Ah, the Old Finch Road. This road divides residential Scarborough and the forest…already spooky and is located very near the Toronto Zoo. According to frequenters of the road, a girl named Sue or Susie died near a bridge on the Old Finch Road on her birthday. People often go to the stretch and sing Happy Birthday in order to provoke the ghost of Susie, who is said to cry or shriek when she hears the song. The legend is supported by local graffiti in the area; the words happy birthday is spray painted on a rock nearby. Local newspapers don’t seem to reflect any girl named Susie being killed on her birthday in the area, but the location has been a hot spot for crime over the years. Despite the lack of archive evidence, anyone who frequents the area will tell you about the crazy moans and screams they hear along the road at night…however there may be a pretty normal explanation – the proximity to the zoo. When agitated, the fowl have been known to admit foul noises! Is the ghost of Susie just a particularly angry peacock?
9. Serpent of Lake Ontario
Is there a snake in the lake?! Possibly, according to legend anyway! Back when Toronto was called York and Canada wasn’t yet called Canada, settlers noticed something going on in Lake Ontario. Sure enough, they consulted the Seneca and legend told of a huge beast called Gaasyendietha that was said to live in the depths of the lake. According to the Seneca, the serpent could shoot fire from its mouth. As the 1800s progressed and the city that would eventually become Toronto developed, more reports of a huge 30ft snake in the lake kept surfacing. It seems old snakey in the Lakey liked to swim, too. He was also spotted in Kingston, Ontario leading to the popular legends of Kingstie. Many cryptozoologists think the lake monster could be some sort of relict Plesiosaur, a large, long-necked marine reptile. The last time someone spotted Gaasyendietha was in the late 1960s.
8. Whale Bones
The Whale Bones of Lake Ontario have caused a lot of mystery and debate. Basically, in 1987, construction on the Harbourfront Streetcar terminal began and 11 thousand-year-old whale vertebrae were unearthed. This led many to consider the possibility that whales had swum in Lake Ontario, although geologists, zoologists and scientists alike don’t think that that happened. If they didn’t though, how did the bones come to be in an area by the lake? Some think they came from an old exhibited whale carcass at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. When the whale became too degraded, portions were disposed of in the lake. DNA testing on the bone may lend credence to this theory – the bone turned out to be just a few hundred years old, not thousands. Its placement in the lake, however, is still up for debate and a cause of great mystery.
7. Ghosts of Casa Loma
Ahh, ghosts love haunting a castle, don’t they! Casa Loma is a relatively new castle, built in 1914 as a gothic revival mansion by Sir Henry Pellatt. The castle-style mansion is said to be haunted by a number of ghosts – firstly by Mr. and Mrs. Pellatt, the original owners who were turned out when they could no longer afford the upkeep. The most sighted ghost, however is a lady in white, who has been spotted all over the building. The White Lady is someone we believe to be a maid who worked in the castle in its early days of operation, around the time when Toronto was plagued with influenza that killed 60 thousand people. Casa Loma is frequently visited by ghost tourists and puts on a banging Halloween spooky house event.
6. The Tunnel Monster of Cabbagetown
Cabbagetown is a pretty cool area slightly east of downtown Toronto. You can get a good curry near Cabbagetown…although there might be more to this neighborhood of the six than meets the eye. In March 1979, 51-year-old Ernest was looking for his lost cat along with his Parliament st neighborhood. His search led him to a tunnel opening. As he wigged in the tunnel, flashlight in hand, he saw something that truly tested his beliefs. His light illuminated a fury, money like creature with orangey red eyes and large teeth. He described the thing as being three feet tall and with the ability to speak.
The creature hissed and told him to go away before it ran off down the tunnel. Ernest then spoke to a journalist at the Sun and said the entrance of the tunnel was a sewage system that runs under the subway. Being a big local news publication, a lot of people read the article and were intrigued by the sound of the tunnel monster, with many people going out to look for it. Despite the coverage, nobody has managed to spot the creature. That being said, the description of the Cabbagetown monster is similar to that of the memegwesi, small water spirits according to Algonquian mythology…. Could Ernst have been seeing one of those critters? And do they live in the sewers of the city?
