The S.S. Keewatin in Port McNicoll, Ontario.
If you are looking for a local ghost tour you don't need to drive as far as Toronto.
My sister-in-law's Father was a part of the group who keep this ship in good repair and run the tours and other public events around it. I haven't visited it yet so the photograph here is not my own.
Photo Source: Older than the titanic with more ghosts & spirits than anywhere in the world - Barrie 360
Marc Seguin has posted lighthouses at risk and lighthouses already lost.
Jeff Chapman (1973 - 2005) #RIPNinjalicious
Jeff Chapman was a Canadian urban explorer, known as Ninjalicious. Jeff published Access All Areas and the founder of Infiltration, zines and website.
"It's the thrill of discovery that fascinates me. Yes, I know I'm not the first person there, but I can honestly say I found it and I earned the experience for myself. After exploring for a while, you get a wonderful feeling that you're "in on" the secret workings of cities. You know what's under your feet and what's behind the closed doors and what the city looks like from the highest office towers, while almost everyone around you only ever looks at the public areas and never truly pays attention to urban structures unless they've paid admission to take a look." - Jeff Chapman/ Ninjalicious
Source: Interview at Philadelphia City Paper with Neil Gladstone (1998?)
This month, August 2015, marks ten years since Jeff Chapman passed away. I thought someone should post in his honour. I never met him personally. I did email with him, twice. I met his wife, Liz, at a Broken Pencil Zine Festival in Toronto.
I attended the Festival to buy Access All Areas: A User's Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration, see some of Jeff's (and other publishers) zines and take a look at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. I was just beginning to explore with a digital camera then. Before that I just didn't know what I was doing had a name (and film was expensive!).
A tribute can still be found at the Toronto Architectural Conservancy
Jeff Chapman (September 19, 1973 -- August 23, 2005), better known by the pseudonym Ninjalicious, was a Toronto-based urban explorer, fountaineer, writer and founder of the urban exploration zine Infiltration: the zine about going places you're not supposed to go. He was also a prominent author and editor for YIP magazine, as well as its website, Yip.org. Chapman attended York University in the early 1990s and later studied book and magazine publishing at Centennial College. He went on to serve as Editor at History Magazine and as Director of the Toronto Architectural Conservancy board.
Chapman died of cholangiocarcinoma on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 --- three years after a successful liver transplant at Toronto General Hospital (a location he loved to explore). He was 31 years old.
Source: Wikipedia: Ninjalicious
Toronto's own late Jeff Chapman (a.k.a. "Ninjalicious") published his first printed issue of Infiltration, "The zine about going places you're not supposed to go," in 1996. Though Toronto may not live in the imagination of people around the world, Chapman made this city's sewers famous for his global readers. His work lives on in Access all Areas, his book published just before his death to cancer in 2005, and at infiltration.org.
Source: Shawn Micallef: Getting to know Toronto's sewers
Under the alias Ninjalicious is where Jeff made his biggest mark. In his early twenties he spent long periods of time in the hospital battling various diseases. Often bored, he and his IV pole would go exploring the hospital, investigating the basement, peaking behind doors, looking for interesting rooms and equipment. It was here his love for the under explored side of buildings developed, and upon returning to health he created Infiltration -- the zine about going places you're not supposed to go.
Infiltration has had a profound influence on urban exploration in Toronto and around the world, as evidenced by the hundreds of tributes left for him in the Urban Exploration Resource forum. Ninjalicious had a strong code of ethics which he promoted, including no stealing or vandalizing while exploring. Issue 1, all about Ninj's beloved Royal York Hotel, was published in 1996, and the zine was continually published throughout the years ending most recently with Issue 25: Military Leftovers.
