Buried loot at the Haunted Stirling Mansion

Halloween is big business in Canada. Just ask Statistics Canada. Every year, it releases Halloween stats that include the latest demographics on trick or treaters, the number of Canadian farms with pumpkin patches, the amount of money Canadians spend on Halloween candy and even a list of places in Canada that may give you the creeps.

Based on recent travels across the country, we came up with our own list of creepy places:

All Hallows Eve at Kings Landing Historical Settlement

Bone-chilling tales including a famous cold case…

“Lizzie Borden took an axe, Gave her mother 40 whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father 41″  Lizzie was later acquitted of the 1892 double-ax murder which over a century later remains unsolved. Expect this kind of bone chilling tale and more as the “dead” gather October 29 and 30 to celebrate the ancient ritual of All Hallows Eve at Kings Landing Historical Settlement near Fredericton, New Brunswick. A mysterious soul and a headless horseman will greet you at the Kings Landing gate and escort you down a lonely gravel road to the King’s Head Inn. There you’ll join others for dnner and a night of murder and mayhem.

Haunted Stirling Mansion, Stirling, Alberta

Canada’s best haunted house:

Last June on a road trip near Lethbridge, Alberta, we stumbled across what we think is THE best haunted house in Canada. It was broad daylight when the owner gave us a tour of the Haunted Stirling Mansion. It didn’t matter. I still  jumped out of my skin when I saw a strange “dude” peeking out from a door slightly ajar. The set design in this place is so well done, my imagination ran wild. Fright Nights run October 28-31.

Haunted Atlas Coal Mine near Drumheller, Alberta

The Atlas Coal Mine:

With all the miner news of late we couldn’t resist including the Haunted Atlas Coal Mine.  It stands next to the ghost town of East Coulee, south of Drumheller, in the Canadian Badlands of Alberta. The mine’s grey-timbered tipple is creepy enough in daylight let alone at night when Hallowe’en guests are invited to explore it armed with only a flashlight. A former bathhouse has big meat hooks attached to ropes on pulleys hanging from the ceiling. Miners once used these to hang their street clothes on, above the coal dust. The Drumheller Paranormal Group thinks this national historic site is haunted. You can judge for yourself. Special Big Boo and Little Boo tours are offered October 30.

Canada’s coolest post-halloween event

Best post-Halloween event:

The Pumpkin Parade in west end Toronto’s Sorauren Park is a feast for the eyes. Every year hundreds of families bring their carved pumpkins to the park at dusk the day after Halloween. The pumpkins are then lit along a path that runs the perimeter of the park.

Drumheller, Alberta's T-Rex has a viewing platform between its teeth!

Chambers’ Dictionary of Etymology defines the term “mascot” as an animal, person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck. According to the dictionary, the word is borrowed from the french word, “mascotte” meaning sorcerer’s charm or good luck piece.

Canada is a land of mascots. I’m not sure why but they’re plentiful here. The largest is Drumheller, Alberta’s T-Rex. Four times the size of a real Tyrannosaurus Rex, it weighs 145,000 pounds, stands 86 feet tall and is 151 feet long. The cost to build T’Rex caused a bit of mascot controversy in Drumheller. But today most who live here would tell you their mascot has brought them good luck in the form of tourism dollars. This dinosaur-themed town is now the heartbeat of the Canadian Badlands, an Alberta region known for its dinosaur fossils, many of which are displayed in Drumheller’s famous Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The Big Apple, Colborne, Ontario

Drive enough of Alberta and you’ll find mascots for just about everything. The world’s largest lamp for a lamp museum. A giant cornstalk in Taber, Alberta famous for its corn. Coronation Alberta’s giant crown was chosen to honour the coronation of King George V. A model of the  Starship Enterprise stands in Vulcan, Alberta.  Manitoba’s mascots include the Melita banana, a giant mosquito, the world’s largest curling rock, and ‘Tommy the Turtle’.  A massive snowman, a giant set of hockey cards, several big buffalo and and a huge pitchfork are some of Saskatchewan’s mascots.

Shediac, New Brunswick, lobster capital of the world

Joe Muffraw, the lumberjack from Mattawa, Ontario

Sparwood, British Columbia has the world’s largest truck and Sudbury, Ontario has the largest nickel. A giant lumberjack is Mattawa, Ontario’s mascot. It was carved by a local artist using a chainsaw. In Canada’s Maritmes, you can’t miss the enormous red lobster as you drive into Shediac, New Brunswick, the lobster capital of the world. On a road trip through Quebec’s Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, we found Verger Lacroix’s basket of fruit and wine representing the apple orchards here. The Colborne area of Ontario is another apple region. The Big Apple at the side of a Highway 401 exit here has sold millions of apple pies to travelers.

Giant fruit basket in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Québec

In Pictou, Nova Scotia, the town mascot is Ship Hector, a reproduction of a sailing ship that brought the first Scottish settlers to the birthplace of “New Scotland” in 1773.

Hector Heritage Quay Interpretive Centre and the Ship Hector – photo: courtesy Town of Pictou, NS

Got a mascot in your neck of the woods? If so, we would love to hear from you.

