OLD RECOVERED FILE
[Original headline: The unlucky fourth floor ]
An exhibit on superstition at the old Museum of Man attracted the attention of a Cree spirit, with terrifying results.
For years, people thought the ghost was that of the building's architect, David Ewart. Shortly after the building was erected in 1912, three floors had to be removed because the entire structure began to sink into the soft clay it was built on.
The legend was that Ewart, so distraught that the design's for his beloved castle didn't work, and facing bankruptcy, committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor onto a pile of limestone rubble below.
In fact, the architect didn't kill himself; he died of natural causes, years later. And, the real ghost, like the building, has a much more interesting tale.
Rather than a museum, the giant castle was built as the first headquarters of the Geological Survey of Canada.
It has also served as a temporary Parliament, when the Parliament Buildings on Wellington Street burned in 1916. Sir Wilfrid Laurier lay in state here after his death in 1919, prompting other rumours that his ghost walks the museum's halls. Egyptian mummies are said to have been stored on the lower floors.
From the outside, the museum certainly is eerie. A big, castle-like building, it looms up from the southern end of Centretown like something out of medieval England. Even on a sunny day, it looks dark and Gothic, with unknown spirits lurking inside.
And in fact there was one, years ago. It stayed mainly on the fourth floor, in a huge, cathedral room, away from the light.
It wasn't always there; it arrived in 1978, in a truck.
At the time, the museum housed both the Museum of Man and the Museum of Nature, and new exhibits were always coming in. "I Wear the Morning Star" was a collection of native costumes and artifacts, and was put on the third floor, on the west side of the building. But something had come along with the tools and arrowheads. According to legend, one of the costumes had belonged to a young Cree named Swift Eagle. A spiritual medium came to the museum in 1988, after staff had become so nervous about the west wing they refused to venture there.
Swift Eagle, the medium said, died in 1902, a horrible, agonizing death from accidental poisoning. His tortured spirit had attached itself to his clothes -- the same costume that came to be on display.
Directly above the display, on the fourth floor, there was an exhibit on superstition and folklore. An unlucky collection, it featured a leaning ladder, an open umbrella, a crack to step on, a broken mirror, and an altar.
When things started to go wrong, some museum workers said it was because they had put too much hocus-pocus in one spot, and it had acted as a kind of trigger, an alarm clock waking Swift Eagle up.
His presence, when it was there, was strong. Most people could feel it, even people who would normally laugh at the idea of a ghost. But for those who were more receptive to the spirit world, the feeling was strong enough to drive them nearly over the edge.
This happened, once, on the fourth floor. A new guard, a young man, was starting his first shift at the museum. It was a good job, he thought, which would allow him to check out the exhibits on his rounds. But on the fourth floor, in the dark, he decided that the job wasn't as good as he had thought.
Deep in the back room, the windows were sealed off, blocking all light. It was pure black, a darkness that draws you in, blind, until you lose your sense of direction, lose sight of the door, of escape.
Something happened to him there, something terrible. For half an hour, there was silence. Then, the darkness seemed to draw back, as if the room sighed, and the guard ran out, dropping his keys off at the door. He never went back, and he never told anyone about what he saw.
After that, the haunting incidents became more frequent, and guards became scared. They would switch shifts to avoid patrolling the fourth floor at night. Some just outright refused to go up there.
One guard felt an icy hand on her shoulder, but there was no one there. Museum staff heard ringing, like an old doorbell, from the fourth floor.
A cleaner vacuuming would stop after a few seconds, his vacuum suddenly unplugged in the empty room. Doors opened and closed on their own. The elevator kept returning to the fourth floor. And things moved, or were moved.
Charles Diotte, who has worked at the museum for 30 years, said he once put an ancient stone mask in a display case, facing north, then locked it for the night. The next morning, the mask was facing south. Mr. Diotte was the only one with the key. He put the mask back facing north. The next morning, it was facing east; this continued until the mask had looked all four directions: east, west, north, south.
And late one night, a female guard said she saw the costumes move, as if trying to push at the glass doors of the display cases.
That's when the museum called in the medium. She spoke with Swift Eagle, and apparently convinced him to move on. In the same year, the Museum of Man became the Museum of Civilization, and moved to Hull. The superstition exhibit was dismantled.
The fourth floor was gutted and remodelled, and today sits empty most of the time.
But in a museum filled with old bones and relics, the older staff remain wary, perhaps waiting for another tormented soul to be brought through the doors, its rest disturbed.
