Creepy Canada

Ep. 80

Creepy Canada Eh!

"Canadians have an abiding interest in surprising those Americans who have historically made little effort to learn about their neighbour to the North."

Peter Jennings

It is these words that define today's episode! We are all going to be surprised and learn about some of the creepiest, craziest, weirdest things our neighbors to the North have to offer. If you're not from the U.S. the Canadians may not be your neighbors to the North but they'll offer you some Tim Hortons and be extremely polite to you anyways! Most people only know a few things about Canada: they are polite, they love hockey, it's cold as fuck, and they say eh. But we're going to learn you all a few more things, and we're gonna do it the Midnight Train way, by telling you about the creepy side of Canada! So without further ado jump on your moose, grab your hockey stick, throw on your toque, and let's ride!

Off to our first stop! With one hand in our pockets, we head to the home of Alanis Morissette, Ottawa! We're taking a quick trip to the Ottawa Jail Hostel. This hostel has a bit of a history. As the name implies this was one a jail! The jail was built next to the courthouse in 1862 and was the main jail in Ottawa for over a century! There's a tunnel that connects the jail to the courthouse. Only three official executions took place in the jail. The most famous being that of Patrick J. Whalen. Whalen assassinated a man by the name of Thomas D'Arcy Etienne Grace Hughes McGee, wow. McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who opposed British rule of Ireland, and worked for a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, where he reversed his political beliefs. He became disgusted with American republicanism and democracy, and became intensely conservative in his politics and in his religious support for the Pope. Over 5,000 people witnessed Whelan's hanging, which was a large number considering the size of Ottawa at the time. The third (official) and final execution at the jail took place on March 27, 1946, when Eugène Larment, who had killed an Ottawa police detective, was hanged. The building remained in use as a jail until 1972 when the outdated facility was closed. The original gallows, however, are intact and remain fully functional. There’s also what appears to be an ‘unofficial’ gallows over a back staircase, so it’s hard to say how many prisoners were executed at the jail. So you know… Don't piss off the people in the next room. While the jail was in use, prisoners were held under very inhumane conditions. Up to 150 prisoners, consisting of men, women, and children, would be forced to share 60 small cells (1x3 meters) and 30 larger cells (2x3 meters); as well as six solitary confinement units. The windows were open to the elements early on and offered no protection from the freezing Ottawa winters and got summers. Inmates included murderers, the mentally ill, or those incarcerated for minor infractions such as drunk and disorderly conduct. Modern excavations have unearthed numerous unmarked graves. It's no wonder this hostel is considered a haunted creepy place. Most guests convey a heavy creepy feeling while staying there. Here's a few of the things people report about the place! The Ghost of Patrick Whelan: Arguably the hostel’s most famous spook, you’ll see Patrick Whelan walking the halls toward the gallows where he was hanged. His restless spirit is said to be caused by an undignified burial after his execution.

The Hole: Also known as solitary confinement, this area of the jail is filled with an ominous, negative energy. Visitors report overwhelming feelings of despair in this cramped, lightless space.

The Gallows: The jail’s preferred method of execution is still standing and functional. Hotel guests have heard footsteps, disembodied voices and other baffling sounds coming from the execution chamber.

The Lounge: The hostel’s lounge was once used to house women and children prisoners, echoes of whom can still be heard today. Visitors claim to hear sounds of children crying and screaming, as well as knocking on doors and footsteps in the empty room.

Assistant Manager Jeff Delgado recounts a particularly memorable experience when a woman had checked herself into the old Warden’s office for the night. They became suspicious when she didn’t check out on time the following day, and when he went to check on the woman, she was still in bed. Jeff says: “The front desk agent shook the woman and she woke up very frightened and hysterical. According to her, there was a small girl that appeared to her in her sleep in the office surroundings, and wrapped her arms around her so that she would not be able to wake up. The girl was also supposedly trying to whisper something in her ear, from which the guest could only make out the word ‘help’.

“Although the story might seem outlandish, the guest was unaware that the particular room she was staying in was indeed the old Warden’s office. She was also able to describe in detail the surroundings of an office and the physical description of the little girl.”

On the plus side of you make it through the night without getting scared off… There's a free continental breakfast… So there's that.

Next up we are going to play "informer" in the land of "Snow". Heading to Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia. We're not talking about ghosts or cryptids, we're talking about aliens! Shag Harbor was the sight of a supposed UFO crash in 1967. Oh hell… We are gonna say it was definitely a ufo crash!

In the Air

At approximately 7:15pm, Air Canada Flight 305 pilots Captain Pierre Charbonneau and First Officer Robert Ralph were flying above Quebec, about 180 miles west of Nova Scotia. Everything was perfectly routine until they noticed something trailing their plane. They witnessed a massive, rectangular-shaped object, orange in color, gliding through the skies. Trailing the rectangle were small, orange orbs that seemed almost like a tail to this main object.

