Writer: Andrew Hind
Bracebridge’s Inn at the Falls is famously haunted. Over the years, many who have checked into this beautifully renovated 19th century manor home are said to have found their room already occupied by a restless spirit.
The most prominent of the several ghosts said to inhabit the inn is former owner Judge William C. Mahaffy, who died in 1912 and has been seen walking around the building ever since.
But it is the Lady of the Stairs who pulls the heartstrings.
According to the story handed down over the years and reproduced numerous times in print and in film, one night a heavily pregnant Helena Kirk fell down the staircase of what was then her home, killing both herself and her unborn child. Her husband was left to grieve his loss. Ever since, Helena’s ghost – labelled The Lady of the Stairs – has haunted the building. She has been heard pacing the second-floor hallway and crying in the middle of the night, and people have claimed to see her atop the staircase.
The story is undoubtedly tragic, one that would touch even the coldest of hearts.
But is it true?
Alas, no.
The Helena Kirk story is just that…a story, albeit a good one.
This is the true story.
Helena Kirk died March 18, 1911, only a year after her marriage to James Edward Kirk and decades before Kirk purchased the building that later became Inn at the Falls. Her cause of death was not a fall, but rather acute Bright’s Disease. If she was pregnant at the time she couldn’t have been far along as newspapers reporting her passing made no mention of it.
Her death was tragic. Just not in the manner we have been told.
So how did the Helena Kirk story begin? One never knows with these things. However, while the specifics of her story as popularly told err, I believe it is possible that Helena does haunt the inn.
Years ago, I interviewed Glenna Fraser Pate, a niece of James Kirk who had vivid memories of staying in the building in the 1930s when it was home to Kirk and his second wife. She recalled riding a tricycle through the rooms and down the hallways, and how her imagination conjured it into a magical castle. More important to the legend, she also told me that the family was convinced that the home was haunted and that Helena had followed her husband there. Apparently, family members had even seen what they took to be her apparition.
Does Helena Kirk – The Lady of the Stairs – haunt Inn at the Falls? Who can say.
But perhaps the truth will come out in one of two upcoming events.
On October 31 – Halloween – the inn will host a special dinner in their event space with a medium in attendance. The following weekend (Nov 6 and 7) Phantoms of Yore, a paranormal investigation group, hosts two days of ghost-hunting, spooky storytelling, and giving life to the legends that inhabit the inn. Contact Inn at the Falls for more details (705-645-2245, reservations@innatthefalls.ca)
Whatever the truth about the Lady of the Stairs, when at Inn at the Falls it’s best to sleep with one eye open.
