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Bluenose Ghosts
Ghosts guarding buried treasure, phantom ships, haunted houses and supernatural warnings of death- these are just some of the strange and mysterious phenomena that you will encounter in Bluenose Ghosts. These unexplained mysteries are all the more chilling because they are based on personal experiences of ordinary people, told to Helen Creighton, one of Canada's most respected and renowned folklorists, over a period of thirty years. So when the moon is full and the wind is howling, be prepared to be spooked by apparitions and things that go bump in the night. Bluenose Ghosts was an instant hit when it was first published in 1957.This new edition of Bluenose Ghosts features a new foreword from Nova Scotia writer Clary Croft that explores Creighton's enduring influence on the province's folklore.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1969
32 people are currently reading
252 people want to read
About the author
Helen Creighton
17 books6 followersDr. Helen Creighton was a prominent Canadian folklorist. She collected 4,000 traditional songs, stories, and myths in a career that spanned several decades and published many books and articles on Nova Scotia folk songs and folklore. She received numerous honorary degrees and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1976
She and her family lived in Dartmouth, through the nearby Halifax explostion. Being a young lady through the two wars, boarding military officers and couples, she was inspired to serve but with medical ineligibility, became an ambulance driver helping doctors and dentists bring medical care to remote regions. She travelled extensively out of Canada, with the Author's Association as well as to visit her medical doctor brother; including English instruction in Mexico.
Loyal to the rustic and remote providers of her wealth of songs and stories, Dr. Creighton got several of them on television and radio, proudly delivering royalties to them. She kept her parents' home, shared with borders who were like family.
She and her family lived in Dartmouth, through the nearby Halifax explostion. Being a young lady through the two wars, boarding military officers and couples, she was inspired to serve but with medical ineligibility, became an ambulance driver helping doctors and dentists bring medical care to remote regions. She travelled extensively out of Canada, with the Author's Association as well as to visit her medical doctor brother; including English instruction in Mexico.
Loyal to the rustic and remote providers of her wealth of songs and stories, Dr. Creighton got several of them on television and radio, proudly delivering royalties to them. She kept her parents' home, shared with borders who were like family.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 21, 2025
The supernatural in Nova Scotia is not a subject talked about for the sole purpose of entertainment, but for many of us, it is a part of our way of life.
Ghost stories arranged by themes, such as guarding buried treasure, hindsight and foresight, ghosts as animals and lights, all manner of bumps in the night . . . this volume was first published in 1957, is dated in places but also conveys a sort of whimsical charm, despite the eerie topic.
More than one housewife has "heard" her husband come home earlier than expected, only to discover no-one is there when she goes to greet him; later to learn that moment was his time of death.
Some of the stories are creatures of psychology more than the supernatural, for example, dreams of the deceased.
Haunted houses are everywhere in the province, and ghost stories seemed especially prevalent during the dark nights of horses and carriages (the author was born in 1899).
Five creepy stars, because I always try to befriend the ghosts no matter where I live.
Ghost stories arranged by themes, such as guarding buried treasure, hindsight and foresight, ghosts as animals and lights, all manner of bumps in the night . . . this volume was first published in 1957, is dated in places but also conveys a sort of whimsical charm, despite the eerie topic.
More than one housewife has "heard" her husband come home earlier than expected, only to discover no-one is there when she goes to greet him; later to learn that moment was his time of death.
Some of the stories are creatures of psychology more than the supernatural, for example, dreams of the deceased.
Haunted houses are everywhere in the province, and ghost stories seemed especially prevalent during the dark nights of horses and carriages (the author was born in 1899).
Five creepy stars, because I always try to befriend the ghosts no matter where I live.
September 19, 2024
I was looking forward to reading Helen Creighton's Bluenose Ghosts (originally published in 1957) as I do enjoy Maritime provinces of Canada ghost stories, mysteries, folklore etc. And I guess because I was expecting a both interesting and also readable account of Nova Scotia "true" stories of spiritual manifestations, of the supernatural (after very much enjoying Creighton's Songs and Ballads of Nova Scotia), well and truly, my disappointment and my lack of reading pleasure regarding Creighton's presented text for Bluenose Ghosts has been and continues to be pronounced, rather all encompassing and for a number of different but in my opinion more than justified reasons.