On-board Ship Hector – photo: courtesy Town of Pictou, NS

One of the highlights of our visit to the Canadian Badlands (http://canadianbadlands.com) in southeastern Alberta was touring the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site.(http://www.atlascoalmine.ab.ca)  It’s managed by an amazing storyteller. In the space of an hour or so, she brought to life a wild and woolley era of Canadian history. One hundred and thirty nine coal mines once operated in the Drumheller area of the Canadian Badlands. Coal was what oil is today and Drumheller was the Fort McMurray of the 1920s.

Tipple at the Atlas Coal Mine, in the Canadian Badlands, East Coulee, Alberta

The place was BOOMING. Every language of Europe could be heard on the streets back then – Polish, Ukranian, Italian, German and more. Each mine had its own language too, with Polish spoken in one, Ukrainian in another and so on. Labour strife and the communist movement was strong and according to Linda a lot of in-fighting went on. Conservative mining companies faced off against labour groups and miners fought other miners. Fist fights broke out constantly. The wild west mentality was alive and well. One bar owner got so fed up with all the barroom brawls that he eventually drew a line down the middle of his establishment and told his competing customers to stay on their respective sides.

During Prohibition, secret tunnels and escape routes were built all over Drumheller. Bars occupied every street corner. Weekly paycheques were cashed at the bars and hotels or at brothels like Fanny’s, Mary’s and Pretty Alice’s. The brothels are long gone but some of the bars and hotels still operate. Places like the LongBranch Saloon in Drumheller and the Rosedeer Hotel in Wayne, a ghost town. (http://www.coalking.ca/people/ghost_wayne.html) Built in 1913, the Rosedeer Hotel was nicknamed “Bucket of Blood” in the coal mining era. Apparently some real brass knuckle stuff went on in its rooms upstairs. It’s all very genteel now and a great spot to stop for a beer and some Alberta beef. Drumheller’s tunnels are still around too but you won’t find them in the tourism guides.

If you’re in the Canadian Badlands around Hallowe’en, check out Haunted Atlas Coal Mine. It’s got to rank as one of the best Halloween events in Canada. The mine’s grey-timbered tipple, the only left in North America is creepy enough in daylight let alone at night. Hallowe’en is when you get to explore it on your own, armed with only a flashlight.

Bath House at the Atlas Coal Mine

The mine’s former bathhouse is just as creepy. Big meat hooks attached to ropes on pulleys hang from the bathhouse ceiling. Coal miners once used these to hang their street clothes on, high above the coal dust.

Check out the Google Map here.

Crops growing on the flat land above Horseshoe Canyon

Our first introduction to the Canadian Badlands of Alberta was a ten minute helicopter ride (Mountain View Helicopters) over Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller (about the canyon). This canyon is part of the Red Deer River Valley. Glenn snapped these graphically stunning photos from the air. Note the dark green borders. These are shelter trees that protect the crop fields from high winds. Horseshoe Canyon is about 17 km west of Drumheller (pop. 8000). It has been made famous by its Royal Tyrrell Museum, the largest in the world devoted to palaeontology (dinosaurs). It’s fantastic. Kids go absolutely ga-ga in the place. Another great dino destination in the Badlands is Dinosaur Provincial Park, about an hour and half drive southeast of Drumheller, near Brooks. I’ll talk more about both of these places in future blogs.

Driving in the Canadian Badlands is different. For starters, there’s no traffic. I hate driving in Toronto, it’s so car-clogged, but in the Badlands, driving is a blast. Even 45 degree turns on the highways have dotted lines for passing because you can see for miles! Restaurants and gas stations are few and far between though, so we learned quickly to top off our gas tank and carry lots of water.

Beehive hills near Drumheller, Alberta

The prairie out here changes. Sometimes it’s as flat as a pancake. Sometimes it’s rolling hills. On the flat parts, it’s startling to have the earth suddenly open up in front of your car as you descend into one of the Badlands’ river valleys. My first impression – the hills – they look like giant beehives. Very outer space-ish. A prairie dog was the first to greet us at Horseshoe Canyon. Western farmers apparently hate these little critters but I think they’re kinda cute. The canyon is also home to lots of antelope and white tailed deer. You can access the canyon floor by footpath but don’t try it if it rains, the earth here turns to mud pretty quickly and climbing back up in a storm would be a challenge. Horseshoe is not the only canyon near Drumheller. There is another called Horsethief Canyon. In the early ranching days, thousands of horses roamed this part of the Canadian prairie. Legend has it that many horses disappeared into these canyons only to later emerge with a different brand seared into their backsides.

Helicopter rides over Horseshoe Canyon

‘Copter rides operate from June until Labour Day at Horseshoe. If you stop here, be sure to check out Fossil Steve’s booth. Steve grew up in this area and began collecting dinosaur fossils when he was a kid. Besides being a wealth of information on the area and on dinosaurs, Steve sells fossils and lots of casts. I bought a beautiful 65 million year old ammonite from him for $30. Steve told me he found it several years ago before the Alberta Historical Resources Act came into law. It prohibits fossil hunters from going into the region and raiding sites for the purposes of fossil sales. You can view a copy of this act at http://www.canlii.org/ab/laws/sta/h-9/20040623/whole.html