The pilots watched with growing concern for several minutes when, suddenly, there was some sort of explosion near the rectangle. A large white cloud was left behind, sporadically changing colors from red to blue. Two minutes later, another explosion occurred leaving behind a similar cloud of colors. The pilots watched in amazement as the small orbs swarmed around the rectangle and, along with it, descended in to a thick cloud cover and disappeared out of sight. Both pilots, visibly shaken, reported the incident when they finally landed.

Meanwhile, back on the ground, residents of Shag Harbour would report seeing four orange lights in tight formation flashing in rapid sequence across the night sky. A group of teens that were out fishing noticed that the lights were making a brisk descent towards the water. But instead of disappearing into the murky depths, the lights seemed to float effortlessly on the surface before disappearing into the water. Because of this, the teens believed it to be an airplane that had crashed a half mile from the shore. Another young man who had been fishing quickly phoned the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to report the crash of an aircraft. The police dispatcher brushed off the young man, believing him to have been inebriated, but soon, over a dozen other calls flooded the station. Police immediately went out to investigate.

Unbeknownst to the RCMP, Constable Ron Pound was patrolling an area near the alleged incident. He witnessed the four orange lights moving at tremendous speed. As he sped up his vehicle, he believed the four lights to all be connected to a single aircraft and estimated it to be about sixty feet in length. He reached the shoreline where he was soon joined by fellow officers, Police Corporal Victor Werbieki, and Constable Ron O’Brien. Along with over thirty other witnesses, they all watched as the orange lights slowly changed to a yellowish tint, and it moved eerily slow across the surface of the water, leaving a similar yellowish colored foam in its wake. Some witnesses claimed to have seen the actual structure of the object, reporting it as “dome-shaped.” Due to the exhaustive dedication by investigators, Chris Styles and Don Ledger, they were able to compile a list of first-hand witnesses, and individuals involved with the search and recovery efforts.

When the object was reported to crash-land in the water, and it began to sink into the ice-cold waters, a loud “whooshing” sound could be heard by several witnesses. The Canadian Coast Guard was called to the scene, but before they could arrive, two RCMP officers had already secured local fishermen’s boats and headed towards the area for a possible search and rescue mission.

The lights were no longer visible, but the yellow foam remained. The officers and fisherman who assisted, all said that the foam was like no sea foam they had ever seen, much thicker than anything that could be caused naturally. They had to cut their way through it just to look for survivors of the supposed crash.

After several hours of searching, nothing could be found. The RCMP, along with The Coast Guard, contacted their local NORAD station and the Rescue Coordination Center, asking if there had been any reports that evening of a missing aircraft either civilian or military. They had nothing.

The following morning of October 5th, the Canadian Forces Headquarters sent out specially trained divers from the Navy and RCMP to systematically search the seabed in the alleged area where the crash had occurred. They searched for several days and found absolutely nothing.

Local newspapers began to circulate speculative theories of a Russian spacecraft, submarine, or spy satellite being the enigmatic culprit. There were also rumors that the United States had launched their own investigation into the incident. Slowly, the headlines made their way to the back of the newspapers and soon faded into obscurity as most UFO cases often do. In 2018, it was announced that Celine Cousteau and Fabian Cousteau, grandchildren of Jacques Cousteau, were heading to Nova Scotia to investigate the incident. As part of their visit, their investigative team would carry out an underwater search to try to locate the craft that could possibly still sit at the bottom of water.

While their deep sea investigation did not yield a craft or materials, anomalous activity was recorded between their radio transmissions while underwater when in proximity to where the craft was said to have submerged. Perhaps the most compelling developments in the Shag Harbour incident are its striking resemblance to the now famous “Tic Tac UFO” incident. But we can find similarities with actions taken by the Tic Tac UFO and the object witnessed in Shag Harbour in 1967.

In fact, the event in Nova Scotia meets at least one of the traits laid out by the former director of the once secret Pentagon UFO program, Luis Elizondo. Under AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), Elizondo compiled a list of incredible capabilities commonly associated with UFO sightings. He called these traits the “Five Observables.” As stated on the TTSA website, they include:

-Sudden and instantaneous acceleration

-Hypersonic velocities without signatures

-Low observability

-Trans-medium travel

-Positive lift

If we are to observe the actions of the Shag Harbour object(s), it most certainly hits #4, Trans-Medium Travel. According to the AATIP criteria, this involves:

Objects that have the ability to travel easily in various environments and conditions seemingly without any change in performance capabilities. Our current understanding of physics requires vehicles to be designed specifically according to their application. For this reason, there are stark differences between those vehicles that orbit in space, fly in the atmosphere, and travel in the sea. Objects that can travel in all three mediums using the same design and without compromising performance or degrading lift remains an enigma.

