I'll forever remember the night
of following
the hostess of ghosts
with my fellow spirit hunters
on the Haunted Walk of Ottawa
culminated by strolling
a secret network
of tunneled walkways
beneath the War Memorial
and across from the Bytown Museum

in a network of paths I never knew existed
even though they serve as underworld
to my own hometown’s center

an eager group
(or we were, all so brave?)
of locals and tourists mixed,
re-navigating old landscapes
on a September evening
welcomed by a woman in black cape and top hat
smiling to deliver legendary and current
accounts of encounters with the local apparitions

there in the darkness
below the old Post Office Building
where our acclaimed 19th century poet
Archibald Lampman used to work at his day job
with his beloved Kate
their ill-fated story whispered to me
of his demise at thirty-nine
and his secret legacy of sonnets for her...
her inscribed memorial prayer to him
still legible on a church across town

But I digress, for no ghost tales about them
were offered this night, though on these same streets
they’d loved to walk together
I imagined the spirit of their company

Avidly we all clung to the voice of the narrator
in between oohs and giggles from our goose bumps
as the small audience
swallowed dark stories
like the one of the body-snatchers
paid by medical students
who needed corpses for school supplies

where better to find them?
than that turn-of-the century graveyard
beneath the Sparks Street Mall
below offices and stores

as we crossed the intersections en masse
in the darkness
the damp scent of the Rideau Canal
rolled over to encompass us

the Chateau Laurier Hotel's glimmering lights
flickered down over our small forms
mocking us with shadows of sections
where phantoms may have been felt, heard or seen
but the guide was not permitted to reveal
the floors most frequented by spectres
the Hotel forbids that release of information

only the reported characters and their mischief
were relayed to us
in this aura of mystique

at the grey and aged high school
we all craned our necks upward, on command
to observe the top attic window
with a history of tragedy befalling a student
and a reputation for spirits glimpsed near the turret
in the shadows and the moonlight, would we find a
face or figure, even though that highest level
is kept locked now forever?

at the old teacher’s college on Elgin
we peered into the foyer
and the hall of memorabilia
hearing the tale of an over-stressed teacher
who used to have to handle two classrooms at once
on opposite sides of the corridor, and now haunts
to scold and supervise, it's said
up and down the halls, directing her students
and I wondered what she’d think of
education's state these days?

across the street at the restaurant
an attractive century-old building
gruesome origins of mortuaries and
recent chronic spooking of stairways, servers
and guests, even accostments, were all enhanced
by the sounds of strangely-filled trees,
with Hitchock-like clusters of dark birds
screeching into the evening mist
as we navigated like the row of obedient children
in linear outings, in the Madeline books
helping each other over dimly lit irregular cobblestones,
and laughing beneath the macabre trees
past possessed gothic manors in our hometown
a crazy crew of ghostlusters?

couples, friends, tourists, a group of strangers
all brought together (and believe me, staying that way
on this walk)
by a common thirst
to absorb the past and present
relish the storytelling experience
and perhaps be surprised by a visit
from one of Ottawa’s spirits
creating new legends time and again

according to our tour guide
one vivid and direct experience
she and her co-workers endured
was the Bytown Museum phenomena
of loud, unaccountable footsteps
across the old floorboards, running
up and down the stairway
one night as they were closed up
after a tour, causing the young guides to
rush out white as ....
well, you can imagine...

Who knows what new ghosts will enlist
in the repertoire of Ottawa hauntings
stretching the tour route
adding locales and buildings
and gatherings beneath the War Museum?

Who knows whose words
will endure to tell the stories
and whisper along the Rideau Canal
the breaths of the ones untold?

One sure thing for which I’m grateful
is after all these years
I finally ventured on the Haunted Walk
and made it home
to tell the story ~~~~~~

11/12/2003

Posted on 11/13/2003
Copyright © 2024 Maureen Glaude