For various reasons, this summer I embarked on a project to explore the river that runs through the city where I live, and one of the experiences that I most looked forward to was "Whisper to the Moon", described on its hosts' website as: Join SNIPE as they paddle down the Grand River where they share ghost stories and legends of the Six Nations Territory, then as they lead you on a paranormal investigation of Chiefswood National Historic Site. I've written an earlier Halloween post about how Dave and I have been on several paranormal tours - so this experience wasn't really that unusual for us to undertake - but ultimately, that evening was unlike anything we had experienced before.
We arrived at Chiefswood National Historic Site - the mansion that served as the home of acclaimed Victorian Age Mohawk poet Pauline Johnson; now a museum dedicated to her and said to be haunted by both Pauline and her sister Eliza - a little before the tour was set to begin. In our group were me and Dave, Rudy, Dan, and Kennedy, and the first weird thing that happened was that, out of nowhere, Rudy shouted, "Ow!" and had to take her brand new Fitbit off her wrist: it had overheated, burned her arm, and shorted out the screen. Rudy, who had been very nervous about coming with us because she believes that she attracts paranormal activity, later said that she had been mentally warning any spirits to leave her alone when her Fitbit suddenly heated up and died. Another group got out of their truck to meet us - a man, woman, and their teenage son - and it soon came out that the woman was a medium and she reported that when she walked up to the building earlier, it was very active; a woman in white and a woman in black both paced the floors and took turns standing in the upstairs windows. Another solo woman pulled up, and she soon joined us in the parking lot as well. We were then met by Todd - a member of SNIPE (Six Nations Investigators of Paranormal Encounters) - and he began by apologising and saying that his partner (and the tech expert of the group) Artie was running late; that he always runs late.
As we stood around waiting, Todd endeavored to entertain us by telling us about how he got into paranormal investigating: his sister had been a "seer" when they were growing up and she was so scared of the shadowy presences in her room at night that Todd used to sleep on her floor to protect her. It was frustrating to him that he, who wanted to see something from the other side, never could, while his sister was so scared of her gift that she eventually forced it to go away. Todd now uses technology to compensate for the extra sense he hadn't been born with, and while he has rarely seen anything inexplicable with his eyes, he assured us that he has captured countless supernatural encounters on his various cameras and recorders; evidence that we would be presented with when we later returned to the Homestead. Anticipation made the time spent waiting almost sweet.
A few more stories and some mostly patient waiting later, and Artie pulled up and needed to tote some AV tech into the mansion before we could leave. The SNIPE members then realised that they didn't have quite enough space in their vehicles to transport the entire group up the river to the starting point, but when Todd said that either we could take two trips or some of us could sit in the back of the pickup for the short drive, he got more volunteers than he expected: In the end, the five in my group plus the teenaged boy all sat on the paddles and lifejackets in the back of the truck while more comfortable interior seats went unused. I have no doubt that our guides were inwardly rolling their eyes at our eagerness to have this jolting, open-air experience that would be a ticketable offence for us off the reserve. (Maybe it was even ticketable on the reserve, we were just going along with the offer. When Dan asked when the last time any of us had ridden in the back of a pickup - which wasn't totally unusual for people our age - I told the story of my Uncle Eric's awesome campfire prank that I have written about before.) A bit more fuss at the launch point and we were off. The boat was of the sturdy inflatable kind used for white water rafting, and of the eleven of us on the excursion, six of us were perched on the sides paddling, two (Rudy and the medium) got to sit on interior seats, Todd steered from the rear, and Artie sat facing us in the front, ready to tell stories and answer questions.
(I should add as an aside about the overall experience: It was a little disappointing to hear about the things they "used to do". They used to try and provide more of an authentic Indigenous experience for their guests by having a bonfire lit at the Homestead for when they returned from paddling, and they would serve up traditional foods like strawberry juice, corn soup, and scones. But they decided to stop that because when everyone would then go to explore the Homestead, the guests' stomachs would be growling distractingly as they digested the unfamiliar foods in the otherwise eerie silence. And they used to wait until it was dark before launching the boat and then let the evening play out as late as everyone wanted, but starting this year, their director wanted everything run on a schedule, and everyone out of the house by midnight. I was really looking forward to paddling in the dark, and since we went on the first night of the season - July 13th - I suppose it's my fault for choosing the day with the latest sunset [and the most commitment to following a new schedule], but I was satisfied when it became full dark before we landed again at the Homestead.)
