally fun to share. The Paranormal Story Swap is an interactive workshop for storytellers and lovers of terrible tales, of all ages and abilities. I will tell a few of my own stories of true hauntings in Newfoundland and Labrador, and then help you share your own. Bring your stories, your enthusiasm for the unexplained, and your deepest fears!

See you this weekend!

Ghost Guy & Iron Man, Atlanti-Con 2012

Ghostly Drummer of Turk's Gut

I tracked down this week’s story, one of Conception Bay’s most intriguing local legends, with the assistance of Bride Power of the Turk’s Gut Heritage Committee, which has been working hard to preserve the oral history and folklore of the community.

You will not find the community of Turk’s Gut on any modern map, so you will just to believe me when I tell you that it exists. If you do manage to find it, drive down the old road towards the water and pull over when you get to the very the last house. It is the only house there, a bright red one, so I am sure you will not miss it.

Beside the house there are a few trees, and under their branches, hidden amongst the tall grass, there is long, flat stone. Stop there, and listen. For that flat stone marks the grave of the drummer of Turk’s Gut. And though he has been dead and buried for longer than anyone alive can remember, there are those who say his drumming has never ceased.

Exactly where the Drummer came from is something of a mystery. Some believe that the Drummer was a prisoner of war, while others hold that he arrived as a stowaway on a sailing ship. All that is known for certain is that one day in the early part of the 1800s, the Drummer simply appeared. He was dripping wet, as if the ocean had tried to swallow him down, found him inedible, and had spat him out onto dry land.

None of the good people of Turk’s Gut knew where the man had come from, nor did they know his true name. The man himself could offer little assistance, for he seemed to know just as little about his own identity as they did. It was clear that the man was suffering from some sort of amnesia. There was no doctor to provide assistance, and it was thought by the local people that he had suffered some sort of memory loss, perhaps due to a war injury.

While the stranger could not remember his name, or where he was born, or how he had arrived in Turk’s Gut, he did retain one impressive skill. He remembered how to play the drum. When one was placed in his hands, he played it with a skill that astonished all who heard him. Because he seemed to have no name of his own, the stranger was nicknamed “The Drummer” by the local residents.

The Drummer was taken in and shown great courtesy by a local family, the Simms. Over time, the Drummer was accepted as one of the community, and the sound of his drum became a part of the rhythm of local life. After living in Turk’s Gut for many years, the Drummer passed away. The Simms family buried the man on their property, and laid a long, flat stone over his grave to mark his final resting spot.

Eternal rest, however, seemed to elude the Drummer. After his death, ghostly hands could be heard beating on an invisible drum. Before long, stories began to spread along the coast that when people in the Drummer’s adopted home passed away, the Drummer could be heard for miles around.

The noise of the Drummer was heard only during the night, when all was quiet. It was as if he wanted no competition, so that there could be no mistaking his playing for what it was. It was also rumoured that on the eve of a local person's death the Drummer could be heard playing the drums under the windowsill of the person who was fated to die.

The long, flat rock that marked the Drummer’s grave was said to be located about seventy-five feet from where the Heritage House run by the committee now stands. So if you can find it, do pause for a moment beside that long, flat stone and listen, preferably in the evening, when all is quiet. Listen very carefully. If you hear the sound of a rhythm being tapped out on an invisible drum, it could be the Drummer, playing the music he loved so much in life. Or it could be a warning, a sign that someone you love, or even yourself, will be the next soul to join the Drummer beyond Death’s shadowy veil.

Interestingly, the nearby town of Brigus also claims a phantom drummer. The Brigus variant of the tale claimed that an English drummer had once made a promise to an old settler that the musician would drum the old man to his grave, and that he would also drum at the funerals of all his direct descendants.

Photo credit:  Splitting table on end of wharf, Turk's Gut.

Courtesy The Rooms Provincial Archives, VA 130-24.1

Photo by Charles C. Cousens,

July 1973, Charles C. Cousens fonds.

