Tour History

In 1994, Kyle Upton was on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia, when he had the pleasure of attending his first Ghost Tour. Having volunteered and worked at Fort George for a number of years, Kyle thought a ghost tour was a great idea to get people who may not necessarily be interested in history, exposed to history. At the same time, he was though that the Williamsburg tour was less about ghosts than it was about curious historical trivia (like men wearing false calves - hey baby check out these calves!) and was a little disappointed to discover that you didn't actually get to go into any of the few haunted places mentioned on the tour. Determined that Fort George could do a lot better, Kyle started making calls to past staff members. With a test tour mapped out, and a collection of 12-13 good stories, Kyle approached the Superintendent with the idea. The Superintendent nodded, shuffled some papers, shared some ghostly experiences from Fort Wellington, and then confided that, as a branch of the Federal Government, Parks Canada could neither confirm nor deny the existence of ghosts (for fear of having to pay then pensions), so although it was a good idea, it could not happen as an 'official' Parks program. The Superintendent was however curious to see if a ghost tour would work at Fort George, so gave his support to the tours, as long as they were run under the wing of the Friends of Fort George, the charitable organization that works with Parks Canada to keep Fort George running.

With Friends of Fort George approval (as long as the tour didn't cost them any money), cape, lantern in hand, Kyle waited for the throngs to arrive for the first Ghost Tour of Niagara - The Phantoms of Fort George...and waited, and waited. No-one came. Talk about disappointment. Sitting on the curb outside the Queens Landing Inn, looking like an idiot in the cape...No-one came. Great. Now everybody will really think he's stupid...not only had the Fort not hired him back for the summer, but his whole brainchild of a ghost tour was a complete and absolute failure. It was bad night for Kyle. Happily, with the assistance of Jim Hill, Barbara Dundas, much moral support from Mom and Dad, as well as doubling the marketing budget to almost $12.00, they came the second week, and the third week, and on the last night of the summer 126 people came! Kyle once again rejoiced in life!

Since then, the tour has grown by leaps and bounds. Visitation has increased to more than 4500 a year, the Ghost Tours is able to provide employment for more deserving students of history, the partnership between the Ghost Tours and the Friends of Fort George has grown to the point where the Tours now provide the Friends with a substantial part of the revenue that they use to do what they do. Unexpectedly, the Ghost Tour has developed a loyal following of Ghost Tourites that we see again and again across the summer and across the years, and this camaraderie is a welcome joy at the beginning of every season. Even more unexpectedly, the ghosts themselves seem to have taken an interest in the tours! Each year more stories have been collected from tour goers who have had experiences on the tour, so that the original 20 or so stories collected in 1994 are now dwarfed by the hundreds of ghostly experiences reported in and around Fort George.

Motivated by Ghost Tour participants who wanted to know more than just the stories that could be fit onto the tour itself, the first Ghost Tour book, Niagara's Ghosts at Fort George went to print in 1999, and then the second book (Niagara's Ghosts 2) in 2004. Although the future is never certain, we hope that the Ghost Tours of Niagara will continue to entertain, educate, and introduce people from around the world to the exciting history of Fort George and the Niagara area.