A Canadian 'Haunted Walk' Guide Revealed His Wildest Tours & People Have Even Run In Fear
He had to promise someone their house wasn't haunted. 👀
The Toronto Distillery District at night.
With the spooky Halloween season peeking a single feline eye around the corner, you might be getting in the mood for some spooky events in Canada.
And one of the more time-honoured, albeit touristy, Halloween traditions is the haunted, historical walk.
If you're new to the concept, it's an event where you take a guided tour through a historical part of town and see all of the scary, dilapidated and potentially haunted buildings in the city. All the while, you're led by a knowledgeable guide in a spooky robe, holding a lantern. Scared yet?
While you might be there for a fright, or just simply for the history, have you ever wondered about what the guide's experience is like?
To know more about this spooky work, Narcity sat down with Miles* a former haunted walk tour guide who's worked in the industry for three years.
Miles worked as a tour guide for The Haunted Walks in both Kingston and Toronto where he, dawning a cloak and lantern, would tell the spooky, haunted histories of the areas he toured.
A few places that he did guided walks were the University of Toronto and old military forts, as well as the downtown areas of both Toronto and Kingston.
During his time as a tour guide, he gathered some interesting, spooky and, well, funny stories.
The paranormal
First things first, Miles said he has never seen anything first-hand that you would consider supernatural.
Matter of fact, he doesn't even really believe in ghosts, despite a desire to.
"I can’t say that I’m convinced," he said. "Doing the tour I never had any firsthand encounters and, while I believe all the stories I told did happen, I don’t necessarily believe the explanation for them was 'ghosts.'"
That being said, his teammates did "experienced the unexplainable" on occasion.
"I was not so lucky (or I was lucky depending on how you look at it)," said the former tour guide.
Annoying customers
Instead, for Miles, what's scarier is an annoying customer!
As you'd expect, Miles's time as a tour guide gave him a fair share of difficult patrons.
"The most annoying thing was definitely just not paying attention and chatting amongst their group during a story," explained Miles, admitting that it was indeed a rare event.
People would also interrupt his stories with questions. "It’s hard to get back on track and get a story flowing again," he said.
Others would even walk ahead of the group, with Miles feeling forced to say, "I’m the tour guide here, I know where to go, not you!"
As for commonly-asked but annoying questions, Miles had one that came to mind instantly.
"Sometimes people would point to a random building and be like 'that’s spooky looking, know anything about that place?'" he explained.
"While I love the enthusiasm, I didn’t know the sordid history of every single building on our route."
Scares
Of course, creepy walking tours also comes with their share of scares.
One of the scariest places Miles brought people to was Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario. He said the military fort constructed by the British between 1832 and 1837 had all kind of spooky activity going on.
"Doors would slam because of the wind or something would make a scurrying sound and people would freak out," he said. "I had people run out of a room once because of a loud noise."
Outside of the historical building, the walks through the city would be less scary given they were in public, but that didn't stop the tour from spooking out children.
Miles recounts a story when, after a tour, a 9-year-old girl approached him after him telling a scary story.
She said to him, "You get paid to scare little kids. Are you proud of yourself?"
But the horrors did come home to roost when he brought a roommate on a tour once.
"She was petrified afterwards," he explained. "[She] made me promise our condo wasn’t haunted."
"You don’t often get to see how people react immediately after the tour so that was a treat."
So, if you ever see a haunted tour taking place as you hang out in a historical neighbourhood, maybe let them be and resist the urge to interact.
Don't be one of the randos on the steering telling the guide about your "own ghostly experiences without any prompting."
They've probably been through a lot already!
*Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality. Narcity has verified their identity.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.