I’ve always been intrigued by the unknown. From life on other planets to conspiracy theories, and especially the paranormal.

Being born in Newfoundland and Labrador may have triggered the curiosity. The capital city of St. John’s, my birth city, is known as the most haunted city in North America. From stories of treasure guarding ghost pirates, to gruesomely murdered ex-lovers, not to mention the fact that the city of legends has burned down successive times, including the mass inferno of 1892.

For my sixth grade heritage fair project, I interviewed the legendary Dale Jarvis and created an entire display board on “Haunted Newfoundland.”

My dad would always bring me out to Cape Spear at night, and we would walk the supposedly haunted tunnels filled with bunkers that were used during World War II, and said to be home of multiple spirits.

Come Home Year 

People ask me all of the time, have you ever had a paranormal experience? Quite frankly, I think I’ve had a few. There’s no way to ever be sure, and that’s the fun in it being the unknown, but whatever it was scared the (word I can’t publish) out of me.

It was Come Home Year in Cook’s Harbour, where my mother is from and my grandparents still live. I was seven or eight years old, young enough to have the guts to venture into an abandoned house next door, apparently.

It was my great-grandmother’s house, “Big Nan” as we called her, and she had passed away some years prior. In such a small, tight-knit community, everyone was everywhere. My grandparents’ house was stogged full of people, and there was a wait for the bathroom. My cousin Mitch and I both had to go, so my mother suggested we head over to Big Nan’s house, where the plumbing was still working. So, off we went.

Green Photo Album 

Upon opening the old, white, wooden front door, there was already a sense of disorientation from the entire house sinking on one side and having a very uneven floor. The house was dark and grim from not being lived in for a few years, but it was still fully furnished down to the kitchenware and picture frames on the ledges.

I distinctly remember the kitchen table being covered in random belongings, which must’ve been from my grandparents trying to sort through everything.

There was a tiny green photo album, about the size of a stack of Post-it notes, filled with very old black and white photographs. Among these photographs was a photo of a woman holding a baby in a rocking chair.

Baby Screaming 

Now, this is where it gets a little unbelievable, but my cousin Mitch has vouched for it multiple times over the years, confirming that I’m in fact not crazy and he remembers this happening as well. At the moment we looked at this photograph, we both swear we heard a baby crying and screaming upstairs.

We bolted out of the house without even closing the door, running back to my grandparents house where of course, nobody believed us.

The house has since been torn down, and I’m not quite sure where all of the boxes of belongings, including that small green photo album, ended up.

With the amount of times I’ve talked to family about the incident, no one seems to know exactly which photograph, or baby, I’m speaking of.

If I had the opportunity now at the age of 24, I would probably venture back into the house and see if the little mystery baby started crying out again.