In times before the present century, many of Nova Scotia’s people were isolated in small settlements along the coast. Storytelling was everybody’s pastime in the evening. It was very quiet at night …
Just in time for Halloween … a great piece of spooky Canadiana. A 1975 adaptation of some of the stories found in Helen Creighton’s Bluenose Ghosts. Props to the Nova Scotia Archives for making this and other archival film available to the public.
From Wikipedia:
On a song-collecting foray seeking Mr. and Mrs. Enos Hartlan in the community of Hartlan’s point on the eastern side of the Halifax Harbour, Helen took notice of Mrs. Hartlan’s interest with a deserted house near their property. She explained to Helen “That’s our Ghost House,” created from the wood of old shipwrecks, and haunted with strange knocks and footsteps. This tale became the inspiration for over two decades of ghost story collecting in the Maritimes, one of her first published explorations outside of the chronicling of folksongs, for which she is best known.
Creighton not only recounts the experiences of others, but her own encounters with the supernatural, from her experiences with forerunners such as death knocks, to her own helpful spirits and premonitions. She attempts to write without judgement of the stories, admitting that some may be a result of imagination, but also that there are those with unquestionable authenticity. She does not compare them with similar stories from other parts of the world, explaining that “this book is devoted to the thinking of our own people.