Annapolis Views

09/28/2025

Just off the 101 in Windsor is the Trecothic Creek and Windsor Railway housing ride-on outdoor model trains for children and adults. Entry is by donation, and rides are unlimited. We visited today and after a short wait in line, got to ride one of the many trains they had running. The last day of the season that they’re open is Sunday October 12th, so be sure to check it out then, or add it to your summer 2026 to do list!

08/22/2025

08/20/2025

Hartlan Ghost House, Part 4/4

“The only time I ever saw anything was one Sunday afternoon. After I ate my dinner and had a lay down and I fell into a doze of sleep as I thought. After I got to sleep there was somethin’ pressing me and I couldn’t wake or couldn’t turn over for about half an hour, when I woke, I seen this person go from me to the windy and she was a woman with a black and white spotted dress and I was in a lather of sweat with the water pouring off me as big as marbles. Whatever it was, a witch or not, God knows.” (Bluenose Ghosts, 274-275)

Fearing it really was a witch (sleep paralysis wasn’t widely understood back then), the next step was adding nine letters to a wooden board hung above the door – UDWWFUWUU. The letters come from a verse in the German Bible and would make it so a witch would be unable to enter the house (Helen Creighton by Clary Croft, 34).

Some thought the strange occurrences were caused by the ghost of a former owner of the house. He would sit all day at his spinning wheel, drinking as he spun. When threads would break, which was often, he’d loudly swear and curse. Creighton believes he must have done something worse than that to earn his dreadful reputation though.

Creighton’s visit spurred a lifelong commitment to collecting folktales like these, and she returned to Eastern Passage many times to record more.

The South East Passage of the 1920s no longer exists. Leading up to World War II, there were worries of attacks coming from the sea. 285 acres were acquired by expropriating the community of houses at Hartlan’s point to build the Devil’s Battery. Inhabitants of nearby Devil’s Island, around 20 families, were also moved by the government because of the fear of attacking German U-Boats.

While the Hartlan Ghost House no longer stands, it may be prudent to take care when walking around the Hartlen Point Golf Course,

just in case.

08/19/2025

Hartlan Ghost House, Part 3/4

Richard Hartlan continued, “I used to hear footsteps outside my room at night and I’d think my brothers were up, but there wouldn’t be anyone there, and night after night I used to have the bedclothes pulled right off me and in time I couldn’t sleep in a bed; I had to sleep on the floor. Sometimes before the door would open you’d hear

creak,
creak,
creak,

but you’d never see nothing’.

“One night my father and mother were in town and they were to be home at eight. We heard them comin’ and the horse pullin’ the wagon over the road and we lit the lantern and went out to help them in and there was no sign of them. They didn’t come for an hour. Another time I heard me wife talkin’ and I opened the door and she wasn’t there.”

The second photo was one that Creighton took of the old house (Nova Scotia Archives).

[continued tomorrow]

08/18/2025

Hartlan Ghost House, Part 2/4

This dilapidated house was built from pieces of wood salvaged from shipwrecks. It was believed that spirits of drowned sailors could remain in the wood and so it was risky to build with it. No one lived in the building as strange occurrences forced the inhabitants to abandon it. More houses were built over the years at the edge of the property around the building to keep distance from the haunted home.

In the second photo Richard Hartlan stands in front of the ghost house. He lived there as a child and recalled, “when I was young at home every night after I’d go to bed my room door would open and I used to get up and close it not once a night, but three or four times. That went on four or five years. We couldn’t see nothin’ but there would be knockings and where it started from, it ended. It went all the way around that house.”

“When Ferdinand was there he used to hear three knocks that would come every night between seven and eight. First they come to his porch door and the next night to his bedroom windy and the third night to the back door. He said, ‘The next night they’ll be in the house,’ so we were all there and it was like three or four heavy boards falling down and nothin’ fell at all, only the noise.”

“Another night we were settin’ there and something fell from the loft on to the table and behind it and we couldn’t find a thing. Another time Ferdinand was on his knees saying his prayers and something got him by the toe and hauled him round and something struck the bedroom door three times and it swing open and struck the bedpost.”

[continued tomorrow]

08/17/2025

Hartlan Ghost House, Part 1/4

After moving from the Annapolis Valley to Eastern Passage, I started to dig into the history of my new home. Here’s one of my favourite tales I’ve come across so far.

Helen Creighton is known to many as “Canada’s First Lady of Folklore”, spending much of her life travelling through the Maritimes capturing tales of hauntings, witchy encounters, ghostly presences and folk songs. Her passion for preserving oral histories began in Eastern Passage in 1928 at a beach bonfire with friends. A villager walked by and shared some local stories – riveted she asked him “where can I hear more?”

“To the end of the land,” he replied, meaning further down the road. At this time, everything to the south of Quigley’s Store on the corner of Cow Bay and Shore Road was considered South East Passage. The villager organized a visit with the Hartlans a few days later.

The road to Hartlan’s Point was so bad that Creighton had to stop and walk the last half-mile on foot. Ahead she saw a cluster of houses around an abandoned house. Mrs. Enos Hartlan told her proudly, “That’s our Ghost House. I’ve been in that house and heard the ghost knocking at the door. Yes, and I’ve heard it come down the steps while we were sitting there” (Historic Eastern Passage, 149).

[continued tomorrow]

08/16/2025

What’s that in the sky? It’s the SkyHawks! The Canadian Armed Forces’ Parachute team was at 12 Wing Shearwater today as part of the 8th Annual Highway of Heroes Nova Scotia Tribute Ride.

Canadian Armed Forces SkyHawks Canada Halifaxnoise Friends of The Beacon

08/13/2025

Interested in learning more about the African Nova Scotian experience? On Aug. 30, we are offering a bus tour of the Valley African Nova Scotian Development Association's (VANSDA) Mathieu Da Costa Heritage Trail. Join us to learn about Mathieu Da Costa, Rose Fortune, W.P. Oliver, Ben Jackson and more! This tour is FREE of cost, but registration is limited. The bus will leave the Louis Millett Community Centre in New Minas at 9 a.m.

Please contact Danielle Dulay at [email protected] to register or with questions.