Storied Muskoka –
Canada’s Haunted Lakeland
Canada’s Haunted Lakeland
When I pass from this tired, frayed mortal coil, I too shall find Muskoka an accommodating domain for the still-unsettled spirit…..in this hauntingly craggy, gnarled, forested landscape that has for too long been taken for granted by her users and abusers.
I can’t take but one footfall from this homestead, here at Birch Hollow, than I feel the invigoration of unspecified old spirits and musty legend left to its own devices. Even when I sit in this creaking office chair, looking out over The Bog, I feel the presence of so much more than does the everyday traveler, who out of imposed necessity is too busy to stop and ponder the grand virtues of nature, and the subtle intrigue of the unexplained.
There are many good folks who reside down this lane, who have little use for “haunts” and the “marvels” of the hinterland. They have more important things to do in this frenetic world in which we live. There are aspects of this ballywick I feel are important and life-enhancing but a few of my contemporaries believe I am wasting my time selling virtues of enchantment and poetry; fantasy and the good graces of both legend and lore. The woodland I see now has a depth beyond what the naturalists identifies. The snaking creek through the hollow means more to me as analogy than the science of watershed alone. I suppose I am forever locked into the confusing hiatus between the natural and the supernatural. Yet I am contented to experience the joys of reality and then expectation while walking down these misty, well-worn pathways down into the hollow.
When the wind gusts bang at the light fixtures on the verandah, it’s as if the spirits are attempting to awaken the dead to their own new reality. Right this moment the gale force wind of an early spring storm whines through the cracks in this humble abode, and it’s as if there’s a cauldron of boiling souls somewhere beyond.
There are those who prefer to acknowledge weather as weather, wind as wind, and sunrise and sunset as a matter of sheer routine. There is no reason to question the quirks and peculiarities of a given day, other than possibly to offer some complaint about the inconvenience of having to go out in the rain or snow, or the blast of spring wind that puts sand into eyes, and hair into disarray.
I am rather passionate about these blustery circumstances, as I can always find something to write about when the sky is black, or the lightning flashes ignite so much brighter than white. I might sit here for an hour in a gentle submission, listening to birds chirp from the lilac boughs. In the event a fringe of dark, ominous looking cloud was to appear suddenly over the horizon pines, my typewriter would be employed in a rapid transmission from mind to key to paper. It is so wonderfully provocative when the wind howls and this house creaks in the thrusts of a storm’s initial bluster. Just as the wind etches down upon this vulnerable landscape presently, as we reside precariously on the brink of yet another spring storm. It is oh so much more interesting when nature decides it’s time to shatter mortal complacency. While the calm of early morning inspires the poet to write sentimentally about new beginnings and the rejuvenation of life, a mid afternoon storm cascades a wild fury of emotion and contempt, and it’s difficult to keep the fingers in tempo with the peaks and valleys of a powerful gale force.
I can sit here in the company of modern conveniences, a hot cup of tea and fresh biscuit, in warmth and comfortable sanctuary, yet feel as if, with this display of violent weather outside, I am alone in some remote wilderness cabin with a modest fire in the hearth, and most basic, humble shelter. I can feel the reaper’s long nails scraping at the window pane to harvest yet another wayfarer at the end of an adventure. I feel the icy grasp of death on my shoulder and shudder at the possibility this fire will extinguish, this hot tea run cold, this storied cabin left to erode into the landscape from which it was raised. There are many faces pressed against the glass, of travelers once, who may have lodged here for a time, partaking of nourishment to continue their passage to a homestead allotment further down the road.
Muskoka has been a tantalizing, alluring mistress for all these years. She has inspired me onward to discover the road less traveled, and left me questioning pertinent legend and lore at lakeside, when a spring sunset ignites the water into a great ball of liquid fire. I watch phantom canoes drift slowly across the lake, and have heard the whistle of a long lost steamship, and then saw the vapor off a lakeside bog float across the waterscape like two dancers in a tango. Nothing is quite as it seems. There is an intermingling of fact and fiction, legend and lore, ghosts and wee beasties that travel in the twilight of summer nights, up and down the rock faces of frozen-in-time ogres, and assorted other malevolent entities who curl up in the story-lines yet to be written.
There is a deep satisfaction in making a connection, with the qualities and quantities of unspecified manifestations; the ghost witnessed along the fern-laden garden path, or the fairy-kind found in dance ‘neath the midnight moon. It’s truly marvelous to find yourself in company with some goblin or other, at a time when a source of inspiration proves hollow and boring. How could any writer or artist-type, fail to be thoughtfully provoked, when provided exposure in some fashion, to the curious facets of what is often called the supernatural. I consider myself quite fortunate indeed to feel the hair on my neck standing in the chill of strange company, possibly encountered on a cemetery walk, or on a misted-over trail from one cottage structure to another.
