LITMIR.BIZ

      The Bytown Museum, seen in the background, helps history come alive for visitors.

      Author’s collection.

      Dating back to 1827 and being marked as the oldest stone building in Ottawa, the Bytown Museum was originally Lieutenant-Colonel John By’s commissariat. A commissariat is a type of warehouse where military supplies and funding for workers and contractors are stored. And, being a place where items of great importance and value were kept, it was believed to be an easy target for theft.

      The building was guarded by a supply manager named Duncan Macnab. Macnab, whose job was to protect the gold and silver, the military arms and supplies, and the thick rock walls, must have been quite effective because there is no indication or record of there ever being any theft from the treasury or stores of the building while he was in charge.

      Some believe that Macnab, so obsessed with the protection of the building, still lingers there long after his death, ensuring that his vigilant presence is felt.

      Some speculate that the haunting is due to the thousands of workers who died in the construction of the nearby Rideau Canal, due to accidents and the spread of diseases such as malaria.

      Still others believe that Lieutenant-Colonel John By, the founder of Bytown, who died in 1836, still wanders along the canal that he oversaw the completion of between 1826 and 1832, and is an additional presence in the building.

      About one third of the way through the self-guided tour of the museum, visitors are instructed by the audio’s narrative to peer out the second-floor windows to see, directly across the canal, at the edge of Major’s Hill Park, a statue with the likeness of Lieutenant-Colonel By. I couldn’t help but be overcome with an odd feeling of being watched, perhaps even scrutinized. Was it just the statue of Colonel John By? I wondered, suspecting the phenomenon came from within my own perception. Or is there something else … someone else, someone inside watching me?

      I had, after all, heard the story of how two museum employees were discussing the possibility of the building being haunted by By when the computer in front of them turned itself off all on its own. When it booted back up, again on its own, the only thing that appeared on the monitor over and over were the words:

      Lt. Col. John By

      Lt. Col. John By

      Lt. Col. John By

      Lt. Col. John By

      It was almost as if the colonel had been listening to the conversation and wanted to make it perfectly clear that he was still around, still watching and listening.

      That might have been the way Glen Shackleton, director and founder of Haunted Walks Inc., initially felt when experienced something odd at what has been described as one of Ottawa’s most haunted locations.

      Shackleton, who heads up the historic ghost walks of downtown Ottawa, has also spent a significant amount of time in the Bytown Museum acting as one of the building’s volunteers. Having heard plenty of ghost stories associated with several different locations from many different people, Shackleton was aware of the possibility that a spooky historic location combined with an overactive imagination might very well be the real cause of the stories he had heard about the museum. But a series of incidents that happened to him in that very building changed his mind.

      One of the stories that has been repeatedly shared about the museum involves the stairs. Visitors regularly indicate that they heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs behind them, but when they stopped and turned there was nobody there. Despite this fact, they would claim to hear the footsteps continue on past them.

      Shackleton’s original belief was that the old wood of the stairs could possibly be making the noise, due to them being compressed by the visitor’s own upward steps and then slowly released back a second after they moved on, creating the eerie footstep-like sound.

      But one afternoon in 2006 he was in the middle of a conversation with the museum’s program coordinator, Steve, while the two of them were walking together. When Shackleton headed up the stairs, he kept talking, positive that the other man was following directly behind him. When Shackleton turned to ask a question, he realized that Steve was no longer there. He had forgotten something and turned around, remaining behind on the main floor. But despite being alone on the stairs, Shackleton not only heard the distinct sound of footsteps but also felt a distinct presence lurking around him.

      After previously being skeptical about the reports he had heard, Shackleton stopped discounting the phenomenon of the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

      Other phenomena shared about the building include motion detectors going off in the middle of the night when the building is securely locked and empty. The historical videos, which are typically triggered by somebody pressing a nearby button, have also turned on and off all by themselves.

      One employee at the museum believed that the ghost was a mischievous fellow, and found the incidents more annoying than frightening. One afternoon she was working in an adjacent room and the audio of Wade Hemsworth’s classic folk song “The Log Drivers’ Waltz” kept turning on by itself.

      As the chorus of the song blasted out yet again, this particular employee was not at all pleased. She was so frustrated, in fact, that she yelled out, “Stop that! You know I hate that song!”

      Immediately following her outburst, the music stopped.

      Some believe, based on incidents like this one, that at least one of the ghosts that calls the museum home is a bit of a playful spirit. Duncan Macnab, the aforementioned guard and storekeeper of the commissariat, also had a bit of a reputation as a trickster. When some rum went missing, Macnab explained the disappearance as it having “evaporated,” despite the incident taking place in the dead of winter. And a man who had died continued to receive his full rations for a week after his death, at least, according to the records. It seems as if Duncan Macnab, who enjoyed playing tricks on people back in the 1820s, might very well still be responsible for some of the odd and playful incidents taking place in the building today, including moving pieces of furniture around, the lights and videos turning on and off, as well as a distinct disembodied male voice shouting “get out.”

      Part of an exhibit of what it was like for a child growing up in Ottawa nearly two hundred years ago included a row of children’s dolls. Macnab might very well have been the one who took possession of the dolls that used to be part of that exhibit, although many think that they were being animated by the spirit of a dead child. When I arrived at the museum in the winter of 2015, eager to see the dolls I had heard and read so much about, I was disappointed to learn that they had since been removed. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because even the thought of catching one of these cute inanimate childhood playthings winking at me, or hearing soft child-like crying coming from the area where the dolls were located sets the hair on the back of my neck on end and throws a cold shiver down my spine.

      The schoolhouse artifacts that were there — a desk, slate tablets, and abacus, the mirrors featuring headless children wearing period clothing (meant to make the child standing in front of the mirror see what they might look wearing those clothes), along with the black shoeprints leading

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