haunted houses

Spookytown! Haunted Toronto

I grew up in a small town that has lots of ghost stories. A few of them have inspired my novel Freaks & Grimm (will be released at some point). I also come from a family of storytellers and a good portion of those stories were about ghosts. When I moved to Toronto at the age of eighteen, the very first thing I did was dive into it’s haunted history. I bought books and eventually joined online communities. When I discovered haunted walks, I was in my element. Oh yes I was.

If I remember correctly, Bruce Bell was one of the first names I heard in relation to haunted Toronto. The other first for me was I dove deep into learning about Toronto and Canada’s Spiritualism history. It was a little harder to find information for Canada. There are lots of articles about the US, especially, the Fox Sisters. There were a lot of fraudsters and I often wonder if that embarrassment is why it’s harder to find information here. Nonetheless, I was able to find articles on Mary Melville and a few other spiritualists. To learn more, please click here.

It you want to learn more about Spiritualism or Occultism in Toronto, there are a few really good books at the Toronto Public Library and the Canadian Encyclopedia has a great article (see below). This is one of my favourites. The Secret City: An Occult History of Toronto

Spiritualism in Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/spiritualism

Haunted Places Now let us move onto haunted places in Toronto. There are many haunted places in this city. There are also lots and lots of articles about it. Rather than rehash everything, I am going to link sources below. I was so incredibly obsessed with hauntings, that every time I moved to a new neighbourhood (that was a lot), I would investigate if there were any hauntings. At one point I had a book that I logged all of the information into, but it is long lost. I really wish I still had that book.

I currently live in the west end of Toronto and am very close to several cemeteries and well known haunted places such as Colborne Lodge, but I can also easily get to places like McKenzie House, Black Creek Pioneer Village (which holds a seance), Spadina House and the old Don Jail.

There are several books about Haunted Toronto, this one is by far my all time favourite. Haunted Toronto by John Robert Colombo

https://www.toronto.com/things-to-do/haunted-places-in-toronto/

https://dailyhive.com/toronto/haunted-places-toronto-2018

https://juliekinnear.com/toronto/haunted-houses

https://www.blogto.com/city/2016/10/12_haunted_places_to_get_spooked_at_in_toronto/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/haunted-toronto-a-paranormal-primer/article559802/

https://dailyhive.com/toronto/haunted-places-toronto-2018

Haunted/Ghost Walks One of my favourite things to do when the weather is agreeable is go on Haunted or Cemetery walks. Unfortunately, due to Covid not many of these are happening right now. I have a few friends who run some of them and I will list any of the other ones I know about as well. Once they are up and running again, please join them!

The Haunted Walk: https://hauntedwalk.com/toronto-tours/

Ghost Walks of Toronto: www.ghostwalks.com

Toronto Ghost Walks: https://www.torontoghostwalk.com/

Haunted High Park. They do a walking tour every Halloween, but not sure about this year.

Montgomery’s Inn and the Islington Pioneer Cemetery also host haunted walks, but again…. who knows with Covid.

Cemetery Tours: Toronto also has some really cool cemetery tours. I kinda feel like Covid is ruining a lot of our fun so I’m going to stop repeating the phrase… due to Covid. Eventually, all of these cool things will be happening again.

Muddy York Tours: https://muddyyorktours.com/?page_id=57

Toronto Cemetery Tours: https://www.facebook.com/TorontoCemeteryTours/

For my birthday this year, I was going to do a haunted back walk, that of course included ghost stories…. but that didn’t happen. Next year?

If I’ve missed any, please post them in the comments below.

Stay The Fuck Home The Something Creepy Edition

I’ve always leaned more towards the creepy than the delightful. I prefer the world of creepy things. Haunted houses, bats, spiders, gothic novels, horror movies, spooky stories and Victorian Death Photography. I know many of my friends appreciate these things as well. I know that my tastes either turn people on or scare them away, however, I know everyone has a week bit of interest in the darker side of things. For today’s blog post, I am going to give you things to read or watch to either entertain you or educate you! Let’s be macabre together!

Haunted houses! I have always wanted to live in a creepy old, ghost filled Victorian. Nice ghosts of course. No one wants to live with assholes! Especially, those who can walk through walls.

Bats! If you been reading my blog. You know I love them! Go check out this article!

Spiders come in all shapes and sizes and we have a few living in our home. I know many of you are afraid of them, but trust me, a lot of them are harmless to humans and keep pests at bay in your home. If you see one, don’t kill it. If you really can’t stand it being in your home, carefully remove it.

Gothic novels are one of my favourite things to read. Frankenstein, Dracula, Varney the Vampire, Jane Eyre, the works of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and many, many more! You can read many for free on Gutenburg.

Horror movies have been my favourite way to kill a couple hours. See what I did there. Kill a couple of hours… get it? Nevermind.

The classics such as Universal Monsters (Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Werewolf, Dracula), or silent horror are my my all time favourites.

Spooky ghost stories are best told right before bed so you can have delightful nightmares! At least that is my favourite time to read them. This website has some good flash horror fiction if you can only handle it in a small bite at a time.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2018/06/ghost-stories/

Victorian Death Photography (aka memento mori photography) is one of those topics that has a lot of fiction attached to it. It was a real thing, don’t at me about the fiction part. But there are many photos out there claiming to be Victorian Death Photography, aka , when in fact it’s a regular photo.

Atlas Obscura has a great article about Victorian photography and the contraptions used to help subjects still while the photo was being taken. It was necessary for the subject to be still because Daguerretype camera‘s required it due to the long exposure. Some contraptions called headclamps were used to keep the client still. Many photos showing the headclamp being used are wrongly labelled as Victorian Death Photography. Something to be aware of!