Where the Ghosts Are
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95If you’re from Halifax, you’ve probably heard that the Five Fisherman Restaurant is supposedly haunted, and that Georges Island is overrun with ghosts. If you’re from Nova Scotia, you probably know about rumours of buried treasure on Oak Island, or about the UFO sighting in Shag Harbour. But what about the Grey Lady of Stoney Beach? Or the Ghost of Haddon Hall? Featuring addresses and GPS coordinates, this guide to Nova Scotian haunts maps out the origin stories of 50 spooky tales.
Author Steve Vernon has covered every corner of the province in search of the spooky, bizarre, and unexplained. The perfect companion for those interested in the history of the province and thrill-seekers alike, Where the Ghosts Are is a DIY-ghost tour of Nova Scotia’s most haunted spots.
Haunted Harbours
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95This is a collection of ghost stories from Nova Scotia—from the restless spirits of Devil’s Island to the Black Dog of Antigonish Harbour. Documented and well-known stories from the provincial archives are mixed with word-of-mouth legends of strange happenings and scary sightings from across Nova Scotia. Steve Vernon relies on his storytelling experience to create moody and terrifying tales from the annals of history.
Maritime Mysteries (revised edition) And the Ghosts Who Surround Us
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95In this new edition of the classic book, Bill Jessome brings together over eighty of the region’s most spine-tingling tales–both old and new–that you wouldn’t believe in your wildest dreams–maybe in your spookiest nightmares! Featuring a new cover design and updated foreword from journalist and nephew Phonse Jessome.
If I Were a Zombie
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95If I were a zombie
I’d package my drool
put it in Mason jars
sell it at school.This hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated Kate Inglis has two children trying to outdo one another, imagining what they could do if only they were a zombie, a ninja, or a robot. With outrageously entertaining rhyming text and brilliant illustrations from artist Eric Orchard, this is sure to be a favourite with readers of all ages.
Maritime Monsters
Artist: Jeff SolwayPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95This children’s picture book is a field guide to Maritime monsters, taken from local folklore and legends. The monsters described include Prince Edward Island’s Old Hook-Snout, New Brunswick’s Acadian Werewolf, Nova Scotia’s Parker Road Phantom and Newfoundland’s Not-So-Cuddly Kraken!
Each entry includes a short story featuring the monster and a field guide entry: location, diet, size, frequency, description, and special monster-hunting advice. An indispensable resource for the young Maritime monster hunter!
Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland
Artist: Genevieve SimmsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Adapted from family stories told across Newfoundland and passed down over generations, these 10 spine-tingling tales traverse centuries and introduce readers to nooks and the Island?s nooks and crannies. This spooky collection features black-and-white illustrations as well as traditional context on each story and the art of storytelling in Newfoundland.
Found Drowned
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Based on a true unsolved crime from 1877, Laurie Glenn Norris’s debut novel tells the story of two small towns linked by the disappearance of a teenage girl. Mary Harney is a dreamy teenager in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, whose ambitions are stifled by her tyrannical grandmother and alcoholic father. When Mary’s mother becomes ill, an already fragile domestic situation quickly begins to unravel until the September evening when the girl goes missing.
Across the water on Prince Edward Island we meet Gilbert Bell, whose son finds a body washed up on the beach below the family farm. As the community is visited first by the local coroner and then by investigators, Glenn Norris paints a fascinating and darkly comic picture of judicial and forensic procedures of the time. At once tightly plotted and pensive, the novel travels back to the circumstances that led to Mary’s disappearance and then back further to the circumstances of her parents’ marriage, all the while building toward a raucous courtroom finale.
The Walking Bathroom
Artist: Erin Bennett BanksPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95It’s Halloween and Amayah doesn’t have a costume to wear to school. She dressed as a ghost for the last three years in a row, witches are overdone, and fairies are not her style. She wants to be something different, something creative, something no one else in the world has ever been in the history of Halloween.
