Thunder Bay, Ontario
Two ghosts have haunted my life; one named Bernie, the other Ernie. One was real, one was not.
My first paranormal encounter occurred in Regina. My Ex and I bought a little house on Angus Street, with a big history. The house was built by the founder of Poole Construction (now PCL) in 1929.
Ernie Poole lived in the house on the right and his foreman lived in the other.
My Ex and I purchased Ernie Poole’s house, unaware that his ghost still occupied the residence. Every time the wind blew in Regina, (which is every day that ends with a “y”), an eerie moaning sound would emerge from the basement. The ghostly lament could go on for hours; it haunted our days and affected our dreams.
With a rambunctious two-year-old, a newborn baby, and a ghost in the basement, we weren’t getting much sleep.
I attempted to locate the source of the groaning but could not pinpoint it.
Ghosts are elusive.
After several unsuccessful attempts searching the dark, dank basement, I realized that I might need professional help. The problem was, I didn’t know if I needed a plumber or a priest. Was the ghostly moaning a sewer issue? Or was an exorcism required?
One particularly horrifying evening, I screwed up my courage and went down to the basement armed with a flashlight and a crucifix. I brushed the cobwebs from the fireplace clean-out flue and shone a light into the dark space. I fully expected to see the pale visage of Ernie, the long-dead construction mogul peering back at me, but what I found was a wad of dry tar paper.
Ernie, or one of the occupants of the house after him, had stuffed the stiff paper in there, presumably to reduce downdraft. When the wind blew across the chimney, the crumbling paper acted like a reed in a wind instrument.
The ghost of Ernie turned out to be nothing more than a chimney bassoon.
Ernie proved to be an imaginary phantom, but the Ghost of Bernie was very real.
You expect haunted houses to look like this.
The truth is ghosts can inhabit buildings like this.
Bay View Tower was my temporary residence when I moved to Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1979. I occupied a one-bedroom apartment on the lower level of the building, by myself, while looking for a house to purchase. Not expecting to be there long, I never bothered to unpack most of my belongings.
I wasn’t home very often, either working or looking for permanent real estate, but I would return to the apartment each evening to sleep.
A few days after moving in, I began to experience paranormal phenomena. Items from unopened boxes began to appear randomly in the apartment. Magazines left on the coffee table would be scattered about or lay in disorganized piles on the floor. On one occasion, an empty beer can was left on the countertop. I couldn’t remember drinking the beer and would have recycled the can if I had.
I am a chronic neat freak, so items out of place are an uncommon occurrence. I wrote the oddities off to being exhausted and not remembering things I had done.
But the peculiarities kept happening.
A food item left in the fridge might disappear, or the pillows would be rearranged on the couch. I started to wonder if I was imagining these things or if I might be sharing my space with some supernatural entity.
Late one night, my haunted feeling spiralled out of control. I had set my bicycle in a hallway inside the apartment, near the door. In the middle of the night the bike crashed to the floor. When I got up to investigate, the apartment door was open with the bicycle laying in front of it. I looked out into the corridor and saw a ghostly apparition at the far end. I only caught a glimpse of it, but the thing was swaddled in a black cloak with its face covered by a hood. It hesitated for an instant as it rounded the far corner of the corridor. The apparition looked back at me with eyes like mirrors, then floated out of view.
Not wanting to pursue the phantom, I went back inside my apartment, picked up the bicycle and double bolted the door. I checked the deadbolt and reinforced the entrance with a kitchen knife stuck through the frame. I went back to bed clutching another kitchen knife, but sleep eluded me the rest of the night.
In the morning, I went to the superintendent’s office and described to him what had happened.
The custodian paused for an instant, then exclaimed, “That would be Bernie”.
Bernie? The ghost has a name?
“Bernie is spooky, but he isn’t a ghost”, the man said. “He is a developmentally challenged fellow, who used to live here and help out with maintenance. We had to let him go several months ago because he was bothering residents. Bernie kept some keys when he left, and he occasionally comes back and lets himself in the building. He always dresses in black”.
“Bernie used to live in the suite you now occupy. He is harmless, but he gets confused”. The superintendent promised to change my locks and “have a word with Bernie”.
I found a house on the Old Fort William side of town, made an offer, and gave my notice. I stayed in the apartment another two weeks, but I never felt completely at ease.
Things stopped teleporting around my room, and I never saw him again, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was co-occupying the apartment with …
… A Ghost Named Bernie.
My un-haunted house on Hamilton Avenue, Old Fort William, Ontario.
Like and Subscribe…
To join the WellWaterBlog audience, scroll down and add your e-mail address to the growing list. You will receive a notice each time a new article is posted and nothing else – No Advertising, No Solicitations, No B.S., Just Fun.
Leave a Reply