As we began, Artie explained that this portion of the evening is always directed by the guests. Some groups want to talk politics, some want history, and some need to spend the whole time on the river telling their own stories. To begin, Artie said they always go around, with everyone introducing themselves and either telling a story of their own paranormal experience or sharing something from their favourite spooky book or movie; something to get everyone in the mood. Artie began with his own first encounter: When he was a young boy, his parents had gone out for the evening, leaving him in the care of older siblings. Artie was in bed, and supposed to have been asleep, when he saw the flash of headlights moving across his wall as they always did when his parents were coming up the driveway. He figured his parents were home and he dove under his covers to pretend to be asleep. When he failed to eventually hear the sound of an engine approaching, Artie looked out the window and saw that there was no car in the driveway, but looking over his shoulder at the bedroom wall, he could still see the two spots of light shining there. Artie eventually gave up waiting for his parents and went to sleep for real, and when they came home the next day, his parents were sad to inform the kids that their great-grandfather had died the night before. Artie is certain - was then and is now - that the lights were his great-grandfather's way of saying goodbye, but his practical parents have always claimed that he imagined them after the fact.
Dave was sitting to Artie's right, so he was called upon to go next. Dave explained that he is open to stories of the supernatural but is skeptical because he has never seen anything for himself. He talked of sharing a love of horror movies with his daughter - gesture to Kennedy - and then, as though he just thought of it, he said that we even took her to Long Island to see the Amityville Horror house and ended on a joke about Kennedy being plagued by flies afterward. Kennedy was next and started with, "Thanks Dad, for telling my story about Amityville, that I was going to talk about because it happened to me..." and she proceeded to retell the story about visiting the Amityville house and finding flies around her for months afterwards, even in the dead of winter. To Kennedy, this isn't a flippant or insignificant tale and she told it seriously and she told it well. Rudy went next and told of the old house she once rented that she was sure was haunted - she often woke up feeling like there was a looming yet friendly presence in the room - and that her landlords just said, "Yeah, we know" when she reported it to them. The teenaged kid, Ethan, went next and he also had a story about seeing a presence in his room when he was two and his grandfather had passed. And then the solo woman, Paula, went next. She had two stories, and I'll share my favourite: A friend of hers was a new mother and she and her husband slept with their daughter's crib in their room. One night, apparently, the friend bolted upright out of a dead sleep and said, "You've got the wrong Wilkinson." And as she and her husband were startled awake by the declaration, they both watched as a black mist that was hovering over their infant's bed formed into a ball and flew out through the wall. They later learned that a few blocks away, the husband's cousin - another Wilkinson - lost his own infant that night to crib death.
Todd, in the rear, was next and he said, "I've already told you about my earliest experience with the paranormal, so I think I'll tell you about my latest. A couple of weeks ago, we were hunting in an abandoned house in Hamilton, and there was one stairwell that I just didn't feel comfortable using. I set up an audiorecorder on the landing there on a hunch, and when I played it back the next morning, I could hear what sounded like a little girl, with the voice of a saint, saying, 'Help me.' We went back a couple of nights later, and this time we had my twin brother with me. I didn't tell him why but I asked my brother if he would set up the recorder on that landing, and when I found him later in the kitchen, he was sitting on the floor just sobbing. I've known this man for what? For forty-nine years, well all my life, and I haven't seen him crying since we were kids. And when I asked him what was going on, he said, 'I don't even know. I'm just feeling so emotional.' I'll tell you right now that when we get asked to come out and investigate something, ninety-nine percent of the time there's a logical explanation for what's being experienced. But one percent of the time we can't explain things away, and it's for that one percent that we do this."
The medium, Cheyenne, went next, and she explained that, like Todd's sister, she has had the gift for seeing spirits since she was young; and like Todd's sister, she was scared of it and tried to suppress the ability. Now that she's older, she's trying to embrace it as a gift, and experiences like this evening are her way of stretching and testing herself. She also explained that their son has the gift as well and she is intent on helping him to develop it. When someone asked her if she could see spirits on the boat with us she said yes, wherever she is she can see two or three spirits alongside every living person, and on the boat was no different. Her husband, Peter, went next and he explained that he is a skeptic - has never experienced anything for himself - but like Dave, his mind is open (everyone chuckled about the unbeliever married to the clairvoyant). I was next and told the story of the haunted house my family lived in after I moved away, and for Dan's turn, he told the story of the ghost dog that lived in the first house he and Rudy bought together (both of these stories, as well as Kennedy's, are recounted in earlier Halloween posts). All of this did set the tone, and by the time this bit of storytelling was done, Artie told us we could stop paddling and just listen to the river before he'd start talking again. And between the birdsong, the intermittent jumping fish breaking the glassy surface of the water with tiny burbles, and the great blue heron that kept hopskotching ahead of us along the darkening riverbank, I certainly felt more in tune with nature at this point; perhaps even more in tune with supernature.