For one and first and foremost, how Helen Creighton writes about her collected, her listened to (and supposedly authentic and having actually occurred) tales is (at least to and for me personally) majorly distracting and thus also hugely annoying, with Creighton trying to verbally stuff so many accounts into each of her eleven chapters that the amount of detail being provided tends to get massively tedious, exaggerated and that there is also an annoying lack of textual organisation present in Bluenose Ghosts, so that what could (and even should) be interesting kind of just ends up feeling like Helen Creighton is just majorly information dropping and in my opinion making her stories mesh into a gigantic and messily rendered verbal ball of intertwined and ridiculously all over the place words and also instances of annoying and headache producing verbal diarrhoea. And while there are most definitely interesting bits and pieces to be encountered in Bluenose Ghosts (supernatural signs that warn humans of impending death, ghosts disturbing the living after they themselves have been either on purpose or inadvertently disturbed, ghosts who guard buried treasure, regarding second sight both towards the future and also into the past, on devils/angels, phantom ships and other sea mysteries, how ghosts can both help and harm, wandering female spirits, ghosts that appear as either animals or as lights and of course also accounts concerning haunted houses and poltergeists), trying to locate those intriguing, engaging and also believable nuggets within Creighton's jumbled and lacking organisation writing style and narration is a bit like searching for needles in haystacks and has definitely not made Bluenose Ghosts an enjoyable and a to be recommended book. For two, because many the stories found in Bluenose ghosts feel so pretty far-fetched that they sound more like campfire horror tales, I manages to become very bored with Bluenose Ghosts after about page fifty and for the remaining pages was both skimming through and also wanting Helen Creighton to finally write more believable and more realistic sounding Nova Scotia Ghost stories in Bluenose Ghosts (but which never did happen, alas). And for three, I also rather consider it majorly frustrating (and intellectually lacking) that Creighton does not provide a separate bibliography at the back of Bluenose Ghosts, and that yes, considering that the majority if not even all of the tales being presented are first-person accounts, all of this should be acknowledged by Helen Creighton with detailed footnotes and be not simply alluded to rather sparingly within the text of Bluenose Ghosts (and just to say in conclusion that I have definitely not at all enjoyed this book, have major issues with Helen Creighton's writing, with her narration and textual presentation and in fact also kind of think that my two star rating for Bluenose Ghosts is actually rather generous on my part).
For one and first and foremost, how Helen Creighton writes about her collected, her listened to (and supposedly authentic and having actually occurred) tales is (at least to and for me personally) majorly distracting and thus also hugely annoying, with Creighton trying to verbally stuff so many accounts into each of her eleven chapters that the amount of detail being provided tends to get massively tedious, exaggerated and that there is also an annoying lack of textual organisation present in Bluenose Ghosts, so that what could (and even should) be interesting kind of just ends up feeling like Helen Creighton is just majorly information dropping and in my opinion making her stories mesh into a gigantic and messily rendered verbal ball of intertwined and ridiculously all over the place words and also instances of annoying and headache producing verbal diarrhoea. And while there are most definitely interesting bits and pieces to be encountered in Bluenose Ghosts (supernatural signs that warn humans of impending death, ghosts disturbing the living after they themselves have been either on purpose or inadvertently disturbed, ghosts who guard buried treasure, regarding second sight both towards the future and also into the past, on devils/angels, phantom ships and other sea mysteries, how ghosts can both help and harm, wandering female spirits, ghosts that appear as either animals or as lights and of course also accounts concerning haunted houses and poltergeists), trying to locate those intriguing, engaging and also believable nuggets within Creighton's jumbled and lacking organisation writing style and narration is a bit like searching for needles in haystacks and has definitely not made Bluenose Ghosts an enjoyable and a to be recommended book. For two, because many the stories found in Bluenose ghosts feel so pretty far-fetched that they sound more like campfire horror tales, I manages to become very bored with Bluenose Ghosts after about page fifty and for the remaining pages was both skimming through and also wanting Helen Creighton to finally write more believable and more realistic sounding Nova Scotia Ghost stories in Bluenose Ghosts (but which never did happen, alas). And for three, I also rather consider it majorly frustrating (and intellectually lacking) that Creighton does not provide a separate bibliography at the back of Bluenose Ghosts, and that yes, considering that the majority if not even all of the tales being presented are first-person accounts, all of this should be acknowledged by Helen Creighton with detailed footnotes and be not simply alluded to rather sparingly within the text of Bluenose Ghosts (and just to say in conclusion that I have definitely not at all enjoyed this book, have major issues with Helen Creighton's writing, with her narration and textual presentation and in fact also kind of think that my two star rating for Bluenose Ghosts is actually rather generous on my part).
