Now in its 14th year, the annual Guided Spirit Walks at Victoria Lawn Cemetery are an excellent way to experience historical narrative lifted off the written page. It’s traditional (and sometimes required) for the writer/director to offer thoughts and perspective on the intentions and research behind the stories of the annual production.
14th Annual Guided Spirit Walks – Historical Profiles
The challenge, which I always enjoy, is simultaneously selecting historic persons to include on the tour whose burials are located on an enjoyable walking tour route that also fit into the theme of that year’s tour, and whose life story can appropriately carry a relevant historical narrative.
14th Annual Guided Spirit Walks – The Source Material
It’s this imbalance of the application of justice, which runs through all the source materials – letters, diaries, court records, jail lists, summaries of convictions, and most of all, newspapers – that threads the many narratives of crime together in this year’s walks. Hundreds of pages of newspapers and handfuls of letters, testimony, and court records show us a St. Catharines that in some ways is unrecognizable, and in other ways, show us that society still has a long way to go.
What Good is History? Let us count the ways!
After another hugely successful production of our annual Guided Spirit Walks, we’d like to say a big “THANK YOU” to the many volunteers – cast and crew – who make it all happen. In case you missed the walks this year, we’d also like to share a bit about the people who are buried at Victoria Lawn that we included this year.
Another Successful Year for Guided Spirit Walks
We are so thankful to our audiences and our volunteers for another very successful Guided Spirit Walk season at Victoria Lawn Cemetery. The walks bring history to life through theatrical performances based on the histories of the folks who made an important mark in our city. Thank you also to the many folks who reached out with kind comments of enjoyment and enthusiasm! We appreciate it!
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – Meet Your Guide: Jane
The annual Guided Spirit Walks are back again this September and we’re excited to share the profiles of the historic people included this year, and our wonderful cast of volunteer performers who will portray them.
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – Dr. Chauncey Beadle
The annual Guided Spirit Walks are back again this September and we’re excited to share the profiles of the historic people included this year, and our wonderful cast of volunteer performers who will portray them.
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – Alpheus St. John
Our spirit walks often employ a few fictional characters to help advance plot or narrative and to help other characters along. Especially when we get a lot of volunteer interest, we can have a bit more fun with larger scenes, more dialogue, and more interesting characters. We’re so pleased to have some local students join us as the fictional granddaughters of Alpheus St. John. In their scene, they are particularly curious about figuring out the history of the name of St. Catharines!
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – Elias Smith Adams and Susan Merritt
The annual Guided Spirit Walks are back again this September and we’re excited to share the profiles of the historic people included this year, and our wonderful cast of volunteer actors who will portray them.
For our next character/actor profiles, we meet Elias Smith Adams and Susan Merritt portrayed by Des Corran and Brenda Schultz.
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – George Rykert
Fictional settlers, (representing real opinions from historical sources) Abigail MacDonald, Jessie Frey, and Sarah Bryan have a bone to pick with Rykert after his town plan is laid out in the most awkward and disadvantageous ways. The scene unfolds quickly into familiar rants about road quality, property development, and the beginnings of urban settlement in our town.
2023 Guided Spirit Walks – Gertrude Yale
The annual Guided Spirit Walks are back again this September and we’re excited to share the profiles of the historic people included this year, and our wonderful cast of volunteer actors who will portray them.
For our first character/actor profile, we welcome back Gertrude Yale, played by Amanda Balyk.
The 2022 Guided Spirit Walks Roar into the 1920s
As part of the Guided Spirit Walks creative team, I can tell you that our historical interests span widely, and we are always imagining up new ways to bring the stories of those buried in Victoria Lawn Cemetery to our audiences. This year, we present Roaring into the ‘20s: A New Chapter for our City and invite you into the stories of those who lived through the tumultuous period of 1920s St. Catharines. We might imagine the Roaring Twenties as a risqué period of flappers, jazz, and prohibition, and while these were dramatic parts of the era, the 1920s can be characterized by even more dramatic shifting social norms, economic and political turbulence, and rapid technological innovations. Some embraced these drastic changes as a signal of a better future, while others were apprehensive.