The ghosts of "Chicago: The Musical"

For the past few weeks, I have been spending a fair bit of time at the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John’s, in rehearsals for the upcoming TaDa! Events production of “Chicago: The Musical.”

Appropriately enough for a musical about murder, revenge, and adultery, there is a ghost story loosely associated with the show. The original Broadway production opened in 1975, running for several years. The show went through a couple incarnations, before being revived on Broadway in 1996, and a year later in the West End, London.

The 1997 London revival of “Chicago” took place at the the Adelphi Theatre. The theatre was rumoured to be haunted by the shade of the noted actor-manager William Terriss, owner of the Adelphi Theatre, and great friend of Henry Irving. Terris was murdered at the stage door in 1897 by a fellow actor and jealous rival, Richard Prince, who stabbed him three times with a dagger. Terris lived long enough to perish in the arms of his mistress, actress Jessie Milward.

“I’ll be back” were said to have been his final words.

True to his word, Terriss returned to haunt the backstage areas of the Adelphi Theatre. His ghost was first reported in 1928, when a stranger to the theatre saw a male figure in the laneway, a figure later identified as Terris from a photograph. Later, poltergeist activity was reported in the dressing room once used by Milward.

There are a few interesting bits of folklore surrounding the murder. One story relates that on the day previous to the killing, the actor’s understudy woke from a disturbing dream in which he had seen Terriss lying on the steps to the dressing room with a bloody, gaping chest wound. Another tale states that the murderer, Prince, was declared insane and spent the remainder of his life in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he spent his remaining days producing plays featuring himself as the leading character, with the other inmates in supporting roles.

I don’t know of any murdered actors hanging around the Arts and Culture Centre, waiting to spook the cast and crew of the St. John’s production of “Chicago.” However, the Centre may have a ghost with a fondness for musical numbers.

A few years ago, I got an email from a woman by the name of Jaimie, who had been working in the basement of the building. At the time, Jaimie had been working in the archives on a project which involved a lot of trips back and forth through the collection.

“I've always found the basement to be a little creepy,” she described. “I can hear voices and whispering and little snatches of song and such sometimes, but always assumed that it was just activity carrying through the ductwork from the children's library, which is directly over my head, or the theatre.”

One day she heard the noises again, on a day when the theatre was empty and the children's library had closed.

“I was moving a truck of books from one area towards another area,” she said, “and I ended up passing by a whole bunch of shelving units (those neat rolling ones), when passing by one of the aisles between the units, I saw someone standing there.”

Jaimie turned her head, expecting to find a lost library patron; “as we occasionally do,” she explained. Instead of another person, she found herself looking at nothing but an empty aisle and a pale grey concrete wall.

“The person that I'd seen was wearing dark colours,” she described. “I had the impression of something resembling a nun's habit.”

The site of the current Arts and Culture Centre was formerly the site of the Shannon Munn Memorial Orphanage. In 1918, Sir Edgar Rennie Bowering and Mrs Mary Munn presented the property, to be known as the Shannon Munn Memorial, to the Church of England Orphanage.

Is the basement of the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre home to the ghost of a singing nun? If you’ve had a strange experience in the building, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll be busy polishing my lines, and keeping my eyes open for ghosts, and for jealous rivals.

Dale Jarvis can be reached at info@hauntedhike.com

Tickets for "Chicago: The Musical" now on sale at the Arts and Culture Centre, St. John's

"Chicago: The Musical" Facebook event listing

The fairy folk at the Arts and Culture Centre, March 28

This Thursday, Kittiwake Dance Theatre is inviting audiences to explore the world of traditional Newfoundland fairylore with their production "Reflections: Fairie Fey." The show how starts at 8pm and runs 70 mins, with no intermission, on the Arts and Culture Centre mainstage. It is inspired by local fairy folklore and features narration by the late, great Margaret Hitchens.