Now, Artie wasn't kidding when he said that the paddling portion of the evening would be led by the interests of the group, so it would be no surprise to report that enjoyment is probably tied to how interested one is in the answers to other people's questions. Someone wanted to know if the Grand River had been an important trade route, and someone wanted to know if Artie could tell us about the history of Chief Joseph Brant (who led the Six Nations out of the USA after the Revolutionary War); someone even wanted to know if "First Nations" is his people's preferred group name. No matter the question, Artie always paused, took a breath, and answered to the best of his abilities. (Artie did make the disclaimer that he does not speak for his nation or his community, that he's just a guy who has stories - and as he eventually described the various committees, learning groups, and panels that he's a member of, I certainly don't discount his knowledge - but I respect that the setting is informal and he's just sharing what he knows.) And another disclaimer: Artie told us several stories that he explained he really shouldn't be sharing (tales of local secret societies or stories about other nations' beliefs and practises that aren't really his to talk about), so I've decided not to record those here (but I will say that I liked his story about the first time he brought up secret beings that are said to live in the woods, and as that first group floated down the river learning about them, a big rock fell into the water as though meant to threaten him to silence.)
Eventually, Artie would always bring the conversation back around to the "spooky stuff", and I liked the way that his and Todd's stories would meld together. Artie explained that when he was growing up on the reserve, the big threat that parents used to keep kids in line was, "If you don't behave, the flying ass is gonna get you." And Artie laughed and said that he always wondered why he should be afraid of a "flying ass". Like, what could it do to you? Was it enormous? Could it knock you down and fart on you? But then from the back of the boat, Todd said that in collecting stories from the elders, he learned that around a hundred years ago, there had been a murder on the reserve, and in order to hide the evidence, the murderer had cut up his victim's corpse and buried the various body parts in separate graves. Legend had it that all of the parts - including the ass - go flying around at night, seeking justice and each other; over time, each generation just whittled the legend down to what they would pass on. Todd had recently collected a story about a man who went to his kitchen in the middle of the night and was startled by a knocking at his front door. When he peeked out the window to see who was there, he was terrified to see a disembodied forearm and hand, knock-knock-knocking on his door. He did not open it, but it would seem that those body parts are still out there.
As part of the secret society stuff, Artie mentioned good and bad witches, and from the rear of the boat, Todd said, "There's a story for that. I have a cousin, just the same age as me, and when she was six she started telling about how when she and her siblings were trying to sleep at night, they would hear thump thump thump, loud pounding on the roof above their heads. It got so bad that her parents went to a witch to see if he could find out what was going on. The witch came to their house, and even though he hadn't been told what specifically had been happening, when he got to the front door he looked up at the roof and took a quick step backwards: refusing to enter their house. The witch went back home, brewed up some medicine, and brought it back to the family. He gave the medicine bag to the oldest son, because their father wasn't home, and he told him to go up on the roof and sprinkle the medicine around, being sure especially to get the four corners. He explained that a bad and jealous witch was landing on their roof at night and putting spells and curses on the family. After the medicine had been distributed, he warned that when the children heard the witch thump onto their roof that night, they were not to look out the window for any reason. And when the night did come, the children heard the thump thump thump of the bad witch landing on the roof above their heads, but this time it was followed by a blood curdling scream. And my cousin, being only six and sleeping on the top bunk in her room, turned just in time to see a form falling past her window. She yelled out, 'I know who that is', and then passed out. To this day, my cousin alone knows who the bad witch was but she's not capable of telling anyone - every time she tries to say or write the name, she passes out. That happened on Sixth Line, not far from here and you could ask her yourselves. Actually, you know the big green propane tanks we have beside our homes out here? You can still see the dent on the side of theirs where something, someone, fell off the roof onto it. But the thumping stopped. I remember when I was nineteen and I got my first car, I was cruising around, just loving being out driving in my own car, and I dropped in on my cousins and they were all sitting around their kitchen and telling spooky stories. And then my cousin told this story about the good and bad witches and I swear when I got back out to my car, I didn't want to drive around anymore - I was looking up at the sky and wondering what's up there."