Tapping into Spiritualism in the 2022 Guided Spirit Walks
This year’s Guided Spirit Walks at Victoria Lawn Cemetery roar loudly into the tumultuous era of the 1920s. The spirits on this year’s tour come from all walks of life; we hear from new immigrants arriving to St. Catharines to work on the construction of the Welland Ship Canal, a wealthy female philanthropist, an architectural visionary, a grieving widow, a proud wife, an unstoppable industrialist, and a journalist with a guilty conscience. While each may have little in common, the spirits are brought together, and connect to the audience, through our guide, the renowned spiritualist Jenny O’Hara Pincock.
VMLS via Podcast – Where They Walk: the Making of the Annual Guided Spirit Walks at Victoria Lawn Cemetery
Today’s lecture features Adrian Petry, visitor services coordinator here at the Museum. In this presentation, he looks at the research that goes into creating our annual Guided Spirit Walks at Victoria Lawn Cemetery, and how dark tourism like ghost walks have influenced the practice public history and the public’s imagination of historical personalities.
Reminiscences of 10 years of Guided Spirit Walks
There’s nothing quite like a guided tour through a cemetery. There are a lot of versions of this type of event. A spooky walk in the dark, a theatrical ‘spirit walk’ featuring actors portraying folks buried in the cemetery, or even an afternoon historian-led walking tour. Everyone has their favourite experience but it’s the theatrical spirit walk that advances important and personal historical narratives with a high return on interpretive value. The spirit walks also have the unique ability to allow us to lift the primary sources found in the Museum’s collection off the pages of the archives and bring them to life. In most cases, there may not be another opportunity to present those archival sources to the public.
Guided Spirit Walks 2021 Character Exclusives
This year’s Guided Spirit Walks tour theme, “Before they were Famous,” provides a diverse cast of characters.
Wrapped up in History: Guided Spirit Walks Costume Design
One of the most important (and fun) features of our Guided Spirit Walks productions is the costumes. They help to bring our show to life and immerse the audience into past societies.
REPOST: Museum Chat Live! E404 – Guided Spirit Walks
We are gearing up for the 2020 Guided Spirit Walks season, now a virtual experience that you can enjoy from the comfort of your home!
To highlight what it takes to produce our Guided Spirit Walks program each year, we are resharing this 2019 Museum Chat Live! episode, where we chat with cast and members of the creative team about the walks. While this years’ production will look very different than previous years, we are continuing to put our all into creating a high-quality, meaningful experience for you.
Guided Spirit Walks 2019 Behind-the-Scenes: COSTUMES
In 2016, I attended the Guided Spirit Walk production “Keep the Home Fires Burning: Stories and Music from the First […]
Guided Spirit Walks 2019 Behind-the-Scenes: STORIES THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT
This year’s Guided Spirit Walk research process started with general themes that could be explored. This year’s theme “Glimpses of […]
Guided Spirit Walks 2019 Behind-the-Scenes: REHEARSALS
We are officially in Guided Spirit Walks rehearsal season! With our first week of rehearsals over, it’s time to do […]
Guided Spirit Walks 2019 Behind-the-Scenes: RESEARCH
Welcome to a behind-the-scenes look at our research and writing process, rehearsals, costumes, and much more for this year’s Guided Spirit Walks, with some sneak peeks of what is coming in September!
At War’s End: Behind-the-Scenes Part 5
Part 5 of a five-part series. When one thinks about a tour, the image of a man or woman dressed […]
At War’s End: Behind-the-Scenes Part 4
Part 4 of a five-part series. Costumes Costumes are a big part of the process behind the scenes of the […]
At War’s End: Behind-the-Scenes Part 3
Part 3 of a five-part series. Rehearsals I’m a student in the education field, with English and history as teachable […]
At War’s End: Behind-the-Scenes Part 2
Part 2 of a five-part series. Research I’ll let slip some information on how the “Working Women” scene of this […]