I have no interest in protecting myself against all exposures to what a soothsayer might call “the paranormal.” I drink it all in as would any inspiration-starved creator, having this unnatural craving to compose until the final, ultimate collapse into exhaustion. It would be an unremarkable enterprise should these paranormal encounters suddenly cease. My goodness, what would I do? What would inspire me to sit for hours on end at this typewriter, if it wasn’t for a well placed, unanticipated haunting?
It’s apparent from what visitors to Birch Hollow tell me…. that we have quite enough ghosts already, to keep me company for many years to come. As an antique collector it is said that these wayward spirits may have arrived in our abode, quite unceremoniously attached to a work of art,….possibly an old pine cradle, a painting, book, or even a Victorian era teddy bear. My wife claims we have haunted dolls, and I have nary a reason to challenge her assumption.
Muskoka is most definitely a haunted, spiritual place, and there have been many testimonials from some of the country’s great poets and artists, agreeing there’s more here than just rocks, trees and water. There’s an ecstasy to experience. A spiritual freedom, a universality of potential beckoning free-thinkers to explore and create.
For those who wouldn’t recognize a spirit if they had one hop on their back for a wee joy-ride, sensing out the paranormal from the normal, the supernatural from the natural, is a matter of letting one’s imagination run unencumbered. It is necessary to allow your sensory perception to delve beyond the obvious. Pre-conceived notions block out a great deal of sensory perception. It’s a modern day condition consuming the child before its time. Possessing the good graces of a child’s imagination is the catalyst of unfettered adventure.
What do you feel sitting out along the Muskoka lakeshore in the darkness, and watching the magnificent fanning colors of the northern lights? Do you hear voices in the wind, when a spring gale washes down over the rock bluffs, and then through the pinery highlands? Do you feel that sense of awe when a storm-front rages down over the lakeland with a powerful fist, unclenching onto vulnerable lowlands, and then culling old leaning birches and evergreens as it rages through the woodlands.
Muskoka is a storied place, much like the historic valley of the Hudson River, made famous by American author Washington Irving. Muskoka has a collection of tales and legends to bestow the keen watcher….the curious traveler, the seeker of adventure, with the truths of good, faithful and historic hauntings.
If ye are the seekers of such adventure, you are welcome to join this mission of discovery…..and yes, I’ve known a few spirits in my time. If you don’t believe in ghosts and the paranormal, then consider these coming entries as wild speculation, ravings of a lunatic, and flights of unfathomable fancy. But if you dare to experience Muskoka’s spirited legacy, do read on…..more to come soon in this blog journal….the Nature of Muskoka.
I can’t take but one footfall from this homestead, here at Birch Hollow, than I feel the invigoration of unspecified old spirits and musty legend left to its own devices. Even when I sit in this creaking office chair, looking out over The Bog, I feel the presence of so much more than does the everyday traveler, who out of imposed necessity is too busy to stop and ponder the grand virtues of nature, and the subtle intrigue of the unexplained.
There are many good folks who reside down this lane, who have little use for “haunts” and the “marvels” of the hinterland. They have more important things to do in this frenetic world in which we live. There are aspects of this ballywick I feel are important and life-enhancing but a few of my contemporaries believe I am wasting my time selling virtues of enchantment and poetry; fantasy and the good graces of both legend and lore. The woodland I see now has a depth beyond what the naturalists identifies. The snaking creek through the hollow means more to me as analogy than the science of watershed alone. I suppose I am forever locked into the confusing hiatus between the natural and the supernatural. Yet I am contented to experience the joys of reality and then expectation while walking down these misty, well-worn pathways down into the hollow.
When the wind gusts bang at the light fixtures on the verandah, it’s as if the spirits are attempting to awaken the dead to their own new reality. Right this moment the gale force wind of an early spring storm whines through the cracks in this humble abode, and it’s as if there’s a cauldron of boiling souls somewhere beyond.
There are those who prefer to acknowledge weather as weather, wind as wind, and sunrise and sunset as a matter of sheer routine. There is no reason to question the quirks and peculiarities of a given day, other than possibly to offer some complaint about the inconvenience of having to go out in the rain or snow, or the blast of spring wind that puts sand into eyes, and hair into disarray.
I am rather passionate about these blustery circumstances, as I can always find something to write about when the sky is black, or the lightning flashes ignite so much brighter than white. I might sit here for an hour in a gentle submission, listening to birds chirp from the lilac boughs. In the event a fringe of dark, ominous looking cloud was to appear suddenly over the horizon pines, my typewriter would be employed in a rapid transmission from mind to key to paper. It is so wonderfully provocative when the wind howls and this house creaks in the thrusts of a storm’s initial bluster. Just as the wind etches down upon this vulnerable landscape presently, as we reside precariously on the brink of yet another spring storm. It is oh so much more interesting when nature decides it’s time to shatter mortal complacency. While the calm of early morning inspires the poet to write sentimentally about new beginnings and the rejuvenation of life, a mid afternoon storm cascades a wild fury of emotion and contempt, and it’s difficult to keep the fingers in tempo with the peaks and valleys of a powerful gale force.
