Ghosts: True Stories from British Columbia

David Mattison is a librarian with the Provincial Archives and Records
Service Library in Victoria.

Belyk’s anthology is the second title in as many years documenting the
phantoms of Canada’s super, natural province. The author has done a
superb job of mining books and newspapers, as well as gathering accounts
through interviews with participants, a handful of whom were reluctant
to reveal their identities. However, these stories won’t convince any
skeptics that ghosts truly haunt British Columbian places and people.

After an introduction that summarizes the history of psychic research
into hauntings, including the theory that ghosts prefer damp climates,
Belyk launches into the stories. There are haunted places, mostly
houses, and there are haunted people. Most of the haunted places turn
out to be in Victoria, not surprising since many of the stories came
from the newspaper-clipping files once maintained by the former B.C.
Provincial Archives. Two of the most absorbing stories are the Tod House
tale, set in the oldest private home in “Western Canada, and the
Phantom of the Links,” about a murdered young nurse who haunts the
Victoria Gold Club. The most unusual haunting is the “Phantom of the
Burn Unit,” a spectre that tried to assist his nurses at the Vancouver
General Hospital. Several ghost stories from the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries round out this introduction to B.C.’s spectral
past.

The author acknowledges what he suspects many will feel after reading
this collection: “actual stories of the supernatural are always a
little unsatisfying. These stories have an unpolished feel to them; the
pieces do not seem to fit together. Often, important questions are not
answered. The reader is left to scratch his or her head and wonder.”
Endnotes, a bibliography, an index, and a small selection of photographs
are helpful aids.