Source: Sean Lerner: Torontoist: Death of a Ninja
About ten years ago I was in a Toronto bookshop and found a copy of Infiltration. Subtitled "the zine about going places you're not supposed to go", it was devoted to the escapades of the author, Jeff Chapman --- or "Ninjalicious", to use his nom de plume --- as he explored the many off-limits areas in famous Toronto buildings such as the Royal York hotel, CN Tower, or St. Mike's Hospital. In each issue, Chapman would pick a new target and infiltrate it --- roaming curiously around, finding hilarious secrets, then describing it with effervescently witty delight. Chapman had the best prose of any zine author I've read anywhere. Many zinesters are clever, of course, but Chapman wrote with a 19th-century literary journalist's attention to detail; nothing escaped his notice, from the relative fluffiness of the towels in executive lounges to the color of the rust pools in a mysterious, hangar-sized room buried below Toronto's subway system.
Source: Clive Thompson: Collision Detection: R.I.P. "Ninjalicious" --- the founder of urban exploration
infiltration The zine about going places you're not supposed to go, like tunnels, abandoned buildings, rooftops, hotel pools and more.
Source: Infiltration
See also:
cancon
what is it that attracts you to going where you're not supposed to go?Ninjalicious
Healthy human curiosity about the workings of the world I live in, of course. I mean, it's free, it's fun and it hurts no one. A harder-to-answer question would be: why doesn't everyone?cancon
what are the tools of your trade?Ninjalicious
Usually I travel very lightly, with a pen, paper, a Swiss army knife, a camera and a flashlight. That's about all the equipment I need to have a good time in 90% of the places I visit. I take along more specialized equipment, such as rubber boots or various props, for specific targets.
I grew up in the community of West Rouge. I went to school at West Rouge Public School. I wasn't born there, we moved from the urban area of Toronto, but West Rouge is the place I remember when I think about being a kid, going to school and growing up to attend Joseph Howe Senior Public School (the first year the junior high school opened) and then Sir Oliver Mowat C.I.
West Rouge is a neighbourhood located in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the city suburbs of Scarborough. The community is bordered by Lake Ontario to the south, the Rouge River to the east, Highland Creek to the west and Kingston Road to the north. The area was once known as the town of Port Union.
Port Union is part of the Highland Creek community. The old town lines are located in the south east corner of Lawrence Avenue and Port Union Road.
Port Union thrived as a ship-building and fishing community. The opening of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856 started the decline of Port Union's shipping industry as the railroad industry grew. In the 1940s, Port Union returned to its nautical roots with the reintroduction of the shipping industry.
The area was settled as early as 1798, when a crown patent for lots 29, 30, 32 & 33, "Con. 1 with the Broken Front, Township of Pickering, County of York and Home District, Province of Upper Canada", were granted to William Holmes, Esquire. In 1843 Henry Cowan, an immigrant from Ayr, Scotland, bought lots 32 & 33 from Holmes and settled the land with his family. In 1848 Cowan sold a small portion of his land on the shores of Lake Ontario to the Grand Trunk Railway Company.
(As a side note, when I grew up on Rouge Hills Drive, there was a Mr. Cowan living across the street from us. So the family stayed in the area for years and years after buying the original land at least 150 years before.)
Mr. William Jackson and others purchase the piece of the shorefront south of the tracks from Henry Cowan in 1860.
A post office opened in Port Union Station in 1865. Early businesses in the area included the Scarborough, Markham, and Pickering Wharf Company (est. 1847), and hotels (Helliwell's Hotel) operated by Will Hetherington and Thomas Laskey.
Henry Cowan's son, William, buys Lot 31, on the east side of the Rouge River from Mr. John Pollock in 1868. This summer resort became known as "Rosebank".
In 1925 Dyson Craig Cowan (the son and heir of William Cowan Jr) sells "Rosebank" to the Riverside Development Company Limited (Cecil White) for the sum of $25,000
Riverside Development Company Limited changes its name to Rouge Hills, Limited. The intentions were to create a summer playground and country estates on the banks of the Rouge. The community was to be "The Venice of the North".
Summerland magazine is published by Rouge Hills Publishing Company in 1938. Summerland speaks of "The Dream and the Man Who Dreamt It".
