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Said to be haunted by the dying screams of a young girl who was set on fire and died, the Screaming Tunnel in Niagara Falls in Canada has become the site of some of the most eerily ghost legends said to linger within the dark.
Said to be haunted by the dying screams of a young girl who was set on fire and died, the Screaming Tunnel in Niagara Falls in Canada has become the site of some of the most eerily ghost legends said to linger within the dark.
The Screaming Tunnel is located in the Canadian town of Niagara Falls in Ontario and the haunted site can be easily accessed by car or on foot. It is today said to be one of the most haunted places in the country although the root of the haunting remains a mystery.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Canada
The Screaming Tunnel is a small limestone tunnel that runs underneath the railroad tracks, and it’s said to be haunted by the ghost of a young girl who died in a tragic fire.This 125-foot-long mysterious tunnel has been the subject of many chilling tales and legends for over a century. The tunnel is situated off Warner Road, just a short distance from the Niagara Parkway.
The limestone tunnel built in the early 1800s was running underneath what once was a Grand Trunk Railway line, now the Canadian National Railway. The Screaming Tunnel actually shares the same railway with the supposedly haunted Blue Ghost Tunnel as well. This has led to the belief that the spirits are using this railway to travel. It wasn’t made for passage though, but as a drainage passage to keep the tracks from being lost beneath flood waters.
Embraced with overgrown mosses, vines, and vibrant foliage, The Screaming Tunnel has a tragic story behind its eerie reputation, although no one can quite prove that it actually happened. The natural smell of sulfur is heavily prevalent. According to the legend, the tunnel was once part of a farm owned by a wealthy family in the early 1900s in an old farmhouse behind the south side of the tunnel. The far end of the tunnel leads to a pathway through woods and a small cluster of homes was found around here.
One night, the family’s house caught fire, and the girl was trapped inside and her clothing and hair caught fire. She managed to get out by herself and ran out from the burning house aflame. She made it to the tunnel where she tried to extinguish herself as the flames tore through her clothes and skin. Panicked, she was looking for help from one of the nearby houses or anything that would extinguish the flames. But it was futile as she didn’t manage to put the flames out by herself and she died alone in the darkness of the tunnel.
While the story of the girl set on fire inside of the Screaming Tunnel is widely accepted, there are some variations to the legend.
Some believe that the girl was murdered by her father who was mentally unstable. This is speculation, but it could seem like this version of the legend is a bit more modern. According to this version, he was abusive and a drunkard and that he was the one setting her on fire in the midst of a bitter custody battle. His wife had finally had enough and was taking their daughter with her when she was leaving him. Another fight ensued and the daughter ran away from them. But her father chased her and when he found her hiding in the tunnel before pouring gasoline over her and setting her on fire himself.
Others claim that she was a victim of a love triangle gone wrong or even more disturbingly, the girl was raped by a drunkard she met when she was passing through the tunnel. In this version her body burned to destroy the evidence. Regardless of the specifics, the story has become a part of Canadian folklore and continues to attract visitors from around the world.
As you walk through the tunnel, you can feel the weight of the legend on your shoulders, and every sound seems to echo louder than it should. Those brave enough to test the legend come prepared to the tunnel with matches.
According to the legend, if you light a match in the tunnel at midnight and say the girl’s name three times, her ghost will appear, and you’ll hear her scream. Although what name she has been given is strangely not really known.
Some say that there is no name needed and that evoking her ghost is much simpler. If you light a wooden match while standing in the middle of the tunnel, you’ll hear a shrilling scream and your match will immediately blow out. Perhaps a cruel test to do on a ghost legend who perished in this exact way, but a rite of passage for the teens in Niagara Falls and a path of litter of beer and liquor bottles and graffiti trails after them.
A completely different legend that has emerged in newer times though is the legend of Donald Jordanson that has been making rounds online. He lived on 16 acres of farming land. In 1924, he was newly married and had a newborn baby named Sam. That year it was a drought after the El Nino and the wheat and corn crops failed after the stormy weather. That dreadful summer, he lost everything. His wife left him and he lost his farm, and he lost himself in a psychosis.
He disappeared and soon others did too. The lawyer Frank Male, his former neighbour Ethal Davidson and his business partner John Frew. When the police went to his farm to investigate, they noticed smoke coming from the tunnel. At least a dozen bodies were piled up on each other in a blazing pyre. The farmer, crazed and screaming, wawed a pitchfork towards the officers and fell over, impaling himself. So perhaps it is really the ghost of Donald Jordanson who is crying out in the tunnel?
Although as with most of the urban legends, there really isn’t much substantial evidence that this even happened. And considering there are few, close to no sources for this as well, makes it even less likely to be rooted in truth.
But really, how much of the legend is actually true? Despite being a very popular legend, it is strangely without many details and facts. A reporter for the Niagara Falls Review once tried to find any historical evidence of a farmhouse set on fire, but found nothing.
Historically there used to be a small group of houses on the other side of the tunnel a bit away from the main road like in the legend. The small village is gone now, but you can still see the old foundations of the houses among the trees. It is said that one of the people living in one of the houses was a woman who was known by the neighbours for being a bit off, or at least enough enraged to leave her mark.
Read also: Ghostly Encounters in Moonville Tunnel in Ohio, The Haunted Cantabrian Tunnel of Engaña and The Hangman’s Tunnel in Loja for more haunted tunnels around the world
It is said that she had a tumultuous marriage and got in a lot of loud fights with her husband. But she wouldn’t necessarily unleash all of her anger towards him. After having a fight with her husband, she would bottle up all that anger and hold it in until he left for work and would walk to the very middle of the “Screaming Tunnel” and scream at the top of her lungs.
Neighbours would hear this but ignore it, as many didn’t want to deal with the woman, or perhaps understood her anger. This is what many believe to be the true origins of the name “The Screaming Tunnel”
Screaming Tunnel – Atlas Obscura
Screaming Tunnel | Niagara’s Haunted Place to Visit | Articles