I can sit here in the company of modern conveniences, a hot cup of tea and fresh biscuit, in warmth and comfortable sanctuary, yet feel as if, with this display of violent weather outside, I am alone in some remote wilderness cabin with a modest fire in the hearth, and most basic, humble shelter. I can feel the reaper’s long nails scraping at the window pane to harvest yet another wayfarer at the end of an adventure. I feel the icy grasp of death on my shoulder and shudder at the possibility this fire will extinguish, this hot tea run cold, this storied cabin left to erode into the landscape from which it was raised. There are many faces pressed against the glass, of travelers once, who may have lodged here for a time, partaking of nourishment to continue their passage to a homestead allotment further down the road.
Muskoka has been a tantalizing, alluring mistress for all these years. She has inspired me onward to discover the road less traveled, and left me questioning pertinent legend and lore at lakeside, when a spring sunset ignites the water into a great ball of liquid fire. I watch phantom canoes drift slowly across the lake, and have heard the whistle of a long lost steamship, and then saw the vapor off a lakeside bog float across the waterscape like two dancers in a tango. Nothing is quite as it seems. There is an intermingling of fact and fiction, legend and lore, ghosts and wee beasties that travel in the twilight of summer nights, up and down the rock faces of frozen-in-time ogres, and assorted other malevolent entities who curl up in the story-lines yet to be written.
There is a deep satisfaction in making a connection, with the qualities and quantities of unspecified manifestations; the ghost witnessed along the fern-laden garden path, or the fairy-kind found in dance ‘neath the midnight moon. It’s truly marvelous to find yourself in company with some goblin or other, at a time when a source of inspiration proves hollow and boring. How could any writer or artist-type, fail to be thoughtfully provoked, when provided exposure in some fashion, to the curious facets of what is often called the supernatural. I consider myself quite fortunate indeed to feel the hair on my neck standing in the chill of strange company, possibly encountered on a cemetery walk, or on a misted-over trail from one cottage structure to another.
I have no interest in protecting myself against all exposures to what a soothsayer might call “the paranormal.” I drink it all in as would any inspiration-starved creator, having this unnatural craving to compose until the final, ultimate collapse into exhaustion. It would be an unremarkable enterprise should these paranormal encounters suddenly cease. My goodness, what would I do? What would inspire me to sit for hours on end at this typewriter, if it wasn’t for a well placed, unanticipated haunting?
It’s apparent from what visitors to Birch Hollow tell me…. that we have quite enough ghosts already, to keep me company for many years to come. As an antique collector it is said that these wayward spirits may have arrived in our abode, quite unceremoniously attached to a work of art,….possibly an old pine cradle, a painting, book, or even a Victorian era teddy bear. My wife claims we have haunted dolls, and I have nary a reason to challenge her assumption.
Muskoka is most definitely a haunted, spiritual place, and there have been many testimonials from some of the country’s great poets and artists, agreeing there’s more here than just rocks, trees and water. There’s an ecstasy to experience. A spiritual freedom, a universality of potential beckoning free-thinkers to explore and create.
For those who wouldn’t recognize a spirit if they had one hop on their back for a wee joy-ride, sensing out the paranormal from the normal, the supernatural from the natural, is a matter of letting one’s imagination run unencumbered. It is necessary to allow your sensory perception to delve beyond the obvious. Pre-conceived notions block out a great deal of sensory perception. It’s a modern day condition consuming the child before its time. Possessing the good graces of a child’s imagination is the catalyst of unfettered adventure.
What do you feel sitting out along the Muskoka lakeshore in the darkness, and watching the magnificent fanning colors of the northern lights? Do you hear voices in the wind, when a spring gale washes down over the rock bluffs, and then through the pinery highlands? Do you feel that sense of awe when a storm-front rages down over the lakeland with a powerful fist, unclenching onto vulnerable lowlands, and then culling old leaning birches and evergreens as it rages through the woodlands.
Muskoka is a storied place, much like the historic valley of the Hudson River, made famous by American author Washington Irving. Muskoka has a collection of tales and legends to bestow the keen watcher….the curious traveler, the seeker of adventure, with the truths of good, faithful and historic hauntings.
If ye are the seekers of such adventure, you are welcome to join this mission of discovery…..and yes, I’ve known a few spirits in my time. If you don’t believe in ghosts and the paranormal, then consider these coming entries as wild speculation, ravings of a lunatic, and flights of unfathomable fancy. But if you dare to experience Muskoka’s spirited legacy, do read on…..more to come soon in this blog journal….the Nature of Muskoka.
Please visit my other blog at www.gravenhurstmuskoka.blogspot.com
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