March 3, 2021
Having lived almost my whole life right across from Canada, Canadian subjects interest me and so a friend gave me this book which is all about spooky lore from the province of Nova Scotia in the Canadian Maritimes. It is divided into chapters devoted to various subjects such a forerunners, wandering women, sea legends, and so forth. My favorite sections were the first, about forerunners (omens and doppelgangers) and the final section about haunted houses and poltergeists.
As a child, I loved finding old paperbacks like "Strange But True!" with varied accounts of ghosts, bilocation, aliens and so forth. I'd curl up and read the whole thing, fascinated. In some ways, this book reminded me of those old childhood favorites, both in the subject matter and because this book came out way back in 1957, similar to those others. But unlike those books, which dealt with a each particular account for a page or three, in this book there were three problems in my view: the accounts often take up no more than a paragraph before moving on to the next one, the stories that say "twenty years ago" actually translates to ninety (because of the age of the book) and includes far too much horse-and-buggy split tail-coat stuff for my taste, and the attributions go on forEVER. "Mister Sydney Such-and-Such of Something Something Cove, near Such-and-Such Bay, had a friend from East Loonie Island who was visiting Lower Loonie Island when he heard an unexplained knocking." I realize the point of this book is the local flavor and history, but after a while these convoluted attributions really began to grate, especially when, after all that, the pay-off is vague and unsatisfying. I was much more interested and entertained when she stuck with a particular account long enough to go into some depth. This is why I enjoyed the final chapter so much, because it was light on the attributions and long on stories and details. In addition, that final chapter is genuinely chilling.
In summary, reading this book was like spending a long afternoon listening to two older folks talk about stories that are sometimes fascinating, but which often concern people and settings known only to them and which are long passed away. The best stories had to be paid for by sitting through the rest. Recommended for those with an interest in Nova Scotia or old tales of the supernatural, but not for those who like a snappy read.
As a child, I loved finding old paperbacks like "Strange But True!" with varied accounts of ghosts, bilocation, aliens and so forth. I'd curl up and read the whole thing, fascinated. In some ways, this book reminded me of those old childhood favorites, both in the subject matter and because this book came out way back in 1957, similar to those others. But unlike those books, which dealt with a each particular account for a page or three, in this book there were three problems in my view: the accounts often take up no more than a paragraph before moving on to the next one, the stories that say "twenty years ago" actually translates to ninety (because of the age of the book) and includes far too much horse-and-buggy split tail-coat stuff for my taste, and the attributions go on forEVER. "Mister Sydney Such-and-Such of Something Something Cove, near Such-and-Such Bay, had a friend from East Loonie Island who was visiting Lower Loonie Island when he heard an unexplained knocking." I realize the point of this book is the local flavor and history, but after a while these convoluted attributions really began to grate, especially when, after all that, the pay-off is vague and unsatisfying. I was much more interested and entertained when she stuck with a particular account long enough to go into some depth. This is why I enjoyed the final chapter so much, because it was light on the attributions and long on stories and details. In addition, that final chapter is genuinely chilling.
