I read an interesting analysis today about why we like to believe in unexplained phenomena, like Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, and other things give us shivers: that as science increasingly tries to explain everything, we respond by looking for ways to find enchantment in things that can’t be so easily explained.

I think that’s quite true, but the real question is why we continue to search for enchantment.

When I was growing up, cities were a lot darker than they are now – smaller footprints, longer distances between them, fewer businesses with lights drowning out the stars. Now it’s hard to find a dark quiet spot anywhere, even in the small city I live in, but when I was a kid, every turn in the night promised all kinds of possible adventures. Today all the bogeymen are real (some of them are even in governments), but back then they were all in our imaginations, populating the shadowy borderland between what we could see and what could be lurking just beyond.

I suspect that the more reality gets in our face, the more we want the fun of imagining things that would make us gasp in wonder and trepidation. I’ve never seen a ghost, although I know several people personally who say they have, and I want to believe that there could be, because it would mean that there’s more dimension to our world, more to find and explore. I want that sense of mystery – especially around Halloween, the night that the Celts believed opened the doorways between our world and the unseen realms beyond.

The final day of our fall mini-adventure earlier this month took us to the city of Kingston, Ontario, an area that has been inhabited since for perhaps 10,000 years by various groups, becoming the first capital of the ‘United Province of Canada in 1841. The modern city grew out of a lot of history, and there are areas where you feel as if you’ve stepped back in time.

Kingston was a strategic military outpost, particularly during the War of 1812. We’d visited its massive Fort Henry, which broods imposingly over the entrance to Lake Ontario, briefly a few years ago when we were in town for a family wedding, so on this trip we decided to give it a better look during the daytime before it turned into the haunted Fort Fright in the darkness of the October nights.

The Fort has the perfect setup for a haunted attraction: a wide walkable ditch between its outer and inner fortifications. Lit by an eerie red glow as you walk up the long pathway, you enter the upper portion of the fort and line up at safe distances to wait your turn to embark on the frightful journey through the lower levels. A bald zombie-type creature with a Don-Rickles sense of humour keeps you entertained while you wait; for some reason he fixated on my choppy hairstyle and called me “Porcupine Lady”, so when he bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t achieve the same result I kindly suggested he try out Hellraiser’s approach and stick spikes into his head.

My hubby and I have been to many haunted attractions. We aren’t frightened by the jump-scares, so for us it’s all about the ambience and the creativity, of which there were plenty at Fort Fright – some scenes below.

These attractions give us a chance, just for a while, to pretend that we’ve stepped into that shadow border between reality and imagination. The more immersive the better, and we also like snickering at touches of macabre humour – even Zombie Rickles, who spotted me as we were walking back out and threw a few more cheeky insults my way. I waved and recommended duck tape 😊