Fort George National Historic Site

Fort George was built by the British between 1796 and 1799 on high ground above the Niagara River, facing the American Fort Niagara across the water. It was the headquarters of the British army on the Niagara frontier when war broke out in 1812, and when Major-General Isaac Brock was killed at Queenston Heights that October, he was buried in one of its bastions (his remains were later moved to Brock’s Monument).

In May 1813 an American force bombarded the fort and landed nearby; after fierce fighting the British commander, John Vincent, blew up the magazines and withdrew. US troops occupied the ruined fort until December 1813, and when they left they burned the neighbouring town, then called Newark and now Niagara-on-the-Lake. The British returned, but after the war the fort was neglected and largely disappeared. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1921, and in 1937–1939 the Niagara Parks Commission reconstructed it as a Depression-era make-work project; it opened on 1 July 1940 and has been run by Parks Canada since 1969. Only the stone powder magazine of 1796 is original.

Ghost stories gathered around the reconstructed fort, and in 1994 local guides began candlelight ghost walks there. Now run by the Friends of Fort George, they bill themselves as the longest-running ghost walk in the Niagara Region. The stories they collect are of spirits tied to the war and its aftermath: footsteps across empty floors, cold spots, crying and moaning, and visitors who say they were poked or had their hair pulled with nobody behind them. Figures in period uniform and a benevolent, watchful presence are among the most repeated reports.

In 2014 Canada Post put Fort George on one of its first five Haunted Canada stamps, alongside the Ghost Bride of Banff, and the fort is regularly ranked among the most haunted places in Canada. Its home town, Niagara-on-the-Lake, has built a whole tourism season around ghosts.

The fort’s ghosts raise an obvious question: most of the buildings visitors walk through were built in the 1930s. Believers answer that hauntings belong to places, not timbers; sceptics point out that a reconstruction full of costumed interpreters, cannon and candlelit tours is the perfect stage for suggestion. Either way, the real history – a battle, a burned town, soldiers and their families on a dangerous frontier – is what gives the stories their weight.

Footsteps and voices in empty buildings, cold spots, crying and moaning, sensations of being touched, poked or having one’s hair pulled, and apparitions of soldiers in period uniform. Reported by visitors, staff and ghost-tour participants; the fort is said to have generated hundreds of such reports.

Throughout the fort – the blockhouses, the other restored buildings, the original 1796 powder magazine and the earthwork bastions. Most experiences are reported on evening ghost tours, from spring to late October.

Ghost Tours of Fort George, founded in 1994, are among the oldest regular ghost walks in Canada. The fort appeared on Canada Post’s 2014 Haunted Canada stamps, and Niagara-on-the-Lake markets itself as one of the most haunted towns in the country.