Ghost Stories of Canada

Daniel M. Kolos is president of Benben Books, a company publishing
scholarly works.

No stranger to collections of ghost stories, the master gatherer already
has a volume on Toronto, on Ontario, and now on all of Canada, in
addition to several other volumes where ghost stories play a minor role.
Ghost Stories of Canada consists of 100 stories that range from the
classics of Canada’s past to the present. The most fertile ground for
ghost stories seems to be the Maritimes, to which 31 stories are
devoted.

Colombo’s delivery has improved since his publication of the Ghost
Stories of Ontario (1995). The sentences are crisp, the stories are
tightly woven, and his commentary is kept to a minimum. The stories flow
seamlessly. Every now and then Colombo allows himself a play on words.
Introducing “The Spirit of the Hanging Judge,” he asks: “Is the
spirit of the Hanging Judge still hanging around?” Evidently so,
because Sir Matthew Baillie Begby’s ghost was captured in a
photograph.

Jillian Hulme Gilliland graces the volume with a dozen black-and-white
pencil or charcoal drawings; each is tastefully done, delicately
balancing the ghastly nature of ghost stories and her art form. Because
the presentation is good, it is a delight to read this collection. In a
sense, Colombo’s 21 publications on the “unexplained” and the
“mysterious” form a major contribution to a side of Canadian social
history that will never be seriously considered by academia.