Greg Taylor has been running ghost-walks, both on campus and downtown, for over a decade. A history graduate from the University of Ottawa, he swears his stories are true-stories, not told by a friend of a friend of his, but rather told by history itself. For just ten dollars – or eight if you’re a student on a downtown tour – you can munch on some chocolate, provided by Greg himself, and hear some local tales told by lantern light. All proceeds from the walk are donated to the United Way.
I attended his campus tour on Fri. Oct. 23 and was absolutely delighted by Greg’s extremely personable nature and his significantly creepy stories. The weather was ideal: cold, but not too cold, and dark. First-year students shouting and calling into the darkness added to the slightly sinister atmosphere. A group of about a dozen of us met at 9:45 p.m. in front of War Memorial Hall, where Greg told us all about War Memorial’s sad history, as well as some unexplainable stories told to him by some of the janitorial staff. After spooking us all with a story of a ghostly soldier, the tour moved on to MacDonald Hall, but not before Greg refilled our hot chocolate. From realistically terrifying stories of MacDonald Hall’s staunch misogyny during the early twentieth-century (female students had a 7:30 p.m. curfew!) and ghostly apparitions of stern chaperones shepherding female students in for the night, we moved on to Johnston Hall. Easily the most recognizable building on campus—it is on our Student ID cards, after all—it was nonetheless extremely disconcerting to hear creepy things about the most popular residence on campus. Books being thrown across rooms, doors slammed at all hours of the night, and flickering lights are all frequent occurrences in Johnston Hall, at least according to Greg.
In between campus-based stories, Greg also told the tour some of the urban-legends that seem to float around every campus during this time of year. Greg hinted that the currency of fear that underlies these commonly-told stories offers up a lesson to new students; don’t stay out too late, don’t disturb your roommate if you come back late at night, and always be careful.
There are few better ways to spend a Friday night in late October than being outside and getting scared. We made several more stops at Arts House, South residence, the Cannon, and the library, and, at each location, Greg gave us a bit of the building’s history as well as some creepy goings-on. We wrapped up the tour about an hour and a half later, finishing halfway across Johnston Green, at its darkest point. From there, he gave us our biggest scare of the night. Long story short, if you’re walking alone across Johnston Green late at night and you feel a heavy hand on your shoulder and a voice whispering in your ear telling you to run, you’d better run quickly.