The faint smell of cigar smoke can sometimes permeate the hallways of the second floor of an old building at the corner of Second and Ste. Marie Streets.
Don’t worry. It’s probably just the Spirit of Simcoe Street.
It’s spooky season, and Collingwood entertainer Dean Hollin is gearing up to offer his Haunted Tour walks for another season at the end of this month. The tour covers Collingwood’s haunted past through exploration of its many 100+ year old buildings, told with the artistic flair only a seasoned actor, singer and entertainer could provide.
And about 15 years ago, that may have been why the Collingwood Downtown Business Improvement Area (BIA) first approached Hollin about putting the tour together in the first place.
“They basically had a folder, and said they’d love to do a haunted walk. Collingwood has the history. They just needed someone to do it,” recalls Hollin. “It was my job to sift through all these stories and come up with a coherent order and pick out what I liked.”
One such story is about the building at Second and Ste. Marie St. across the street from Moguls that once housed The Enterprise-Bulletin newspaper. Editor of the newspaper David Williams has been dubbed the ‘Spirit of Simcoe Street.' Former employees who worked in the building say he still walks the hall.
“These inexplicable things would happen. The smell of cigar smoke. They swore it would happen in the office out of nowhere,” said Hollin. “People who still live in town know the story.”
Also on the tour is the VanderMarck boutique hotel at Pine and Third Street, where visitors have reported seeing people in vintage garb in the hallways. Formerly known as Beild House and built in 1912, it was home and office to Dr. Joseph Robbins and his family.
The evidence was compelling enough to inspire the show Rescue Mediums to do an episode on the property in 2006.
Other stops on the tour include a stop at the Federal Building to talk about the impact of the Spanish Flu on the town, and at First and Hurontario to talk about the Collingwood Shipyards, and the people who lost their lives while working there.
“There was a lot of death. We think of the area as being filled with condos now,” said Hollin. “There were accidental deaths at the Shipyards during 100 years of shipbuilding.”
While Hollin is reluctant to say whether or not he fully believes ghosts are real, he said he considers himself a translator to share the stories.
However, there was a time about 20 years ago when he was serving as artistic director at the Historic Gayety Theatre where he swears he saw some strange happenings.
“I would often feel like somebody had come in (to my office), and I would say ‘Hello!’ and there would be nobody there,” said Hollin. “I became convinced it was the matriarch of the Russ family. I felt there was a spirit there looking after the building. It was nurturing.”
Hollin said the value of the walks is to connect people with local history, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
“It’s a way to either acquaint, or reacquaint, yourself with the history of the historic downtown,” he said.
He remembers for the first walk, between 200 and 300 people attended, taking up most of the block on Hurontario between First and Second Streets.
“Nobody was expecting it. It was overwhelming. Normally, for the first time of anything you expect it to start slowly and build over time. It didn’t happen that time,” said Hollin.
While both times for this year’s haunted walks through the Collingwood Museum are sold out, Hollin is also available to provide private tours of groups larger than 20 people. To contact him, visit his website here.
