#OughtToBeHaunted
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petercoffman.bsky.social
According to @hauntedwalk.bsky.social, the Hochelaga is Kingston's most haunted Inn. A Victorian mansion built in 1879, it's full of Gothick features and certainly #OughtToBeHaunted.
An elaborate Victorian house with pointed windows, fancy gingerbread, and a central tower with spire penetrating the clear sky.
October 3, 2026 at 5:18 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
It's that time of year again, when I can resurrect my favourite hashtag: #OughtToBeHaunted.

Here's one of my favourites from last year. I'm off to Kingston today, where some other possibilities might come up. 👻🎃
petercoffman.bsky.social Peter Coffinman @petercoffman.bsky.social · Oct 2
It’s October, which means it’s time to turn our thoughts to places that #OughtToBeHaunted. Or maybe ARE haunted. I’m told the basement here is the spookiest place in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. But not, apparently, the most haunted. Stay tuned.

Lunenburg Academy, designed by Harry Mott, built 1894-95.
A slightly warm-tinted black & white photograph of an ornate, three-story wooden building. The lower two stories are white with pronounced dark trip around all of the many windows. The upper story is darker and has very large Serliana windows. The roof has a robust and picturesque skyline of towers and turrets, silhouetted against a menacingly dark sky with stormy grey clouds that seem to be in motion.
October 1, 2026 at 1:15 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Glad you're enjoying them, Mina! Please add some of your own if you can think of places that #OughtToBeHaunted!
October 5, 2026 at 2:02 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
A century ago it was empty and dilapidated and everyone figured it #OughtToBeHaunted. Today, Kingston's Rosemount Inn is in beautiful condition. But its non-paying guests include disembodied voices, and sometimes even disembodied bodies.

Maybe this is where @dbcurren.bsky.social stayed. 👻🎃
Black & white image of a dignified stone house with a robust central tower sitting behind a dark iron fence among trees with light foliage beneath a dark sky with puffy white clouds.
October 4, 2026 at 12:09 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I'm back home in Ottawa now, so one last tip of the hat to the Kingston house that perfectly embodies every dream or nightmare of what a haunted house should look like: the Hochelaga Inn.

#OughtToBeHaunted
An ornate, picturesque brick house with a central tower and spire and gothic-arch windows sits among a group of lushly foliated trees against a dark, clear sky.
October 5, 2026 at 2:07 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
They say that Kingston shipping tycoon Donald McIntosh promised his family a castle. But before architect John Power finished building this one for him, McIntosh had hit hard times and been forced to sell it.

McIntosh Castle #OughtToBeHaunted, perhaps by Donald's broken dreams.
A symmetrical stone building with a massive, crenelated central stone tower covered with ivy, sits among trees in a black and white image.
October 3, 2026 at 12:37 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Designed to inspire fear, built to harbour despair, how could Kingston Penitentiary not be haunted?