Although the dream community didn't happen as planned, the name of White's subdivision "Rouge Hills" lives on to this day. Locals call the are "The Rouge" or "Rouge Hills". The name also lives on in the public school, GO commuter station, a shopping plaza, and a very long street (Rouge Hills Drive) which runs from the top, north of Island Road, down to the bottom, at the Rouge Beach.
In 1948, the land that is now a new housing development between Rouge Hills Dr. and Ridgewood was sold to Rouge Hills Golf and Country Club Limited. In 1973 the golf course and country club were closed. The land was abandoned and left to grow wild. Locals used it as a bike trail, walking path and so on for a long time. Eventually, it was bought up and a housing development was built on the land.
The West Rouge community was originally part of Pickering. Scarborough annexed West Rouge in 1973. The West Rouge community was east of the town line and west of the Rouge River containing 857 acres and a population of 3,414 at the time of annexation.
In 1979, fire guts Henry Cowan's old stone farm house on Rouge Hills Drive, built sometime between his purchase of the farm in 1843 and his death in 1868.
Port Union / Rouge Hills / West Rouge
C.N.R. Railway Station, Port Union
Kingston Road Toll Gate at Rouge River
Abandoned C.N.R. Station Master's house, Port Union
Abandoned C.N.R. Station Master's house, Port Union
School, Port Union.
Helliwell's Hotel - Thomas Laskey's Hotel, Port Union.
Residence, formerly Helliwell's Hotel
Port Union / Rouge Hills / West Rouge
Port Union was also part of the Highland Creek community. (Although most of the buildings were across the Town Line in Pickering.) Port Union was located in the south east corner of Scarborough, at Lawrence Avenue and Port Union Road. In 1865 a post office opened in Port Union Station. Early 19th century businesses in the area included the Scarborough, Markham, and Pickering Wharf Company (est. 1847), and hotels operated by Will Hetherington and Thomas Laskey.
In the 1920s, real estate developer Cecil White & Co. purchased multiple tracts of land east of Port Union Village with intentions of creating a large community along the west bank of the Rouge River intended to become “The Venice of the North”. Although the dream was never completely realized, the name of White’s subdivision “Rouge Hills” lives on to this day as the name of the local commuter railway station.
The West Rouge community, a modern name associated with Port Union, was originally part of Pickering. Scarborough annexed the West Rouge in 1973 following several years of negotiations. There were concerns about meshing taxation and other costs to the municipality that had to be addressed following the initial annexation discussions in 1969. The West Rouge was east of the town line and west of the Rouge River containing 857 acres and a population of 3,414 at the time of annexation.
Why do we assume historical places are haunted?
I would not say I don’t believe in ghosts. But, in my experience there are far less hauntings and haunted places than people would have you think.
I like to visit old buildings. Usually, living in a rural area of Ontario, I explore abandoned farms and farm houses. I like the houses in particular. I have explored at least 50 different old homes in various states of ruin and I have never had an experience which made me feel spooky, scared or consider any place to be haunted.
At most I think I once accidentally stepped on a toad in the long grass. That was gross enough. I get shudders just remembering. But, that was far from being ghost related.
Terry Boyle writes about local history and ghosts in Ontario, Canada.
I have quickly picked up each of his books as I find them. I don’t look for ghost stories but I do want to know about my own local history. (I consider all of Ontario to be at least somewhat local for me). Also, I will visit (and/ or have already seen) the places Terry Boyle has written about. I even have the photographs I’ve taken from my travels and adventures.
Maybe ghost lore and stories of haunted places come about from the loneliness of the locations and not the actual presence of anything spooky. Just the feeling that something was lost there, something has been abandoned and left to fall into ruin. Abandoned houses are sad. Old ruins are mysterious and that would be enough to make them seem haunted to anyone who wanted to find something more than just a sad, lonely and neglected place.
You can’t find the history of a place just from a visit there. I love finding a new (old) place. There is history and mystery to any old, ruined place. But, you need to research, talk to people and dig a bit to get more than photos and your own first impressions.
History is all about the story.