The 5 Best Places to See a Ghost

Oct. 10

It’s October; the shadows are long, the leaves are falling and the evenings have a foreboding chill. It’s definitely starting to feel like halloween — the perfect time to talk of ghosts.

Or, maybe if you’re brave enough, you can do more than talk.

Historic, Haunted & Open to the Public

If you’d like to see a ghost, you don’t have to wait for an invitation to a creepy old mansion or crumbling lighthouse — you can just grab a visitor guide. A handful of Newfoundland’s historic buildings and sites are reputed to be haunted… and they are open to the public.

LSPU Hall, St. John’s

Today, the LSPU Hall at 3 Victoria Street in St. John’s is a performance space. It’s a great place to catch a play and maybe, if you’re lucky enough, a theatre-going ghost.

The Hall is a wooden building in the city’s downtown. The current structure dates back about a century but the site has a much long history. The lot was home to a church, the meeting hall of the Sons of Temperance, before eventually becoming the Longshoremen's Protective Union (LSPU) building. In 1975 it became the home of the Resource Centre for the Arts... and maybe a ghost.

As the story goes, The Hall is a hotbed of paranormal happenings. During renos in the early 2000s workers had tools mysteriously disappear only to reappear right in front of them again and theatregoers catch glimpses of strange shadowy figures. Sometimes unexplained footsteps are heard.

The most persistent tale? A paranormal patron. Audience members see a man sitting in the main theatre during the performance vanish.

Who is the ghost? Who knows. But, if you’d like to try to figure it out, here is the link for the LSPU Hall box office.

Anglican Cathedral, St. John’s

The Parish of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s, NL was established in 1699, making it the oldest Anglican Parish in Canada. Today it’s hard to think of it without thinking of the neo-gothic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It wasn’t always that way. For its first 150 years the parish was anchored by a succession of wooden churches that stood close to where the cathedral sits today.

Construction of the stone Cathedral began in 1847 and, through the dedicated and sometimes dangerous work of the masons, in 1850 the nave was completed.

The Anglican Cathedral Ghost Picture

They say that during the building of the Cathedral one of the workers died but, at the end of the job when the workers stood outside the cathedral for a photo, he showed up anyway. The picture of the workers supposedly contains an image of the deceased gentleman.

More than 150 years later, the image of the Cathedral Ghost continues to capture imaginations. Check it out below — the ghost is the more casually-dressed, seemingly transparent gentleman on left.

Anglican Cathedral St. John's, NL from Intangible Cultural Heritage - Avalon Peninsula, CC BY-NC 2.0 CA — Photo of a Ghost at the Anglican Cathedral in St. John’s, NL. From the Intangible Cultural Heritage - Avalon Peninsula collection, CC BY-NC 2.0 CA. The image has been cropped and the perspective adjusted.

Newman Wine Vaults, St. John’s

The Newman Wine Vaults on Water Street in St. John’s, NL are historic wine cellars. They were established by the Newman’s to age wine produced in Portugal. Legend has it, in the 17th century a ship carrying Newman’s Port was forced to over-winter in St. John’s and the effect of the climate produced a better wine. Until 1997 it was practice to age Newman’s Port in the city.

The Newman Wine Vault Ghost Picture

In the 1990s the historic Newman Vaults were restored and opened to the public. Then the ghost sightings started. Well, not sightings as much as ‘hearings.’ Wine vault workers reported hearing their names being called and sometimes hearing unexplained footsteps. In 2011, CBC reported the story of a ghost that was caught on camera during a wedding held in the vault.

Not to be a spoil-sport but I’m pretty sure it’s no ghost. Check out the image and draw your own conclusions.

If you want to check out the Vaults yourself, they are open to the public from May-October.

Mockbeggar Plantation

The Mockbeggar neighbourhood of Bonavista, NL has the dubious reputation of being one of the most haunted places in the country and not without good reason — there’s been plenty of creepy. Citizen have uncovered mystery bog bodies and, apparently, built houses a top coffins.

Bradley House, which is part of the Mockbeggar Plantation Provincial Historic Site, supposedly has a ghost that is known to watch visitors from the building’s upper floors. What’s more, if you're in the neighbourhood at night and the wind is right, locals will tell you that you can hear singing in a foreign language… perhaps the voices of the mysterious bodies of the Mockbeggar marshlands.

Mockbeggar Plantation is open to the public from May to October, annually.

L’Anse aux Meadows Viking Ghosts

L’Anse aux Meadows, at the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, is home to a 1000 year-old Norse settlement. The Norse crossed the Atlantic Ocean and founded a settlement in Newfoundland nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus was born. The site, officially recognized by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad in 1960, is the oldest known European settlement in the New World.

Crossing the Atlantic and setting up a colony in North America 1000 years ago was no small accomplishment. Perhaps the glory heaped on the ancient sailors was so good, it was worth coming back from the grave to experience again.

Legend has is that in late June (some say June 23, specifically) a ghostly Norse longboat can be seen approaching L’Anse aux Meadows — people have heard the voices speaking an unknown language and have heard the boat come ashore… but there’s no one there.

Check out the NL Tourism video (above) recounting one such encounter.

Weirder still, a spectral Norse ship is reportedly seen off southern Iceland in early June — just about three weeks before the ghost ship turns up in Newfoundland.

Are Norse seafarer ghosts still recreating their voyage after 1000 years? You can plan a trip to L’Anse aux Meadows next June to find out for yourself.