Here is what the company promises for the night:

Kittiwake Dance Theatre’s "Reflections: Fairie Fey" continues the exploration of the folklore surrounding fairies in nature, song and dance. The magic of the forest comes alive with the haunting voices of the trees, the movement of the fairies and the unexpected human element creating the mystery and the folktales. The lure of Fairie Fey is so enticing that the audience will be totally captivated as the story unfolds. Your presence is necessary to ensure that the magic manifests at its greatest. This show fuses dance of various forms (contemporary/modern, ballet, hip-hop, and aerial circus work), with storytelling and song. 

Featuring the talents of: choreographers Martin Vallee and Erika Wilansky; storyteller Margaret Hitchens; musical director Justin Goulding; and, the Kittiwake dancers.

I'll see you there! Put some bread in your pockets, just in case.

Thursday March 28th
8pm
Arts and Culture Centre
St. John's

Strange holes, UFOs, and water-sucking aliens

(photo: Windsor Lake, August 1949.)

A while back, a number of reports circulated of strange holes which had appeared in the ice in a pair of Central Newfoundland ponds.

The first was the hole in Dawe's Pond, located off a woods road just off the Trans-Canada Highway 15 minutes west of Badger. Locals had reported hearing a loud noise, and a cabin owner found a large, partially iced-over hole. It was surmised the hole had been created sometime around March 7th or 8th. Jim Gillard of the Twillingate Observatory investigated the mysterious crater, and suggested a meteor or piece of space junk had fallen through the ice.

Amateur astronomer Gary Dymond studied photographs of the Dawe's Lake site and spoke to nearby residents. Rather than blaming the crater on something crashing into it, he suggested that the hole could have been created by a buildup of methane gas which exploded, rupturing the ice from below.

"It would be interesting to solve the mystery," Dymond told local media. "But I think it will stay as a mystery."

A few days later a cabin owner on Powderhorn Lake, about six kilometers away, noticed a strange hole in centre of the icy pond. That circular crater measured about 30 metres across, with ripples in the ice along the edge of the hole.

The whole business reminded me of another strange story involving a well-known Newfoundland body of water, Windsor Lake, just outside of St. John’s.

About ten years ago, I got a note from a Mr. J.D. Terry, of Fort Mojave, Arizona. In his initial email, Terry hinted of an untold story about an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) dating back to the 1950s, a sighting of a strange craft which had never been reported to the media.

Terry's sighting took place one morning in the spring of 1955 when he was with the United States Air Force. Terry spent four years serving as an NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) at a communications outpost codenamed "Snelgrove" near Twenty Mile Pond, the historical name for Windsor Lake.

On the morning in question, Terry noticed a strange craft hovering over one end of the pond in the early dawn light. As he watched, it seemed as if the UFO was absorbing water or moisture from the body of water. The craft stayed airborne without moving for two to three minutes, poised between 10 and 15 feet above the water. Suddenly, it rose several hundred feet and shot off in a south-southwest direction. Within seconds, it had vanished.

Terry had received training as a control tower operator and radio operator, and was therefore familiar with all types of aircraft. What he saw that day was unlike any aircraft he had ever seen.

He was the only one awake when this occurred, and therefore the only eyewitness. Without any corroborating evidence, he could not make an official report of the sighting.

What is intriguing about the Twenty Mile Pond sighting is Terry's claim that the UFO seemed to be drawing up water from the pond. While this may be unusual, it is not unheard of in the weird world of ufology, and the Newfoundland example is but one of several on the Atlantic coast.

Between 1955 and 1999, Mosquito Lagoon, Florida, was host to 42 known sightings of aerial phenomena. The lagoon is a large body of saline water, part of the Kennedy Space Centre. In two cases, witnesses reported he UFOs with hoses lowered into the water, as if they were sucking up water.

Maybe something like this happened in Central Newfoundland this month. Perhaps those little green men, not satisfied with stealing water this time around, came back for some ice for their drinks.

I, for one, will have to agree with Dymond. I think it will all stay as a mystery.