I loved this back and forth storytelling - covering the legends from long ago and the results of more recent investigations - and I thought that Todd and Artie's opposite styles (Todd was open and friendly, eager to share; Artie was more guarded and careful with his word choices, even if he was more likely to curse and bordered on gruff) complemented each other and made for a whole and satisfying experience. In response to questions about his people's belief systems, Artie told us the legends of how Grandmother Moon and the Big Dipper were put into the sky, and briefly, he summarised the story of the great Seneca chief and prophet, Handsome Lake. During the eighteenth century, Handsome Lake watched helplessly as his land was overrun and his people were decimated. Like many of his dispirited people, he took to drinking, but after one particularly long bout of drunkenness, Handsome Lake became very sick and was apparently granted visions of the future. It is well known that Handsome Lake became sober after this experience (and that he wrote down a code of moral behaviour that he wanted the Iroquois people to follow), but it's less well known that Handsome Lake told fantastic stories of the future he saw: one that included cars and airplanes and their associated pollution. He predicted that his people would continue to lose their lives and that those who survived would lose their language and their culture, and he urged the Iroquois to participate in Longhouse Ceremony to preserve what they still could. Artie says that according to the elders of today, the 1950s saw very few people who could speak the language any more, and when they did hold Ceremony, maybe five or six people would show up. According to Artie, when he attends Ceremony today, the longhouse is so crowded that he can feel the dancer behind him breathing down his neck, and according to Artie, this was all part of the prophecy: apparently Handsome Lake predicted that a generation would come when the longhouse couldn't hold everyone who wanted to participate in Ceremony; and according to Handsome Lake, that generation would be the final generation.
By the time we arrived back down river to the Homestead, the sky was inky dark and the moon - waxing gibbous and eighty-seven percent full - shone brightly across the still water. The birds were mostly quiet, a few reservation dogs barked their complaints, every now and then someone set off some firecrackers that thumped in the distance or a lone fish would jump and splish close by; the fireflies beaming back and forth at the edges of sight. I had had a fascinating experience on a new stretch of the Grand River - satisfying the original purpose of the outing - but the evening still held more surprises.
We were ushered into the Homestead and seated in its dining room for a presentation of evidence that SNIPE has collected; Todd and Artie now joined by another partner, Tom, and his daughter (just today, the CBC had an article on Todd and his daughter and their work with SNIPE). There were several video clips of orb phenomena (Todd explained that they pick up orbs on their equipment all the time and were just showing us some with unusual shapes or movement patterns) and some audio clips of voices that could only be heard after the fact on their recording devices. The medium suddenly burst out with, "I can't keep this in any longer. When we went under the bridge on the river, a woman in a flowing white dress floated down and joined us. She's just so happy that you are sharing the history of the area with people and she often joins you and wants you to know how happy she is." Todd and Artie just nodded and thanked Cheyenne, saying that they have been told about the woman in the white dress before.
One video clip showed the interior of an apartment that belonged to a young man who begged SNIPE to come and investigate the odd goings-on in his home. Todd explained that when they started filming, they locked the guy's cat in the bathroom, but when it started freaking out in there, they told him he could get it. The clip shows the guy opening the bathroom door, turning on the light and picking up the frightened cat. As he turns his back to the bathroom, a black mist crosses the door frame and the light turns off again. As the guy runs toward the camera, the light turns back on. Artie said that at this point, the guy and his cat were cowering behind Todd, just terrified. I asked if there's anything they could do for this guy - did they sage the place or otherwise try to clear it of spirits? Then Todd explained that SNIPE are not cleansers - they only investigate and record phenomena - but while they had had a medium along on that investigation, there was nothing she could do for him either. Apparently, only the victim of a haunting like this could cleanse his own home and this young guy's mental state was too disordered to create a calm and clear space. And besides, according the medium, the guy was surrounded by the disordered energies of everyone in the other apartments, too; "cleansing" would be futile. That was all new learning for me. (As was Paula's question about a cleansing ceremony she had heard about: apparently, if you're being plagued by a poltergeist-type spirit, you should host a feast and set an extra plate for the being. When the meal is done, burying the poltergeist's plate will rid the home of it. Artie said that he had heard of such feasts, but in their tradition, you bring the spirit's plate to a river, a clean place being the solution. I didn't get the sense, however, that SNIPE participates in such ceremonies as part of their work.)
