Scary Prairie places to visit this fall

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/10/2022 (1207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are plenty of unexplained happenings in this world, and ghostly tales of people who may have gone before us but never really went. Instead, they stayed around to roam their surroundings, continuing to make their presences known. Places like this exist all around the prairies, too, with well-documented histories that suggest there could be restless spirits. If you go to one of these haunting site, you never know just who you might encounter. (Warning, the following stories can be disturbing.)

Frank Slide, Alta., was home to the Bellevue Mine, which produced over 13,000,000 tons of coal from 1903 to 1961. A total of 408 men were killed in underground explosions here in the early days. In October 1910, a large methane explosion rocked the mine. While no one was working at the time, nothing was done to fan deadly gases from the tunnels. Work soon resumed, and in December another explosion trapped 47 men in a shaft. Most survived the blast but slowly died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Between 1910 and 1958, there were approximately 60 more fatalities, including three children.

Near Maple Creek, Sask., ghostly phenomena have been reported for over a century in Cypress Hills Park. The area has a densely dark history attached to it, as a massacre occurred here on June 1, 1873. Legend has it that a band of starving Assiniboine people was resting near a trading post when American wolf hunters arrived and confronted Chief Hunkajuka (Little Soldier) and his people. A skirmish broke out, leading to the merciless slaughter of 23 Assiniboine, with one wolf hunter killed. The legend goes that Americans put their dead comrade in the trading post and burned it to the ground, leaving a legacy of death and destruction.

In Lethbridge, Alta., the modern day Yates Memorial Centre sits on a site that was once the barracks for the North-West Mounted Police, and where a man was hanged for murder on Jan.14, 1911. Many others were kept in cells in an area where the theatre’s prop storage area now sits – referred to as ‘Pebble Beach’ because the floor is made of loose stones rather than concrete. On the edge of town, the Lethbridge Provincial Gaol was originally built in 1910, designed like the main block of Alcatraz with no cells adjoined the building’s perimeter so as to prevent escape. Between 1912 and 1956 there were 18 hangings here.

The Moosehead Inn at Kenosee Lake, Sask., was home to many suspicious sightings. Employees would witnessed its well-known resident ghost, an angry old man, who was sometimes seen leaving the washroom. Other activity included glasses, ashtrays and knick-knacks going missing from the bar area of the nightclub, and unidentified banging that was recorded on security cameras above the bar, with no images. A truly iconic place, the inn unfortunately met a tragic demise last September, when it was destroyed by fire, sadly leaving the ghost resident without a place to haunt. At least, until its next home comes along.