In summary, reading this book was like spending a long afternoon listening to two older folks talk about stories that are sometimes fascinating, but which often concern people and settings known only to them and which are long passed away. The best stories had to be paid for by sitting through the rest. Recommended for those with an interest in Nova Scotia or old tales of the supernatural, but not for those who like a snappy read.
June 22, 2021
I have recently moved to Nova Scotia from Ontario, and when I saw this book I thought there was no better way to learn a little bit more about the province. Not to mention it is kind of fun knowing where these places are, and being able to visit them. I already love folklores, myths and a good ghost story, so this book was a lot of fun to read.
I love the way this book is written, a combination of the author's experiences and research efforts along with actual accounts from people. She takes great care to just take the words spoken and write them down, opposed to changing peoples words - it gives certain stories a nice authenticy to them.
I will say that some of the chapters didn't hold my interest much - like devils and angels. But the chapters of buried treasure, ghost ships etc kept me up reading most of the nights. I didn't know there were so many rules for digging for buried treasure. Its also one of those books that are great when you only have a couple of minutes to read while waiting. Because each story is short it is easy to finish one quick then put the book down at a seconds notice, which makes it a great travelling book.
I love the way this book is written, a combination of the author's experiences and research efforts along with actual accounts from people. She takes great care to just take the words spoken and write them down, opposed to changing peoples words - it gives certain stories a nice authenticy to them.
I will say that some of the chapters didn't hold my interest much - like devils and angels. But the chapters of buried treasure, ghost ships etc kept me up reading most of the nights. I didn't know there were so many rules for digging for buried treasure. Its also one of those books that are great when you only have a couple of minutes to read while waiting. Because each story is short it is easy to finish one quick then put the book down at a seconds notice, which makes it a great travelling book.
November 8, 2015
Dr. Helen Creighton is an important figure who must have been formidable to meet. She was intelligent and down-to-Earth; our foremost folklorist who visited remote regions to preserve stories and songs. The outcomes were valuable. One anthem she recovered is their province’s theme: “Farewell To Nova Scotia”. Over twenty-eight years of research, her interviewees, put at ease, began unloading paranormal experiences onto her. Her two out-of-ordinary books became bestsellers and garnered my attention: “Bluenose Magic”, 1968 and “Bluenose Ghosts”.
This latter was in an advantageous position to catch tiny and major stories, in the most accurate form possible. Published in 1957, its pieces coming together since the 1930s; the tales we are reading now in 2015, weren’t ancient history then. When these phenomenon were told to Dr. Creighton; the speaker was the very witness, or a close relative or neighbour. She, herself, observed a few of them. As our tour guide, she is completely engaging and downright hilarious with some of her wry observations. She recorded facts precisely as she received them but included her flair in the telling. For instance, she lamented that male ghosts hover together in droves, whilst women’s ghosts wander inexplicably as lonesome waifs.
There are four stars because long fact-reporting can’t help resulting in dry spots. In particular, prairie girls aren’t wired to feel any connectivity to ships. I perked up whenever we were covering just about anything else. Her chapters are superbly organized into logical subjects: types of ghosts and hauntings. She described her pleasure at encouraging hesitant hosts to open up to her, befriending many of them. Her compassion was evidenced through her author-to-reader writing. I savoured learning many new things and consider these firsthand testimonies an honest-to-goodness treasure. Dr. Creighton’s addendums about how many of these folks fared later, were a treat.
This latter was in an advantageous position to catch tiny and major stories, in the most accurate form possible. Published in 1957, its pieces coming together since the 1930s; the tales we are reading now in 2015, weren’t ancient history then. When these phenomenon were told to Dr. Creighton; the speaker was the very witness, or a close relative or neighbour. She, herself, observed a few of them. As our tour guide, she is completely engaging and downright hilarious with some of her wry observations. She recorded facts precisely as she received them but included her flair in the telling. For instance, she lamented that male ghosts hover together in droves, whilst women’s ghosts wander inexplicably as lonesome waifs.