A sweet story of standing out and fitting in, The Walking Bathroom is the newest book from award-winning author and spoken-word poet Shauntay Grant (Up Home). With fun, vibrant artwork from Erin Bennett Banks (Change of Heart), this imaginative tale is bound to inspire some unique costumes and become a Halloween favourite!
Maritime Murder Deadly Crimes from the Buried Past
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95In his uniquely homespun style, sinister storyteller Steve Vernon digs up the dirt on Maritime murders from 1770 to 1929—along with a few bodies along the way. Unearthing historically buried, and occasionally unsolved, violent crimes from across Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Vernon’s versions of these 19 macabre tales will chill you to the bone.
Featuring a bevy of questionable characters from the darkest recesses of Maritime history, Maritime Murder divulges a diverse array of bygone crimes, trials, and the eerie aftermath. From botched executions and poisonous tea, to axe murders and curious cover-ups, bear witness to the villains and victims of some of the dastardliest deeds this side of the Atlantic.
Haunted Girl Esther Cox and the Great Amherst Mystery
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95In 1878 eighteen-year-old Esther Cox arrived in Amherst, Nova Scotia, to live with her sister’s family. Shortly after Esther moved in, the story goes, the house was plagued by unexplained occurrences–something (or someone) knocked on the walls, hid household items, moved furniture around, and set fires. Esther herself was subject to mysterious fevers, prodding and, on one occasion, stabbing. These occurrences followed her when she went to stay with other families in the area. Eventually she was charged with robbery and spent a month in jail, after which the haunting ceased.
Was Esther the victim of paranormal powers or the troubled mind behind a series of elaborate hoaxes? At the time of her alleged haunting, the plausibility of Esther Cox’s claims were hotly debated in newspapers and by fellow Amherst residents. In the hundred years since her death, Esther’s story has been retold numerous times and she remains to this day the town’s most famous historical figure.
Includes 30 photos of key locations in Amherst related to the story as well as Esther’s family members.
The Lunenburg Werewolf
$15.95The wind is howling and a full moon is in the sky-it must be time for more chilling tales from storyteller Steve Vernon.
Spanning the length and width of Nova Scotia, these 25 blood-chilling yarns make perfect campfire fare. Some stories are so terrifying that they have been told far and wide, such as the Ghosts of Oak Island or The Haunting of Esther Cox. Others, including the Murder Island Massacre and the Caledonia Mills Spook, might be lesser known, but are no less scary. Written in Steve Vernon’s unique style, these stories of the haunted, the supernatural, and the unexplainable are part history, part folklore, and a lot of old-fashioned, frightening fun.
Bluenose Ghosts (2nd Edition)
$22.95Ghosts guarding buried treasure, phantom ships, haunted houses and supernatural warnings of death—these are just some of the strange and mysterious phenomena that you will encounter in Bluenose Ghosts. These unexplained mysteries are all the more chilling because they are based on personal experiences of ordinary people, told to Helen Creighton, one of Canada?s most respected and renowned folklorists, over a period of thirty years. So when the moon is full and the wind is howling, be prepared to be spooked by apparitions and things that go bump in the night. Bluenose Ghosts was an instant hit when it was first published in 1957.
This new edition of Bluenose Ghosts features a new foreword from Nova Scotia writer Clary Croft that explores Creighton’s enduring influence on the province’s folklore.
Halifax Haunts
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95The streets of Historic Halifax are paved with the dark and eerie tales of its colourful and gruesome past. Shadowy secrets and hints of the unknown are lurking around every corner and in the mist that rolls in from the Atlantic. Centuries of tragic happenstance have left behind many restless spirits that are awaiting your discovery: the ghost of an eighteenth-century French admiral has been spotted marching- to the beat of his own missing heart- across the harbour and through the streets of Halifax; the haunting profile of a victim of the Halifax Explosion has been seen in the window of the city’s oldest church; a spectral tall ship has been sighted plying the waters just off Point Pleasant looking for a rematch with its War of 1812 opponent.
Halifax Haunts presents the spooky history behind thirty-three of the city’s scariest places. Master storyteller Steve Vernon serves as your trusted guide and offers phenomenal detail while winding you through the ghostly and ghastly happenings that still haunt Halifax to this day.
Maritime UFO Files
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Though UFOs have recently “landed” a significant place in pop culture, they have made their presence known in the Maritimes for decades. In fact, one of the earliest known sightings of a UFO was reported to Judge Simeon Perkins in Nova Scotia in 1796.Beginning with the 1950s, Maritime UFO Files Chronicles, decade-by-decade, dramatic and unusual sightings of a variety of mysterious, multi-shaped UFOs witnessed by pilots, ordinary citizens, and even RCMP officers. These first-hand accounts, based on actually military documents and RCMP reports, range from the observation of unexplainable lights in the sky, to claims of abduction. This book also devotes a chapter to the famous Shag Harbour Incident of 1967 –an event that remains one of the most documented accounts of a UFO crash in modern history.
Bluenose Magic
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95Bluenose Magic, first published in 1968, is considered a classic of Maritime literature, and its author, Dr. Helen Creighton, is one of Canada’s best-loved and most respected folklorists.
This fascinating and engaging companion to the author’s best-selling Bluenose Ghosts welcomes readers into a world of forerunners, enchantment, dreams, divination, buried treasure, guardian ghosts, home remedies, and mystical occurrences. These unique tales have been passed on from generation to generation of Nova Scotia’s families.
More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95Are you still afraid of things that go bump in the night? Do you still think someone is watching you even though no one is there? Do doors and windows still open and close on their own? Do you still see people in your home even though you know you are alone? If you answer yes to even one of these questions, then More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia will make you feel not alone.
Where Evil Dwells
Editor: Vernon OicklePublisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95From the macabre to the fantastical, from the paranormal to superstitions and folklore, from stories of ghosts, monsters and legends, Where Evil Dwells: The Nova Scotia Anthology of Horror has it all. These stories will take you on a wild ride to the extreme limits and beyond the realm of reality. Anyone who loves a good ghost story will want this book. It is a must-have for horror fans!
Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95Are you afraid of things that go bump in the night? Do you think someone is watching you even though no one is there? Do doors and windows open and close on their own? If you’ve answered yes to even one of these questions, then join veteran ghost story teller Vernon Oickle as he brings to life some of Nova Scotia’s most intriguing tales of suspense in this collection of ghost stories.
FRIGHTENING
With his new book, master storyteller Vernon Oickle treats us to another volume of frightening stories to keep the chill in our hearts even on the hottest of days. Oickle has been a significant chronicler of the long and rich Nova Scotia heritage of the supernatural and this volume is sure to be an important contribution to that tradition.
— Darryll Walsh, acclaimed ghost hunter and author of Legends and Monsters of Atlantic CanadaKNOWS HIS STUFF
If I want to talk to someone about my health, then I want to talk to my doctor. If I want to talk to someone about the state of my house’s plumbing, then I talk to my plumber. If I want to talk to someone about the ghost stories of Nova Scotia — then I want to talk to Vernon Oickle. The man knows his stuff.
— Steve Vernon, storyteller and author of Haunted HarboursGreat Cape Breton Storytelling
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95From a lifetime of collecting, Ron Caplan offers tales from the rare complex of Cape Breton Island. From a grim sealing trek to a mother’s courage in a windstorm, to memories of drunken hens, to a shark attack. Mackerel fishermen bag a huge tuna, and an itinerant butcher chases a wild cow. The book includes fables from the island’s Czech, Pakistani, and Lebanese heritage in among stories from the Gaelic, French and Mi’kmaq traditions. Good solid reading in one lasting collection!
Pirate Year Round
Publisher: Acorn Press$14.95Despite her peg-leg, Pirate has adventures through the seasons
Join Pirate as she goes on her pirate adventures through the seasons. Whether it is Halloween or Valentine’s Day, Pirate is always up for an adventure, peg leg or not. Even the winter snow doesn’t slow her down!
Legends and Monsters of Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$17.95Atlantic Canada is home to a unique blend of multicultural folktales, legends and mysteries. Perhaps nowhere else is the richness of belief in the supernatural, long a staple of our founding peoples, such an important part of our history and culture.Long-time ghost hunter and author Darryll Walsh documents the many stories and legends from around the Atlantic region. He provides startling new information about Oak Island, site of one of the longest running treasure hunts in history, where many believe a fortune in stolen booty buried by pirates still exists. Walsh delves into the magical world of fairies and recounts the tales of a terrifying assortment of creatures that forestry workers have encountered in our woods. He charts the course of phantom ships that travel along our coasts and inland seas, doomed to sail on forever.Discover how our own version of Bigfoot once terrorized Viking settlers in Newfoundland, and may still be shocking unwary hikers to this day. There are tales of the Devil himself, who has travelled this region luring men into mortal games of cards where the stakes are unreasonably high. Moreover, there are stories about demons, banshees, hairy bipeds, goblins, devil hounds, splinter cats, gumberoo, shagamaw, glawackus, loup-garu, werewolves, sea serpents, will-o-the-wisp, and jack-o-lanterns.Legends and Monsters of Atlantic Canada is an exciting assortment of historical and contemporary legends with creatures that will chill the bones of even the most jaded reader. Parapsychologist Darryll Walsh has brought together for the first time a wide range of Atlantic Canada’s mysterious beings, creatures of the night, historical mysteries, and urban legends, many not seen before in print.
If I Were a Zombie
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95If I were a zombie
I’d package my drool
put it in a mason jars
sell it at school.In this hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated author Kate Inglis and brilliantly illustrated by Eric Orchard, two best friends imagine ordinary life as classic monsters and mythical creatures. What would Evan the Zombie do for the school talent show? Who would Poppy the Muddy Wood Fairy have over for dinner? From an alien with three hundred eyeballs to giants and goblin queens, this book of tickle trunk fun will delight kids of all ages.
Witchcraft
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Witchcraft. The subject evokes curiosity, fascination, and sometimes, abhorrence. In the Maritimes, a region with a rich tradition of storytelling, accounts of witchcraft are abundant.
In Witchcraft, folklorist Clary Croft explores the many examples of witchcraft identified in the Maritimes and explains their cultural origins—Scottish, Mi’kmaq, Acadian, German, among others. He finds example of spells, charms, and superstitions involving everything from animal horns and blood to salt and milk. Croft also traces witchcraft’s more official history from the Maritimes’ first witch trial in 1684—the trial of Jean Campagna—followed by others throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.
A thoroughly researched history of an often-misunderstood practice, Witchcraft is a rich source of Maritime folklore.
Wicked Woods
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95A new collection of ghost stories from every corner of New Brunswick.
Pull up a seat and listen closely-storyteller Steve Vernon has another collection of classic, bone-chilling tales to tell. Steve takes readers from one end of New Brunswick to the other, unearthing dark tales of strange happenings along the way-from the headless ghost that haunts those who pass through Johnville’s covered bridge, to the spirit of a murdered man that guards long-buried treasure at Wolf Point. Drawing on both documented stories and legends passed on by word-of-mouth, Steve sets one spooky scene after another with a storyteller’s attention to every creepy detail, and just a touch of wry humour. It’s as though you’re sitting beside him at the campfire, getting goosebumps as each story unfolds.
The Stories that Haunt Us
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95This latest collection by Maritime Mysteries’ former TV host and actor Bill Jessome includes forty of the best stories collected from around the Maritimes. Using his journalist’s skills, Jessome weaves incredible stories that charm readers and chill our nerves. Maritime Canada has an extensive storytelling tradition and a large part of that storytelling lexicon consists of stories of the supernatural. Many of these stories are told over the generations and Jessome has acquired these chilling accounts by listening to Maritimers at the kitchen table, around the flickering campfire, and when the moon is full.