This, and several other observables, make the Shag Harbour object most certainly an enigma. And while its performance may have in fact been compromised that day in the skies and eventually, in the waters of Nova Scotia, it begs for continued investigation. The extraordinary testimonies given to Styles and Ledger, were said to be highly credible individuals. However, their names remained confidential to protect them from possible threat or security oaths.

Therefore, the aforementioned information, just like most witness testimony by military and authority figures, was given “off the record.”

No matter the case, something extremely strange occurred in Shag Harbor on that dark, cold night, and even stretched southward towards the United States.

It remains one of the most compelling UFO cases of all-time, only bringing forth more questions than answers. It’s left even the most skeptical minds scratching their heads.

It could be best summarized with a quote from an October 14th editorial from The Chronicle-Herald :

“Imagination and/or natural phenomena seem to be the weakest of explanations. It has been a tough week for skeptics.”

Next up we head to the birthplace of one of the worlds most beloved musicians. A man who will the ladies love and every man want to be. A man who helped write the greatest musical anthems of all time. That's right… Chad Kroeger of Nickelback! We're heading to Alberta! And may we be the first to say… Fuck you Alberta for that whole fiasco. Any rate that's not what we're talking about here… That dude is way scarier than our next creepy Canadian tale! We're heading more specifically to Fort Kent, Alberta. We're going from aliens to evil spirits… But not ghosts, we're talking Wendigo! The tale of the fort Kent Wendigo is pretty crazy.

The Wendigo is a mythological creature part of Algonquin legend that speaks of an evil spirit that could possess the minds of men mad with grief and despair, driving them to commit gruesome acts of murder and cannibalism.

Such a creature is alleged to exist somewhere around Fort Kent, with a chilling legend that goes back nearly 100 years ago.

Thomas Burton was a young doctor that arrived in Fort Kent from England in 1921 when it was but a humble colony. Burton came to Fort Kent with his wife to treat an outbreak of small pox that had befallen the small community, allegedly on the backs of rats.

Burton also hoped that by leaving England, he would leave behind the horrible memories he had of World War I.

Initially the young doctor was successful in fighting the disease, and the townsfolk embraced him and his wife as miracle workers, but the disease’s spread suddenly became uncontrollable, and Burton became overwhelmed with the sick and dying.

It wasn’t long before his wife too fell ill, and when she succumbed to the sickness, Burton locked himself in his house with her dead body.

In the following days, Burton went mad with grief, and according to legend was possessed by the Wendigo.

Under the evil spirit’s influence, he ate his wife’s flesh.

When he was done with her, Burton turned his attention to the residents of Fort Kent, and allegedly went on a killing spree for the next three days with few spared, said to be some of the grisliest murders in Canadian history.

At the end of the third day, it is said Burton disappeared into the woods around Fort Kent, and was never seen or heard from again.

When he and his wife had arrived, there were 150 people in Fort Kent — 11 were all that remained, at least according to the legend.

Burton’s was not the first high-profile case of Wendigo possession in Western Canada — the first official hanging to take place in the region was also attributed to a man possessed by the evil spirit.

Swift Runner, a Plains Cree trapper, was arrested after he admitted to killing and eating his wife and children during the winter of 1878, 25 miles from a Hudson’s Bay Company outpost stocked with emergency supplies.

Because he committed such a heinous crime while help was so close by, he was believed to be possessed by the Wendigo

After he confessed to the crime, Swift Runner was hung in Fort Saskatchewan.

Today the community we know as Fort Kent no longer sits at the location Burton’s terrible murders were committed, but residents sometimes report strange cries resembling that of a coyote coming from the tree line, and children are warned not to be in the fields too long past dark, lest they be taken by the Wendigo. Sounds like a pleasant place!