#OughtToBeHaunted
A wide, tall, impenetrable stone wall is punctuated by a simple, imposing temple façade above which is a small tower and cupola. One side of the tower and a fragment of the wall are in bright sunlight, the rest is in subdued shadow.
October 1, 2026 at 5:09 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
If you've always thought that Kingston's Prince George Hotel #OughtToBeHaunted, then you'll be pleased to know that it apparently is. Very. According to @hauntedwalk.bsky.social, the spirit of a young woman who died in a fire on the 3rd floor is especially active.
A black & white image of a stately stone building of three stories, with an elaborately ornamented wooden veranda, a mansard roof, and a small central tower. A tiny moon is just visible in a dark sky.
October 5, 2026 at 12:17 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I rarely think of churches as places that #OughtToBeHaunted, but Chalmers United in Kingston apparently is – by an especially malevolent spirit that has given several organists the fright of their lives during late-night practice sessions. 😱 👻 🎃
An imposing stone church with a massive circular tower and flanking Romanesque façades, brightly sunlit against a dark, clear sky. The sharp, needle-like spire of another church is visible in the distance.
October 5, 2026 at 1:50 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
If there’s one building in eastern Ontario that #OughtToBeHaunted, it’s Kingston Penitentiary. Haunted by the despair of its occupants, and the cries for justice of their victims. By those whose sentences extended beyond life.
A gloomy, dark stone space with a staircase that climbs up the centre before branching symmetrically to the left and right before ending at a mid-wall level walkway with a steel railing.
October 5, 2025 at 1:32 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
If there's one place in Kingston that #OughtToBeHaunted, it's the Frontenac County Courthouse. Prisoners were held in the adjacent jail while awaiting the gallows there. The jail was demolished in 1973, but souls are harder to banish, especially when their mortal remains lie beneath the parking lot.
A broad, very stately Classical building with a recessed central block and end blocks that step forward, all anchored by a giant order Ionic temple façade in the middle. A dome on a drum site above and behind the pediment. The whole ensemble is lit by an oblique, low, evening autumn sun.
October 5, 2026 at 1:44 AM
dcapto.bsky.social
I see some of you already got your spooky October vibes on. Here’s a hashtag I hope catches on, and my own #OughtToBeHaunted
#TOphoto
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre elevators with beautiful ornate art neuveau style typography in the wall above the doors that read WINTER GARDEN, beautiful gold metal elevator doors with ornate design that need an operator to manually shut and open. One of the two elevators’ doors are open with 3 people waiting for the operator to return. I’ve ghosted their faces with white airbrush tool for their anonymity. It feels like a scene in an old Hitchcock movie. Or Wes Anderson.
October 2, 2026 at 4:47 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
The locals (who number fewer than 10) don’t like it when you call Dorothy, Alberta, a ghost town. But I reckon it #OughtToBeHaunted. Spend some time there and you’ll start to hear the ghosts’ voices.
Two very simple white wooden churches are brightly sunlit against a rolling Badlands landscape beneath a dramatic sky with billowing clouds.
October 4, 2025 at 12:46 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Can you think of any buildings that ought to be haunted? If so, I’d love to hear about them.
#OughtToBeHaunted
petercoffman.bsky.social Peter Coffinman @petercoffman.bsky.social · Oct 5
If there’s one building in eastern Ontario that #OughtToBeHaunted, it’s Kingston Penitentiary. Haunted by the despair of its occupants, and the cries for justice of their victims. By those whose sentences extended beyond life.
A gloomy, dark stone space with a staircase that climbs up the centre before branching symmetrically to the left and right before ending at a mid-wall level walkway with a steel railing.
October 11, 2025 at 1:51 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
“It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope."

-Shirley Jackson, ‘The Haunting of Hill House'

#OughtToBeHaunted
🎃 😱 👻
An ornate Victorian house with multiple bay windows and gingerbread is brightly sunlit against a dark, foreboding sky.
October 24, 2025 at 11:33 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Here's a building that #OughtToBeHaunted: the Banff Springs Hotel, designed by Walter S. Painter, begun in 1911. Canada’s own Overlook Hotel.

Any stories out there?
A huge, stately hotel is dwarfed by a backdrop of mountains and aforested foreground. Whispy clouds sweep across the sky.
October 17, 2025 at 12:31 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Dawson City, Yukon, #OughtToBeHaunted. By the ghosts of the thousands whose dreams and bodies were broken by the harsh realities of the Klondike Gold Rush. The very few who struck it fabulously rich can, I suppose, rest in peace.
Small, brightly lit wooden buildings are separated by a wide, empty dirt street beneath a dark sky with wispy cloud. A mountain looms in the distance.
October 18, 2025 at 12:35 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I think the burnt-out facade of St. Boniface Cathedral in Manitoba #OughtToBeHaunted. Perhaps by the ghost of Louis Riel, who lies buried in its churchyard. Or by souls who, for millennia, have traveled, worked, fought, and died on the Red River, which the cathedral overlooks.
An imposing, stone, sunlit cathedral facade with a triple arched entrance flanked by massive columns. Above the arches is a rose window, which opens up not to the interior but to dark sky. In the right-hand arch is the shadow of a human figure.
October 26, 2025 at 11:46 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
He spoke daily with the dead. He read poetry and wrote books on economics. He served as Prime Minister for 21 years.

And he built ruins - places where the imagination is invited to come out and play. William Lyon Mackenzie King was the ultimate #Halloween PM. 🎃 😱

#OughtToBeHaunted
What appears to be the last wall standing of a ruined Gothic church sits in a landscape of grass and trees. Foliage and fragments of other ruined bits are visible through its pointed arches.
October 24, 2025 at 10:38 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Lunenburg Academy may be the town’s spookiest building, but I’m told that Boscawen Manor is its most haunted. It was built in 1888 for Senator H.A.N. Kaulbach, who commissioned it as a wedding present for his daughter. Perhaps she’s the angry ghost people encounter. 👻 😱 🎃
#OughtToBeHaunted
A large, picturesque, white wooden house with multiple gables and turrets sits atop a hill set off against a dark, ominous sky.
October 12, 2025 at 12:27 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
It’s October, which means it’s time to turn our thoughts to places that #OughtToBeHaunted. Or maybe ARE haunted. I’m told the basement here is the spookiest place in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. But not, apparently, the most haunted. Stay tuned.

Lunenburg Academy, designed by Harry Mott, built 1894-95.
A slightly warm-tinted black & white photograph of an ornate, three-story wooden building. The lower two stories are white with pronounced dark trip around all of the many windows. The upper story is darker and has very large Serliana windows. The roof has a robust and picturesque skyline of towers and turrets, silhouetted against a menacingly dark sky with stormy grey clouds that seem to be in motion.
October 2, 2025 at 4:20 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
The Fort Garry Hotel is said to be the most haunted building in Winnipeg. Seems likely enough to me (although I’ve never ventured further inside than the restaurant).
🎃👻😱
#Halloween
#OughtToBeHaunted
A monumental stone building, its façade varied with projecting sections and bay windows, is brightly sunlit agains a dark, almost cloudless sky. The roofline is picturesque and ornately ornamented.
October 29, 2025 at 11:50 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Speaking of theatres that #OughtToBeHaunted, here’s one that actually is.

The Empress Theatre, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, was built in 1912. I have it on the best authority (@jimmykeelo.bsky.social, no less) that ‘live’ performances aren’t all that happen here….
A small but stately theatre exterior, in dark brick with white accents. Signage above the multiple ground level doors reads “Empress”. protruding vertical bands of brick on either side simulate Classical pilasters. The interior of a small theatre, showing rows of seats divided by two aisles, facing a raised stage with an array of stage lighting hanging from the ceiling above.
October 3, 2025 at 8:43 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
The Bank of Commerce in Dawson City, Yukon, #OughtToBeHaunted. By the ghosts of Sam McGee, Dan McGrew, and others who sprang from the imagination of a clerk who worked here: Robert Service.
A semi-derelict Classical building, two stories tall and four bays wide, with rusticated masonry on the ground floor and fluted pilasters on the upper floor, and elaborate pediments above the windows. The building has clearly seen better days: the windows are boarded up and the paint is peeling. The image is slightly warm-toned black and white.
October 11, 2025 at 12:25 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Many theatre artists will tell you that theatre buildings are haunted. Stages are places of shadowy souls; beings who aren’t really there, but are palpably present. I’m not sure if the Theatre Royal in Barkerville, B.C. is haunted. But it #OughtToBeHaunted. 🎃 👻
View of a simple, wooden theatre space, looking towards the stage. Bench-like wooden seats face a stage at the far end. The entire space is empty except for one figure on the far right of the stage: a female figure in a full, Victorian dress.
October 3, 2025 at 12:24 PM