World Storytelling Day in St. John's, Newfoundland #WSD2013

World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling. It is celebrated every year on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn equinox in the southern. On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many languages and at as many places as possible, during the same day and night. Participants tell each other about their events in order to share stories and inspiration, to learn from each other and create international contacts.

World Storytelling Day has its roots in a national day for storytelling in Sweden, circa 1991-2. It first came to Newfoundland with an event in 2007 at The Rooms, featuring yours truly and Elinor Benjamin, and sponsored by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and the St. John's Storytelling Circle. You can listen to an audio recording of that event online at archive.org.

For the past several years, I've been the volunteer webmaster for the World Storytelling Day website. It's been great fun, as I get emails from all over the world from people looking to celebrate the tradition and art of storytelling in their own communities. This year, I was interviewed by Alba Conesa of the Spanish organization "Contes pel món" about World Storytelling Day and the growing interest in oral storytelling globally. You can read it here in English, or here in Spanish.

Each year, many of the individual storytelling events that take place around the globe are linked by a common theme. Each year, the theme is identified by and agreed upon by storytellers from around the world on the worldstorytellingday listserv. This year the theme is "Fortune and Fate" and we are fortunate enough to be back at The Rooms again this year to share stories.

You can join us Wednesday, March 20 7:00 pm at The Rooms Theatre, where I've shamelessly twisted the arm of fellow folklorist Dr. Mariya Lesiv to curate an evening of stories exploring the fortunes, fates and experiences of new Canadians as they make the shift from their old homes in Eastern Europe to life in Newfoundland and Labrador.  The evening is presented in collaboration with Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is funded in part by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It is the first event of the Foundation's "Newfiki: A celebration of East-European cultures in Newfoundland," running March 20-23.

A story of the good fairies. And pancakes!

There is a quote that I have seen attributed to various people and cultures, which states, “When an old man dies, a library burns down."

Storytelling is part of being human. We are all made of stories, and we spend our lifetimes telling and collecting them. And when someone passes away, a lot of those stories are lost forever. For me, as a folklorist and storyteller, it is one of the hardest part of losing a person.

Last Thursday, storyteller and author Alice Lannon passed away at the Palliative Care Unit of the Miller Centre here in St. John's. Her stories will be missed.

In 2010, when Newfoundland hosted the Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada national conference, Alice was one of the gems of storytelling who was showcased. That session was recorded, and today, those stories are part of the permanent collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative.

Lannon was one of the last great tellers of traditional Newfoundland fairytales in the province, who learned many of her stories orally from her grandmother.

“My grandmother claimed that the fairies were fallen angels,” she told the hundred-plus storytellers who had gathered in 2010 to hear her speak. “When Lucifer defied God, and when he was cast into Hell as the Devil, the others were cast in with him, who went with him. There was another bunch who stayed with God, so they were the good angels. Another bunch did nothing. They didn’t go with God or with Lucifer, so he couldn’t have them in heaven, so he threw them out into an underground.”

“Now, they all had the power of good and evil; they were powerful angels,” explained Lannon.

As a result, according to Lannon, the fairies could be either good or evil, and in her stories, she demonstrated how they could do both, as their whims suited them.

In one story of the good fairies, Lannon related how a five-year-old girl named Anne-Marie went berry picking with her family near Placentia on September. The girl went around a hill, and vanished from her parents’ sight.

“As it was getting dark, they had searched and called, with no answer,” described Lannon. “So they went back to Placentia and got their friends to come in with lights and hunted all night, with no sign of Anne-Marie.”

Five or six days later, a local man who had been living in the United States returned to the community. As he drove past the spot where the girl had vanished, his driver told him how the townspeople had been looking for her body, since she had not been seen for days.

“The man was watching,” explained Lannon, “and as they passed the gravel pit, he said, ‘There’s a little girl in there sitting on a stump!’ and so the man went back and sure enough, she said she was Anne-Marie, and she was waiting for her parents. They took her, and they said they would bring her to her parents. So she went with them.”

