If it had been up to former director Ted Lindberg, the legends that surface every Halloween about the Burnaby Art Gallery being haunted would have died in 1987.
The gallery is located in the old Ceperly Mansion, a.k.a. Fairacres, a rambling 1909 house by Deer Lake, named for the wealthy pioneer who built it.
The building has had a colourful history, housing a couple well-to-do families, a Catholic seminary, a cult and a frat house in its time.
Even before 1987, accounts of ghosts abounded.
Gallery staff reported mysterious sights and happenings that couldn’t be explained: the sound of rustling silk and crying children, sudden cold breezes, a scent of perfume or a figure in a white dress drifting from room to room.
But director Ted Lindberg would have none of it.
“I’ve never heard or seen anything untoward,” he told the NOW in a November 1987 article. “I’ve been here late at night, the last person to shut out the lights, and I’ve never experienced anything.”
In a buzz-kill move right before Halloween, Lindberg set out to prove the stories were nothing but humbug by spending a night alone in the mansion.
He was determined to give the spirits a fair chance, cutting all the lights and exploring all the rooms – many of which weren’t in use at the time.
He emerged triumphant on the morning before Halloween, boasting the building had actually been “unusually quiet” as he slept on a couch in the members’ lounge.
“I think we’ve exorcized the ghost,” he said.
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