The Haunted Walk of Kingston

This Hallowe’en season we took to Kingston, Ontario in search of some ghosts.

Before heading out on a midnight tour with the GCE staff at Fort Henry, we had a chance to sit down with our Tour Guide Morgan Anderson, the Tour Manager Megan, and some of the staff. This really set the tone for the night we were about to experience and gave all of us a chance to understand the walk a little better. The prospect of encountering a ghost in a fort from the 19th century is very exciting and there is no better way to experience it than by having a personal tour with a guide from The Haunted Walk who tells you stories to spook you.

After the interview, we gathered at Fort Henry and began our tour. A lot of our group had cell phones power down without warning and found they were only able to be turned back on after we left the fort. During the tour, we heard footsteps following us in tunnels when there were no one else behind us and as we followed, we couldn’t help but experience the incredible effect Fort Henry had to offer while our amazing tour guide Morgan led the way with bravery and enthusiasm.

The Haunted Walk can be taken in three major cities in Ontario; Ottawa, Kingston, and now Toronto. If you would like to book a tour you can do so by visiting their website and contacting the booking staff at www.hauntedwalk.com

Before we jump into the interview, I would like to thank the staff of The Haunted Walk who helped take part in our experience and the GCE staff who took part in the interview and came along to brave the ghosts. Finally, I’d like to thank the ghosts of Fort Henry for giving us a spooky 90 minute adventure during the midnight hours!

When was The Haunted Walk first started?

Morgan – The walk was started 19 years ago by Glen Shackleton in Kingston. It started off as just him and his brother.

And there is a series of books now?

Yes, we have The Ghosts of Kingston and The Ghosts of Ottawa.

Now that there is a Toronto walk can we expect a book on Toronto?

We definitely hope so!

This is your first year with The Haunted Walk; what has been your most chilling experience so far?

I can think of two right off the bat and both happened at Fort Henry. The first one happened right at the front gates under the awning. There was a huge thunderstorm going and so I had told the story under there so we didn’t get wet. These two women jumped at the same time because they saw a shadow moving on the wall behind me and there was nobody there. They both swore they saw the shadow at the exact same time. There have been a few incidents like that, mainly up at Fort Henry. The other happened in the bakery which is supposed to be haunted by a poltergeist. One of the stories features footsteps that walk across the room and just before I was about to talk about that part of the story a woman jumped up and started yelling because she had heard these footsteps cross along the room and a man said he felt the floor dip down as she heard these footsteps.

Do you think there is a reason that Fort Henry seems to be a hotspot of paranormal activity?

There have been a lot of deaths around Fort Henry even though it was never attacked. There were a lot of accidents there; you have firearms and artillery. It’s also this huge limestone building and limestone seems to attract a lot of ghost activity. It’s  also extremely old so a lot of people have lived within the walls and outside the walls as well.

Has anyone from the haunted walk ever quit their job from fear?

Here, I’m not sure about. I know one of the stories features two security guards that ended up locking up and going home for the night because they were too frightened about something they had heard in Fort Henry and couldn’t explain. So I’m unsure if anyone from our staff has actually quit because of ghosts but they’ve definitely experienced them and been afraid.

We have noticed some of your other staff members here are agreeing they have been spooked before. Can we get some insight on their experiences?

Staff Member– I had one particularly terrifying night. It was just one of those nights that felt wrong and everywhere we went something happened. When we were standing in the parade square at Fort Henry three ladies and myself saw things flickering about like someone walking, almost like a silhouette. We went into the reverse firing chamber and we smelt a very strong and overpowering smell of gun powder while there are no guns in there that could have been fired. Then, as we were walking past the bakery we had two people who heard a little girl’s voice laughing or talking while also hearing the sound of a piccolo playing. That was funny because when we went back to the office one of the other tour guides who had been up at the fort said he had heard piccolos and when he had begun humming the tune the women who heard them with my group had said “Yeah, that’s the one that we heard!”

So that’s two stories centering on the bakery at Fort Henry, seems like a big hot spot there. Have there ever been any paranormal investigation teams come in?

We have had Ghost Hunters(TV Show), on their only trip to Canada so far, at Fort Henry. They contacted us and we gave them our stories before they went in. You can find their episode and they do have footage of the doors in the bakery part way closing, opening up again, and then slamming completely shut. That is one of the most active encounters that we have at Fort Henry in fact; even in the middle of our tours doors will physically slam shut.

What kind of research is involved in adding new content to the tours?

New content is added and that’s one of my jobs as the Kingston Tour Manager; to take a look at the scripts every year and update them and add new things. Because we have such a solid base for our tours, we don’t actively seek out new information but we will follow up on any leads that we have. If we have any tour guides experiencing things on the tours we always get them to write it down and give me the full details so that we can add these encounters in our scripts later. Another one is customers. A lot of the time if we have them come on our tour they will have things happen. It doesn’t have to be experiences on our tour because some customers come in and say they have had such things happen in certain buildings or ‘I have worked somewhere and had encounters’. This is how we continue to get information and update our scripts.

Did each one of you guys believe in ghosts before you started working here or did this job make you more interested in paranormal activity?

I think that’s a question that is very individual to every tour guide. It is however a question that we do ask during the job interview. It’s not a requirement of the job though, and in fact I would say we do have some tour guides who are still skeptical and don’t believe in ghosts.

Morgan, what would you say was your most memorable reaction from a customer while on the tour?

Morgan – Often times my favorite reactions come from children who hold onto their eyes or ears and run to their mothers. I had one child with us and it was his birthday, and he would be up with me listening to the stories and as soon as I got to a scary part he’d back right up to his parents.

So you’re the guardian to the tour but it’s your job to scare them a bit too?

Morgan – Exactly, sometimes we’ll even let them hold onto the cloak to make them feel safe.

Now that there are three cities that have tours, are there any plans to expand to that maybe you can give us a bit of insight on?

Megan – Not at the moment, as we have only just expanded to Toronto area two years ago. We are still growing and expanding our Toronto tours because they are so new and a lot of effort is going into making sure people know about them and making sure that part of the business grows. With that being said, there are one or more opportunities that may or may not be arising and we are looking at them for expansion within the company, just not new locations at the moment.