The Canadian Supernatural

“As to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is too matter-of- fact a country for such super-naturals to visit.” —Catharine Parr Traill

It always makes me chuckle when I read those lines. Go to any Chapters, Coles or regional tourist shop: you will find at least one collection, if not several, of local ghost stories or regional tales of the supernatural. John Robert Colombo has made a career of finding and packaging such encounters. Granted, it was 1833 when Catharine Parr Traill wrote those words and Ontario did not yet have the requisite number of haunted houses needed to meet the supernatural stereotype. In fairness, her idea of ghosts was imported from a country that offered its citizens romantic, class-based folklore in which spirits either hung out in gothic graveyards or suddenly appeared on the moor.

Of course, that is the problem, isn’t it? We are taught to read Canada’s literature as derivative creative expressions of...