“When they brought her down to her parents’ home, they were so overjoyed,” said Lannon. “They couldn’t believe they would ever see their little girl again. Her hair was no tangles in it, her socks were as white as snow, her dress was clean.

The girl attributed her good condition to the fact she had been taken care of by the fairies.

“She told them that just before dark, when she was looking for them (her parents), three little strange-looking people came towards her, took her by the hand, and they took her to a big tree, where there was bushes,” said Lannon. “They parted the bushes, where there was a ladder, and they went down in the underground. A cosy spot down there! The older one, she figured she was the grandmother fairy, she rocked her and sang to her, and she cried because she was missing her parents. They were all nice to her, and sang songs, and made pancakes for her, out of special flour for her, and they fed her.”

“That day, the fifth day, the grandmother said to her, you go out to the gravel pit and sit near the road, on the tree stump, and you’ll be found,” said Lannon. “So that’s what she did!”

A witch, a warning, and a brush with death on the Southern Cross

Last week I found an intriguing message on my answering machine from Shirley Ryan, of Birchy Cove, Bonavista Bay. In it, she hinted at a mysterious story involving one of Newfoundland’s famous lost ships, the Southern Cross.

I called Ryan back, and she was eager to share her story of two men, Edmund Ryan and Leonard Skiffington.

“Now, Edmund Ryan was my girlfriend’s grandfather who lived just down across the garden, so to us, he was Uncle Ned,” she explains. “Uncle Ned always told the story about how he and Leonard left Birchy Cove, where he lived, to go across to Catalina. They were really lucky, they had gotten a berth on the Southern Cross.”

“They left Birchy Cove and they made their way to Catalina,” she describes. “I think they went over on a dogsled maybe, because there were no cars to bring them at that time, and the road across the country was little better than a path.”

The two men arrived in Catalina and were about to sign on.

“They had their berth already promised,” says Ryan. “They went into what he used to call a tavern. I’ve never known a tavern to be there, but maybe in them days there were. They went into this tavern to get a drink. Water was all they could afford. They had no money. So they asked the woman there for a glass of water each, and she gave them the water.”

When Uncle Ned turned, his arm knocked the glass onto the floor, breaking the woman’s glass.

“You have to pay for that glass,” she said to him.

He said, “Madam, I can’t pay, I have no money.”

“Where are you going?” the woman asked.

“We are going on the Southern Cross, we have a berth on the Southern Cross.”

“If you’re wise, you won’t go on that journey,” the woman said, “because you won’t return.”

“Now he was a man of great superstitions, and he took what she said to heart, and he came home,” describes Ryan. “But his friend Leonard wouldn’t listen to him and he went on that ship.”

The Southern Cross was built in Norway in 1886, and was originally named the Pollux. She was sold to the Newfoundland firm of Baine Johnson and renamed the SS Southern Cross around 1901, and she took part in the seal hunt every year from 1901 to 1914. Returning from the seal hunt in the final days of March, 1914, the Southern Cross fell out of normal communication. She was last heard of off Cape Pine, and then, nothing.

The Southern Cross vanished at sea, along with the 174 sailors and sealers on board her. Eventually, a marine court of enquiry determined that the ship sank in a blizzard on March 31, but the details remain, for the most part, unexplained. No crewmen nor record of the ill-fated voyage survived. Among the list of the dead was one Leonard Skiffington, originally of Newman's Cove, Bonavista Bay.

“Uncle Ned told us that story over and over and over,” says Ryan. “It’s a true story, he told it over and over, about how he took what she said as serious and accused her of being a witch. Well, lots of people were accused of being witches them days! But he said the woman that owned that tavern was a witch, and when she said that, that was enough for him. He didn’t go.”

“But Leonard did go, and well, Leonard never returned,” Ryan states. “Nobody ever returned, eh? That’s my little story.”