What better way to appreciate our seafaring history than get
acquainted with the spirits haunting our shores? Andrew Aulenback, The
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic’s ghost story “guru,” is interested in
uncovering tales few Haligonians know about.
Aulenback tells the story of The Duc d’Enville, a French admiral
who, in 1746, gathered his entire fleet in Chebucto Bay, hoping to save
Louisburg for the French. The majority of his crew perished, he burned
his ships in the Bedford Basin and died shortly after. The French
dumped d’Enville’s remains on Georges Island, only to dig up his corpse
later to bury in Louisbourg.
There were sightings of d’Enville’s ghost strutting about British
Halifax, fully clad in his French uniform, as well as reports of the
ghost looking for his lost fleets in the Bedford Basin.
A British officer with a drinking problem also haunts the Sambro
Island Lighthouse. The British supposedly sent a man with the
unfortunate name of Alexander Alexander to Halifax, with a pile of
money for supplies. When he came back with nothing but a hangover
headache, his commanding officer sentenced him to a lifetime in the
army without pay. Alexander hanged himself.
“It’s lighthouse keepers who claim that that light is haunted by
poor Alexander Alexander marching desperately around to pay off his
debts,” says Aulenback. The ghost also torments lighthouse keepers by
hiding their keys.
Legend also has it the Macdonald Bridge will fall, as did its two
predecessors, due to the curse of a native chief whose daughter was
enamoured with a British officer. This myth perked the interest of
officials at the Department of Natural Resources, who used sonar and
multibeam bathymetry technologies to prove the bridges collapsed due to
geological causes. But the thing about ghost stories is—you never
really know. —LH
For more ghost stories, head to the Maritime Museum
of the Atlantic (1675 Lower Water, museum.gov.ns.ca/) on alternate
Tuesdays, where they’ve lost three security guards who felt haunted by
its artifacts.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2009.