5. Toronto Aerial Jellyfish
There might be something going on in the skies of Toronto. In 2012, Atmospheric Jellyfish were spotted hovering over the city. Atmospheric jellyfish are UFO sensation and have been spotted before in China, the Netherlands and Norway, and recently in Toronto, Canada. An eyewitness reported the sighting. They said: This thing came down from above the clouds, slowly descending for about a minute before I began filming. The details are sketchy, unlike Canada’s best documented UFO sighting over a lake in Nova Scotia in the 1960s.
4. The Cookie Ghost of Christie Mansion
The Christie Family were well known in Toronto, with Christie street named after biscuit maker William Mellis Christie, a self-made entrepreneur who revolutionized the Canadian biscuit industry. When he died, he left his cookie business and his assets to his son, who took up residence in the family mansion, the Christie Manson near Queens Park. It seems that Christie Jnr, Robert Christie, had a mistress as well as a wife and he had her hauled up in a secret room of his mansion. Room 29, according to legend. She had a butler and a maid to bring her food and tidy up after her, and Robert would come to her at night, where they would carry out their affair in private. Eventually, his interest in the woman started to wane and she could no longer stand being held prisoner. She hung herself using bed sheets and her body was secretly removed and buried in Queens Park. Legend has it, her spirit stayed in room 29, and if anyone finds themselves alone in the room at night, the door swings shut and lock itself and you can’t get out…just like she couldn’t get out when Robert left her. They say you will be stuck there all night until morning.
3. The Ghoul of Gibraltar Point Lighthouse
OOhhh I love this lighthouse on the Island! The Toronto Island is pretty much my favorite thing about the city – Danny and I went with a bunch of our friends recently and he badly burnt his nose…so the legends about needing sun lotion when you’re a pale white Irishman are true. Are the legends of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse true, though? The lighthouse on the Island is one of the oldest buildings in Toronto and the second oldest lighthouse in Canada. It was built in 1808 and guided ships into the Toronto Harbour on Lake Ontario. The story goes that a lighthouse watchman was murdered there and his ghost haunts the tower to this day. The first keeper, Rademuller disappeared in January 1815, with local legend saying that he was murdered by sailors who cut up his body and buried it around the island. Later lighthouse keeper, George Durnan, was said to have dug up his jawbone. The lost spirit of Rademuller is said to roam the island but is most commonly haunting the tower.
2. Tim Horton's Spiking Their Coffee
Tims is a Canadian institution, despite no longer being a Canadian owned company. Everyone I know goes to Tim Hortons regularly, and we all agree it isn’t even the greatest coffee… but something keeps us coming back. Well, Urban legend has it that good old Tim is spiking his coffee with nicotine to make it more addictive. Some say the brew is mixed with the drug, others say the cups are sprayed with it, so that is why nothing shows up when the coffee is tested from the source. The classic story seems to go that American hops over the border to the friendly great white north, stay with relatives and adopts their habit of having a Tim Horton’s every day.
When they get back to the states, they have a blood test and it reveals there is a significant amount of nicotine in their blood. The urban legend became so popular that Tim Hortons even released a statement to say There is, in fact, nothing added to our coffee. We believe that our guests are addicted to consistency. Hhiiii doubt that one somewhat! Either way, our mate Michael Mcrudden loves a good Tim Hortons. Finally, coming into number one, we have one of the most famous Toronto Stories!
1.The Leaping Lawyer
The Leaping Lawyer of the TD Tower in Toronto’s financial district has gone down as something as a morbid legend. Little did Garry Hoy know when he plunged to his death from the 24th story of the tower, that he would win a slew of posthumous awards and accolades. The legend goes that a crazy banker accidentally fell to his death from the tower whilst playing a practical joke on a group of students…and actually, this is pretty accurate. Hoy was a senior partner at Holden Day Wilson firm and he loved a good laugh. His party piece was testing the strength of skyscraper windows and one day, when a group of articling students was in the building, he hauled himself at a 24th-floor glass window to prove how strong the glass was. The first time he played his party trick, he was fine…. But the second time, well…he was less fine….he fell to his death as the glass smashed. His death has gone down in history and was included in the TV series, 1000 ways to die.
