CHRISTMAS AT THE MCGIBBON HOUSE
The former Manitoba Street home of Dr. Peter McGibbon, in Bracebridge, was my residence from the autumn of 1977 until the late spring of 1983. For the first years of my family’s stay in the dwelling, I was privileged to have possession of the attic which overlooked the tree-lined triangle of Memorial Park. It was a magnificent portal to watch out over my hometown.
First of all, as is noted in other entries on this site, the McGibbon house was haunted by many quantities and qualities of the paranormal. And while it’s true I was originally a tad unsettled about the entities encountered, there were so many unexplained activities that it became more the patina and provenance of the house, more so than being just a "haunted house." Working in the attic gave me truly interesting point of observation about the haunts I was writing atop.
It was only days after moving in that I set up my typewriter, on an old desk by the front window. The attic had enough windows that it stayed wonderfully illuminated with natural light from early morning until dusk. It was cheerful enough but it was rather cavernous because of its size and ceiling height, and the fact there were modest furnishings. It was a well insulated room when the door to the back stairs was shut, and of all the places I’ve had writing studios situated, over the decades, none had the ambience of that McGibbon house attic.
The most memorable period writing from that third floor portal, was during the winter of 1977-78. I had just finished my studies in Canadian history, at York University, with a minor in English, and I was eager to begin some serious writing. I dabbled in poetry and short stories at that point, and I wrote a weekly column in a new paper known as the Bracebridge Examiner, on the subject of antiques and collectibles. It was a magic place because only slumber put me out of action. I was able to sit at that typewriter and go mad with composition. It was probably my most prolific period as a writer, and it was the silence and the view that really made this place a catalyst for new ideas. I wanted to write. I’d sit down with a bottle of wine, and I’d work until well after midnight, for at least five nights each week over that winter period. It was a strange feeling of elevation being on top of so much history. Dr. Peter McGibbon and his wife Mabel were two very accomplished individuals and this house had been used as both a medical office and a residence.
It was an early 1900's three story brick house so it was always making some unexplained settling, expansion or reduction noises; whether it was the heating ducts clanging with wisdom from the furnace, or creaking of floor boards from downstairs that I could hear clearly on occasion, even while in the middle of typing at the attic window. What made it strange moreso, was that there were periods of almost entombment when even the traffic below didn’t seem to register within. It could be noiseless for hours and then, as if someone had thrown open a window or door, the sounds were more than abundant. It could change in seconds and I can remember stopping work because it had gone from grave-like silence, to the sounds of a three ring circus. There were many times during these long writing jags that I would be startled by someone talking nearby. In my years in the McGibbon house this was common activity, as was rapping at the doors and jiggling of door knobs. I’d look around expecting that my girlfriend Gail had arrived, and I’d simply missed the opening creak of the door at the stairs. This happened hundreds of times and never once could I attribute the voice to a person in my presence. These were just voices in the air of the house. Voices from the past. Sometimes I would swear someone was calling my name. I can’t remember how many times I ran downstairs, thinking my mother Merle was in some sort of trouble, only to find out she was nodding off on the chesterfield, or making dinner.
It was also not uncommon whatsoever, to feel someone or something looking over my shoulder, as if trying to read what I was typing, feeling as close as one can get without the full sensation of intimacy. I had many taps on the shoulder and the awareness of a footfall behind me, or closer to the back stairs where there was a dim light. There were times when I thought I’d just then witnessed a silhouette passing through the light but whenever I got up for a closer look, all was as empty and unremarkable as before. There were other times when I would get a cold shudder, which my mother used to suggest was "caused by someone walking over your grave from another life." It was the only serious creepy feeling I had in that attic, when all of a sudden I’d find myself with a tingling shiver, as if I should be scared though I was never sure what to be scared about. It was a very friendly house besides being very paranormally occupied.
I can recall being up in the attic one Christmas Eve, initially working at my typewriter, and when that enterprise ceased, wrapping presents for my family on the big editorial table to my right. I can clearly recall a less than harmonious feeling during the wrapping session, as if being told by a resident spirit, that this particular attic wasn’t for such frivolous activities. I did feel a little like Dickens’ Scrooge, in "A Christmas Carol," and half expected at any time, for the past, present and future to play out as a film strip, down across my snowy mainstreet panorama. It was the perfect window for Jacob Marley to violently throw open to inclement weather, and command my attention to the ceaseless toils of a struggling mankind below. It was certainly the kind of window that the three spirits would find accommodating in earthly visitation that’s for sure. But it all seemed ethereal in so many ways......some of it could be simply explained by the fact I was looking down at the snowy trail I walked a thousand eventful times as a child, on the way to and from Bracebridge Public School, or onward to the arena for a game of minor hockey. I could see my own ghost, and the figures of my old chums, some who were by that time deceased. It was painfully nostalgic as I did cherish my childhood, growing up in this curious little town, straddling the 45th parallel of latitude.
There were many occasions that evening when I did turn around quickly to catch the interloper, who was trying to see what I was wrapping. The first four or five times I was sure a family member had crept up those steps at the back, and had made a couple of footfalls into the room. I was wrong. After awhile it did become rather oppressive, as if something in the house was dissatisfied with the room being used in this fashion. In retrospect I’m not too sure it cared for the writing jags either. There were cold drafts moving the hanging lightbulb overhead, and so many creaking timbers that it sounded like an actual conversation of complainers.
I did not feel the same accommodation was being afforded me this Christmas Eve, as I had been welcomed on so many other nights when writing was the only task. I finished up my wrapping chores and put the parcels back in bags until the morning. I had no intention of hauling them downstairs through the zig-zag of the dark staircase. When I took one final look out the big front window that beautiful winter’s eve, I found myself quite heartsick, longing for those earlier days when snow angels impressed, in the newly fallen snow, had been made by my chums on the joyous trot home from school. As much as it should have been, and had always been to that point uplifting, the residence seemed oppressed by sadness but with no real accounting. I didn’t know this house as well as I thought....its history, its own family legacy. Maybe I was experiencing a sadness from the house not of my own making. I later found this to be somewhat true, and although I couldn’t correlate it to the Christmas season as such, it did involve the loss of a young girl and the misery of a doting father.
As you will read about the McGibbon house throughout this site of recollections about Muskoka and Algonquin ghosts, this was not a house where malevolent spirits dwelled. Maybe a little though provoking, possibly a little unsettling but in no way was the house occupied by a single entity that wasn’t welcoming overall. It had its peculiarities but nothing that was frightening. Every resident in the house over the years just accepted the comings and goings, and bumps in the night, as of the "ordinary kind." We all lived in an ordinary haunted house. But it was remarkable and memorable in so many ways.
As for my attic vigils, I owe it a giant debt of gratitude. It was a wonderful place to write about history and philosophy, and to be an apprentice bard. It was moody and brooding at times but then so was I, thus there was a balance achieved. I will never forget the wonderful contribution that old house made to a fledgling writer, who cherished the upstairs view of "Our Town."
Merry Christmas!