Haunted Walk of Ottawa tour guides Caroline Bowden (left) and Elise Gauthier (right) are getting ready for a tour in the Canadian Museum of Nature. This year, they’re offering museum tours for the first time.
A cool draft swirls by as the great grey owl quivers slightly, eyes wide as a hoot, echoes through the room.
Is it a legendary spirit of the Canadian Museum of Nature?
An inquiry with staff reveals it’s just a strong ventilation system blowing through the hall, lightly shaking the stuffed bird display. The hoots are part of a soundtrack repeating over the speakers.
But ghosts abound at the Centretown museum, according to Ottawa’s Haunted Walks. The company organized a new fall tour in October featuring eerie accounts of the Metcalfe Street buildings.
The museum invited Haunted Walks to do a special tour in May for its grand reopening after six years of renovations. Success at the spring walks inspired a return for Halloween season, says Dan Smythe, media relations officer at the museum.
The October tour is just a pilot, but one that’s going well so far, according to Smythe.
“We’re reaching a different audience than would generally come to the museum,” he adds. “It’s a great way to learn about the museum and history in general.”
Haunted Walks echoes Smythe’s sentiments. Tour manager Melannie Eldridge points to increasingly busy Thursday nights as a sign of growing interest in the museum’s history.
“The building is a real treat,” says Eldridge. “It’s stimulating to have a change in environment.”
Eldridge says the group hopes it will have a chance to pursue more events with the museum.
The tour group based its stories on firsthand accounts whenever possible, as well as on additional information that came from city archives or old newspapers, says Eldridge.
Jennifer Mason works at guest services for the museum and says the October tour played off reports of ghostly encounters dating back to the museum’s opening in 1912.
Swift Eagle is one spirit featured on the new walks. The Cree man died in 1902, and Mason tells visitors he’s rumoured to haunt a favourite outfit that was featured at the museum.
The display was notorious for changing positions in its case. In 1989, the “haunted” exhibit moved to the Canadian Museum of Civilization, but Swift Eagle was confused and didn’t leave the Museum of Nature until a psychic helped him find his way out of the building, as reported by a history distributed to visitors.
Others think Swift Eagle’s spirit never truly left, according to Haunted Walks’ founder Glen Shackleton. He says the most common reports involve a tall, shadowy figure walking through employees or visitors, leaving them chilled and sometimes even knocking them over.
If it’s not Swift Eagle, it might be one of the builders who worked on the original building. Contrary to popular myth, none of the builders died during construction, but Shackleton says a person doesn’t have to die in a building to haunt it. The museum could have held a special place in someone’s heart, inspiring a visit in the afterlife.
If any spirits return for a look at their favourite haunt from livelier days, they’ll be in for a surprise. When the museum reopened in May, a lantern staircase structure replaced a central tower that was removed in 1916.
Broad glass windows provide guests and potential ghosts alike with an open view of Ottawa’s modern downtown.
October’s tours aimed to present “a mixture of stories about the building as well as a look at the renovations,” says Eldridge.
She hints that Haunted Walks has several prospects for new tour locations on the horizon, but details are still being worked out.
Regular haunted tours continue year round. Walkers can join a pub walk with a starting point at Sparks Street and Elgin Street, or head to Somerset Street’s Friday’s Roast Beef House on the original haunted walk tour.
Meanwhile, if there’s any truth to these century old stories, the spirits at the Museum of Nature won’t disappear with Halloween.