with some friends who included Frank Bastedo, second right, later Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan.
Two women arrived for lunch one day and introduced themselves to Peter Rickard as the Kirk sisters who had lived in the house for a short time in the 1930s. They had heard the stories about the hauntings at the inn and had come to set the record straight. As far as they were concerned the place was not haunted.
Peter was amazed at their skepticism. Nevertheless, he told the women the story about the pregnant woman who can be heard walking the second floor hallway at night. The sisters looked aghast and turned pale. Their father’s first wife had fallen down the stairs when she was at the end of her pregnancy and she and the baby both died in the fall. It was their turn to be shocked.
It would also appear that Judge Mahaffy has remained connected to the hotel. Although he died in England in 1912 he seems to like it at the inn in Bracebridge. Cathy Morrow first saw him in November 1997. Cathy had seen the portrait of the Judge that once hung in the main hall. Early one morning in November Cathy was serving breakfast downstairs in the pub. As usual, Cathy had opened up that morning. The pub room was open and she had returned there after completing her other morning chores. As she walked down the corridor, she caught sight of Judge Mahaffy by the cubby hole. He was floating about six inches off the floor. Cathy said “He appeared as he had in real-life, wearing grey pinstriped pants, back shoes and a large black tailcoat. His face was the same as in the portrait. Then he vanished.”
This wasn’t the first time the Judge had been seen in the pub area. At Christmas, 1996, John, the general manager, was closing up for the evening when suddenly a well-dressed man walked past the bar and into the back room to the washroom area. John waited patiently for the “guest” to finish in the washroom. Finally he went to find him. There was no one to be found and no other way out! His description fit that of Judge Mahaffy.
In spring 1998, Samantha, the duty manager, was in the little room to the left of the pub entrance and about to turn off the lights when she heard a voice say “Don’t turn the lights out!” She was the only one there.
The kitchen is another area of unexplained activity. It would seem a spirit (who the owners have jokingly named Bob) inhabits this area. Although Bob has never been seen, he does like to let you know he’s there by throwing pots and pans across the kitchen. There are no theories about the who, what, or why of Bob.
A rather difficult guest complained, when he was leaving, of a kick to the backside on the stairs. He wanted an explanation. It seems quite ironic that what he received from a spirit might seem to be just what his behaviour warranted.
Kevin Poole, a well-respected book wholesaler in Ontario, listened one summer evening in the early 90s to the staff at the pub talking about a spirit in residence at the inn. The bartender said a woman, incredibly true-to-life, was often seen in the corridors. Kevin scoffed slightly at the bartender. He wouldn’t discount spirit activity, but to actually witness what looks like a human being was unbelievable to him. Kevin left the pub, he assured me, in a sober state. As he approached his car he saw a beautiful, young woman with flowing brown hair in a long white gown. She walked past Kevin as he turned to open the car door. It was the woman from the window of room 105, the woman the bartender had been talking about! Kevin walked to the rear of the car, in order to follow her, but she had vanished into thin air. Kevin still remembers his sighting very clearly and emphasizes the woman’s youth, beauty and the fact that she was so vivid and disappeared so completely. He was in awe of what had happened and felt that she had appeared to him in order to prove her existence.
The ownership of the Inn at the Falls has changed since I was last there in 1998. Stonecroft Management now (2007) owns this inn along with several other resorts in the Muskoka District.
The General Manager/Innkeeper is Krista Havenaar. Krista has managed the property for the past three years. I was curious to hear her perspective concerning the existence of spirits at the inn. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. It is so hard to believe.” This skepticism persists despite several personal experiences with the ghostly activity in the inn. Her first encounter occurred in 2004.
“I was setting up for a wedding in the front parlour during the fall of 2004. I began cleaning and then moved some furniture around. I turned the heat off in the room. The thermostat was located just behind the door. After adjusting the thermostat I placed a sofa against the door, concealing the thermostat. I turned on some music. I left the room to go to the kitchen to get some glasses for the set-up. When I came back to the parlour it was stifling hot. I put my hand on the heat radiator and it was pumping out heat at full blast. I also noticed that the music had been turned off.
“So I turned the music back on. Then I pulled the sofa back from the door to check the thermostat. It was on full. I turned the thermostat off. I moved the sofa back against the door and went to the kitchen. This happened three times in a short period of time and I finally spoke out saying ‘that is enough’ and it stopped.”
Krista is well aware of the mischievous antics of the spirits in room 105. She recalled one incident. “A few months ago we had a woman staying in room 105. She phoned the front desk stating that there was no remote in the room for the television. Our staff delivered her a remote. In the morning there were two remotes on the night stand.”
Krista Havenaar, General Manager at the Inn at the Falls, Bracebridge.
On another occasion Krista encountered a female spirit in the kitchen. “One evening I was walking from the front desk to the kitchen. The time was 11:30 p.m. Just as I was entering the kitchen I heard this young woman’s voice just a couple of feet behind me say ‘hi.’ The voice was quite clear. Yet, there was no one in the kitchen. I locked up and left.”
According to Krista, “At one time we had this head housekeeper who had misplaced her keys to the other buildings on site. Another housekeeper found her keys in room 105.”
Katherine Cumberland has worked as a pub server in the Fox and Hound Pub, located on the lower level of the inn, for more than four years. She has actually seen the ghost of Judge Mahaffy sitting in the front parlour of the main building. Katherine is very happy working here. She is not afraid of the ghostly events of the inn or shy about sharing her stories about the inn. In fact, she knows she is never alone in the building!
Katherine Cumberland, a server at the Fox and the Hound pub, located in the lower level of the Inn at the Falls, Bracebridge.
“I believe that there is something here. You definitely get the sense that something or someone is around. You often get the feeling that you don’t belong in a certain area of the pub.”
The pub is not the only area where Katherine senses a feeling of unwelcome. “Just down the hallway, prior to the pub entranceway, is the laundry room. You just get a sense of not being wanted there. It’s not a bad feeling, but the hair on the back of my neck will stand up.”
Another area of activity on the same floor level is the meeting room. Katherine explained, “About two years ago we were going to have a party of guests use this room. Prior to the meeting, a staff member was on their way to organize the room. Just as they approached the room they heard the sound of a table being dragged across the floor. The employee thought the guests had already arrived. When she entered the room it was empty of people. She quickly observed that one table had been mysteriously moved from one end of the room to the other end.”
Guests who stay overnight upstairs in the inn still encounter unexplained events. Katherine related how