There are four stars because long fact-reporting can’t help resulting in dry spots. In particular, prairie girls aren’t wired to feel any connectivity to ships. I perked up whenever we were covering just about anything else. Her chapters are superbly organized into logical subjects: types of ghosts and hauntings. She described her pleasure at encouraging hesitant hosts to open up to her, befriending many of them. Her compassion was evidenced through her author-to-reader writing. I savoured learning many new things and consider these firsthand testimonies an honest-to-goodness treasure. Dr. Creighton’s addendums about how many of these folks fared later, were a treat.
July 13, 2020
This was an interesting account of ghost stories from Nova Scotia. Creighton was a folklorist and collected the stories at the same time as she collected folk songs from the province. This book tied the stories together in an interesting fashion, although it was a bit of a dense read. However, it was interesting to have the tales written as first-hand accounts from those who told them to Creighton.
July 17, 2016
A style of writing I’ve not really encountered before: Part academic, part really familiar. It was really stream of consciousness, almost like you were listening to the author tell ghost stories in your kitchen. I hadn’t heard many of of these stories before, but I was a little disappointed there weren’t more stories from my area of Cape Breton.
November 10, 2015
THIS BOOK WAS READ TO MY FOURTH GRADE CLASS MANY YEARS AGO. READING IT AS AN ADULT MADE ME SHUDDER MORE THAN IT DID WHEN I WAS A CHILD. WRITTEN BY A CANADIAN ICON WHO I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE MET AND HAD A CONVERSATION WITH. I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO ASK HER IF SHE REALLY DID BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE TOLD HER. YOU EITHER BELIEVE IT OR NOT. IT IS UP TO YOU. READ IN THE DAYTIME ONLY!
July 16, 2016
I loved this book, I could hardly put it down. Although it was a series of short experiences the author was able to tie them all together so the book flowed from experience to experience. This book is quite old now and I would love for someone to write another book with more recent ghostly encounters in the Maratimes.
November 27, 2016
This is a book of collected folklore, so the tales of ghosts are short, without much development. The work accurately reflects the experiences of Creighton's subjects, but makes for a less-compelling read. However, it does convey a wonderful sense of a time and place that has disappeared.
May 28, 2017
It's like the author couldn't decide whether she wanted a ghost story book, a folklore book, a random anecdotes book, or a story about canadian landscape. It manages to be both uninformative and boring, which is a shame, since she started out well enough.
November 3, 2008
Helen Creighton is a master at collecting and retelling stories. She kept our friends and I entertained many dark spooky nights reading from her collection of Nova Scotia ghost stories.
August 23, 2022
This is a pleasant little collection of spooky accounts gathered by Helen Creighton from across Nova Scotia. Picking up this volume as someone who knows next to nothing about the region or its history, I also found it to be very insightful as to the folklore, superstitions, and history of Nova Scotia. Creighton will often not only describe the happenings of a ghost story, but also relate how she came to know the real-life teller of the tale, often-times an elderly "blue-noser" full of little anecdotes, legends, and ditties. I felt as though I sat in the parlor of each of these storytellers, charmed by their hospitality at the same time that the shivers ran down the back of my neck.
July 13, 2022
A classic book that any Canadian ghost hunter should read. Leave the light on if you’re reading it before bed!
November 12, 2023
Superstition and hauntings tend to attempt to explain the inexplicable and things over which mortals have not control and people who go down to the sea in ships have more than most.
January 20, 2009
Short stories about various sightings in NS, collected by Helen Creighton.
September 25, 2015
this feels so much creepier at 30 than it did at 11. it could be because an ebook reader allows me to read late at night, in complete darkness. Creighton is still utterly captivating.
July 3, 2015
A collection of ghost stories that are based on real life experiences throughout Nova Scotia.
November 12, 2015
Loved it! The first time I read it was as a child. I found an old copy in the family home in Scott's Bay, NS. I purchased the paperback many years later for my children to read.
July 28, 2016
The content of this book was fascinating, I was amazed at all the places she visited and the amount stories she collected. I did find this book very hard to read due to the style of writing.
July 7, 2010
A beautiful and thorough telling of traditional Nova Scotian folk stories. Creighton is a gift.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews