By Melody Land
Everyone loves a good ghost story.
We see the oral tradition of the sharing of ghost stories throughout human history. It doesn’t seem to matter how old you are, your gender, culture, or belief system – when someone talks about the unexplained, you listen. Often, the stories are a way of passing some type of learning on to the listener; a bit of history or a moral lesson is the real message, the paranormal simply the wrapping paper that holds the message together and makes it look fancy.
Picture by Janet Wallace
Everyone loves a good ghost story.
We see the oral tradition of the sharing of ghost stories throughout human history. It doesn’t seem to matter how old you are, your gender, culture, or belief system – when someone talks about the unexplained, you listen. Often, the stories are a way of passing some type of learning on to the listener; a bit of history or a moral lesson is the real message, the paranormal simply the wrapping paper that holds the message together and makes it look fancy.
Picture by Janet Wallace
Albert County has a rich, and long, history. Originally inhabited by indigenous peoples, the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes have a significant amount of lore and wisdom passed along through the telling of paranormal activity, or ghost stories. Along the Atlantic coast, one of the most well-known stories is from Algonquian folklore. The story of the Wendigo, a spirit who possesses a human being to make him or her monstrous warns against the moral and societal dangers of greed and environmental destruction, along with the taboo nature of cannibalism and murder.
Other stories abound in our more recent history here along the Fundy shoreline. Stories of ghost ships, lost soldiers, and other unexplainable events reveal themselves from our collective memories in the same manner that fishing boats emerge from the fog to dock themselves on the Alma wharf – they are always present, though sometimes unseen, and their very existence gives shape to the foundations and behaviours of our society. For instance, at the Albert County Museum, ghost stories shape how we give tours, share information, even open and close buildings every morning and every night!
Connecting Albert County and the Albert County Museum are partnering to produce a special publication and event to honour and share the ghost stories (and other unexplainable/paranormal folklore) from our region. The October issue of Connecting Albert County will be dedicated to those stories and we will have a time of sharing hosted at the Museum towards the end of October. You are encouraged to take part! Submit your stories, or tell your story and have it written, by contacting Melody at [email protected]/734-2003 (leave a detailed message) or Janet at [email protected].
Other stories abound in our more recent history here along the Fundy shoreline. Stories of ghost ships, lost soldiers, and other unexplainable events reveal themselves from our collective memories in the same manner that fishing boats emerge from the fog to dock themselves on the Alma wharf – they are always present, though sometimes unseen, and their very existence gives shape to the foundations and behaviours of our society. For instance, at the Albert County Museum, ghost stories shape how we give tours, share information, even open and close buildings every morning and every night!
Connecting Albert County and the Albert County Museum are partnering to produce a special publication and event to honour and share the ghost stories (and other unexplainable/paranormal folklore) from our region. The October issue of Connecting Albert County will be dedicated to those stories and we will have a time of sharing hosted at the Museum towards the end of October. You are encouraged to take part! Submit your stories, or tell your story and have it written, by contacting Melody at [email protected]/734-2003 (leave a detailed message) or Janet at [email protected].
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