There was an audioclip of a little girl asking Todd to stay with her (a different one from the little girl who asked Todd to help her a couple of weeks earlier, and it sent shivers up my neck to hear it) and another from a time that Tom got disoriented in an attic and the medium who was with him said that something had grabbed his spirit and taken him to the other side (Tom then told us, looking completely honest, open, and still a little shaken, that it's always hard for him to hear that clip because he knows it's his voice but he has no recollection of anything from that experience). SNIPE explained that they usually share more evidence at this point, but it was already well after eleven, and if we had to be out by midnight, we'd better be getting upstairs to explore.
Before we went up the stairs, Todd asked if anyone wanted to hold a lantern and Dan took one to lead the way and Peter took the other to bring up the rear. Todd then asked if anyone wanted to hold this other device - based on Xbox Kinect technology, the screen shows a split image with an infrared blob of anyone it's pointed at on the right and a dot-to-dot stick figure of that person on the left. If there happens to be any spirits present, they will show up as a stick figure on the left without leaving a heat signature on the right side of the screen. Dave put up his hand quickly and was in charge of this device for the rest of our time in the building. When we got up to the top floor, the medium started going through the rooms, telling Dan at one point that Pauline Johnson was standing right beside him, later pointing at a cubby door and saying that it made her feel sad. Todd started his audio recorder, asked us all to be quiet, and then asked into the air if there was anyone around who wanted to speak to us; they could talk or knock or communicate any way they liked. And there was no response that I could hear.
We started moving through the rooms again and the medium told Dave, "There's something right there. Point the device right there." And when Dave pointed his screen to an empty room, he could see a stick figure dancing like a marionette on his screen even though the room was obviously unoccupied. Blew. His. Mind. Then the teenager, Ethan, asked Dave to bring the device into another room: when Ethan had stepped into the room a few minutes earlier, he felt a cold breeze and a poke in his ribs. We all went into that room and Dave panned with the device, but all we could see were the heat blobs and stick figures of the people we could see with our own eyes. Then the medium said, "Todd, there's a little boy standing to your right." Todd said into the air, "I'm right here if you want to hold my hand." And as soon as Todd stuck out his hand, a little stick figure resolved itself (on the screen) at his side, leaned into him and reached up a hand. For the next few minutes, it was undeniable that something resembling a little boy was on the screen beside Todd, although the infrared side of the screen only recorded Todd himself.
And all too soon, the director appeared to say that we were out of time and we needed to clear out. This portion of the evening might have felt rushed, but I can't say that any of us truly left disappointed. When we returned to the parking lot, Rudy mentioned that she had brought sage for cleansing, and Todd said that he would join us and Paula was fascinated - she knew nothing about sage or its purported cleansing properties - and the medium offered to make a ritual out of it. So, in the end, we nine gathered in a circle, in the dark, in the beam of a nearly full moon, while Cheyenne wafted us with sage smoke, chanting low about goodness and light.
And here's my overall impression: Dave said that the entire time we were in the house, he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck and shivers running down his spine. And because he was the one directing where the device would be pointed - and because the stick figures moved in response to the angles that he turned the screen to - he can't see how anyone could have faked what he was seeing with his own eyes. Dave 100% accepts what he saw as proof of something surviving death. I'm still more skeptical: on the one hand, I reckon it would be possible to somehow have a video file that can appear on the screen at the flip of a remote switch and seem to move in concert with Todd. But on the other hand, I don't know why SNIPE would want to trick us like that. It doesn't seem like a totally slick operation (the late start, not having enough vehicles to transport us up river, taking too long on the river and not having enough time in the house), so high tech trickery doesn't seem part of their MO - but then, they might be relying on off-reserve people's low estimation of their savviness in order to pull a fast one. But again, why? To sell more seats on future tours? Maybe. Maybe the medium in our group was a plant, too (but that's hard to believe; her family made up a third of the paying group and didn't seem like actors; when I asked the rest of my group about this, no one believed they could have been plants). Maybe it was all a hoax - from the stories to the purported evidence to what we could see on a videoscreen with our own eyes - but the SNIPE members we met really seemed more open and honest, more curious themselves about the supernatural, than that kind of trickery would presuppose.
So skepticism aside, if I did encounter any real "evidence", it was all technological (Rudy's dead Fitbit and the split screen device), so I still can't say that I have had a paranormal experience; I have to think of "experience" as something that I record with my own senses. But I can also 100% say that if we did encounter something in the Homestead that night, it wasn't scary or threatening; it was just people - people that have moved on to a new state of being - and that's a positive and encouraging impression to have left with. Make of it all what ye will.
Happy Halloween!
Strange stories from previous years:
Halloween I
Strange stories from previous years:
Halloween I