As you all know Tom Cochran once told us all via song that life is a highway and we're gonna ride it all night long to where he's from… Manitoba Canada! Now if you follow your cryptids, like you should you have probably heard of Ogopogo, a lake monster in british columbia but some people are not aware of another pretty famous lake monster in Manitoba. This one is somewhat named after Ogopogo, it's called Manipogo, get it… Cus Manitoba...Mani...pogo… well whatever. In Canadian folklore, the Manipogo is a lake monster said to live in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada. There is also a Lake Winnipegosis sea monster called Winnepogo, thought possibly to be the same creature as the lakes are connected. Not very creative with the names but… You know… Canada? The monster is described as being from 4 to 15 meters long. It is described as "A long muddy-brown body with humps that show above the water, and a sheep-like head." People have claimed to have seen the lake monster since the 1800s. The name was created by Tom Locke, a land inspector in charge of planning the provincial government's program for public playgrounds and recreational parks. On Aug. 10, 1960, he and 16 others said they saw three creatures swimming near the area of Toutes Aides, a community 245 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, on the shore of Lake Manitoba. First Nations stories of Manipogo go back centuries, while the first documented sighting by a white settler came in 1909, when Hudson's Bay Company fur trader Valentine McKay claimed to see a huge creature in Cedar Lake. Timber inspector C.F. Ross and a friend were next, saying they saw a single-horned creature that looked like a dinosaur in 1935. And in 1948, C.P. Alric claimed to see something rise up from Lake Manitoba and let out a "prehistoric type of dinosaur cry." Here are some of the stories of sightings:

1957: Louis Belcher and Eddie Nipanik say they saw a giant serpent-like creature in the lake.

Aug. 12, 1962: Two fishermen, Richard Vincent and John Konefall, claim to have seen a large creature, like a serpent or giant snake from their boat on Lake Manitoba near the mouth of the Waterhen River.

1960s: A couple say they saw a "reptile-like beast" surfacing about 10 metres from their boat.

1989: Sean Smith and family, visiting from Minneapolis on a camping trip, stayed at Shallow Point Campground, off Highway 6 on Lake Manitoba. He described seeing "many humps" in the lake, about 25 metres offshore.

1997: Several reports by cross-country campers from Quebec staying at the Lundar Beach Campground describe what appeared to be a large reptile head rising and falling in the water, more than 100 metres offshore. Swimmers were asked to leave the water, but the "head" only appeared one time. It was dismissed as a floating log, but no log was seen afterward.

2004: Commercial fisherman Keith Haden, originally from Newfoundland and Labrador, reported that several of his fishing nets on Lake Manitoba near the narrows were torn up by what seemed like an ocean shark or killer whale. The fish that were in the nets were not nibbled on, but actually torn in half, he said, by what seemed like huge bites.

2009: Several residents at Twin Lakes Beach reported seeing several humps a few hundred metres from their lakefront cottages. No photos were taken.

2011: Many sightings of several humps emerging and then submerging, seen from offshore, were reported at locations like Marshy Point, Scotch Bay, and Laurentia Beach by security personal patrolling flooded cottage and home areas.

Aug. 9, 2012: A report claimed that just offshore of the outlet at Twin Beach Road, something surfaced twice, showing a scaled/sawtooth jagged back, like that of a giant sturgeon.

Sounds like a good time to me! Let's roll!

Where are we rolling too? Well hopefully we'll run into Rain Maida of Our Lady Peace cus we're heading to a town near St. Catherine's Ontario. We're actually heading to Thorold Ontario and we're gonna check out the Blue Ghost Tunnel! The Merritton Tunnel, also known as the Blue Ghost Tunnel and the Grand Trunk Railway Tunnel, is an abandoned railway tunnel in Thorold, Ontario. The decision to build the tunnel came from the need for a more durable and less interrupted way to cross the new canal situated directly above it via vehicles. Constructed in 1875, Completed in 1876, and Opened in 1887. The tunnel is located between locks 18 and 19 of the former third Welland Canal and was built using Queenston limestone, spanning a total length of 713 feet when including the winged stone work at either end. Hundreds of men armed with picks and shovels, as well as several horses were used in the excavation of the tunnel. The tunnel was used periodically until 1915, when Harry Eastwood was the last official engineer to pilot a train through the tunnel. Following that, the tunnel was used only occasionally by farmers to transport cattle or as a safe passage from the weather. Several fatal accidents occurred during the construction and use of the tunnel and the railway running through it. In 1875, a 14-year-old was killed when he was crushed under a large rock. On January 3, 1903 at 7:03 AM, Engine Number 4 and Engine Number 975 met in a head-on collision approximately a third of a mile from the western entrance of the tunnel. The trains were moving at approximately 22 miles per hour when they crashed, and the firemen of both trains, Charles Horning of Engine Number 4 and Abraham Desult from Engine Number 975, died as a result of their injuries. Charles Horning, the fireman on the express train was gruesomely pinned between the flaming hot boiler and the tentler. During his attempted rescue, the engineers and post-guards tried to pull his mangled body free, which resulted in his arms and legs being messily severed from his body.

One train worker even reported that Horning’s watch still ticked on his severed arm. His body would never be fully recovered from the remains of the train.

The fireman for the Mogul train, Abraham Desult, was flung into the boiler resulting in burns over 90 percent of his body. He was rushed to the hospital and died five hours later.

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