Mysteries of Ontario

John Robert Colombo

Dundurn, 1999 - True Crime - 286 pages

Mysteries of Ontario brings together, for the first time, some five hundred accounts of strange events and eerie experiences, each keyed to one of 250 places in the province. It turns out that, far from being a humdrum part of the planet in which to live and work, Ontario is a province that is alive with ghosts and spirits, mysterious disappearances, and peculiar happenings enough to make your hair stand on end, turn your blood cold, and send shivers up and down your spine!

John Robert Colombo has been collecting materials for this book since 1967. Even so, more than two years were devoted to researching, writing, copy-editing, and photo editing Mysteries of Ontario. The reader is invited to peruse the great historical mysteries that have moved Canadians in the past from LaSalle's missing Griffon to the peculiar disappearance of Ambrose Small, from the spiritualistic legacy of the Fox Sisters of Consecon to the appearance in the 1990s of "ghost walks," "haunted hayrides," and "boo barns." This is a book that unites folklore and scholarship, the supernatural and the speculative, culture and mysticism, the occult and the peculiar, the psychical and the cultural, the human and the non-human.

Popular passages

Page 25 - It is that feeling of fresh loneliness that impresses itself before any detail of the wild. The soul — or the personality — seems to have indefinite room to expand. There is no one else within reach, there never has been anyone; no one else is thinking of the lakes and hills you see before you. They have no tradition, no names even; they are only pools of water and lumps of earth, some day, perhaps, to be clothed with loves and memories and the comings and goings of men, but now dumbly waiting...‎

Page 22 - A tall spectral-looking figure, with large saucer eyes, glides before you; and ere you summon courage to address it, vanishes from your astonished sight ? Well, Canada is no place for ghosts. The country is too new for such gentry. We have no fine, old, ruined castles, crumbling monastic walls, or ivy-clad churches — no shelter here but the wild, wild wood.‎

Page 21 - ... spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is too matter-of-fact a country for such supernaturals to visit. Here there are no historical associations, no legendary tales of those that came before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy, ghost nor bogle, satyr nor wood-nymph; our very forests disdain to shelter dryad or hamadryad.‎

Page 24 - For I sit and stare at the thing and have the purest Nineteenth Century grandiose thoughts, about the Destiny of Man, the Irresistibility of Fate, the Doom of Nations, the fact that Death awaits us All, and so forth.‎

Page 11 - ... writer has been struck with the difference between the composition and penmanship of many of the settlers and that of their immediate children, the former being good, the latter bad; while the parent could write a bold signature, and express himself in writing a letter, intelligibly, the offspring either could do nothing of the kind, or else made a very poor attempt. The result of this was, that the mind, starved for want of mental food of a wholesome nature, did not become inactive, but sought...‎

About the author

John Robert Colombo is nationally known as the "Master Gatherer" for his many collections of Canadiana. He has written, compiled, or translated more than 120 books that are largely devoted to the lore and literature of Canada. Colombo has been dubbed "Canada's Mr. Mystery" for his works on ghosts, the paranormal, and the supernatural. He is an Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain and a member of the Order of Cyril and Methodius (first class). In May 1998, he was the recipient of an honorary D.Litt from York University, Toronto.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mysteries of Ontario
• Author: John Robert Colombo
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Dundurn, 1999
• ISBN: 0888822057, 9780888822055
• Length: 286 pages
• Subjects: Body, Mind & Spirit / Unexplained Phenomena; True Crime / General