{"id":4078,"date":"2013-10-02T13:20:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T17:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4078"},"modified":"2013-10-02T13:20:15","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T17:20:15","slug":"spirit-walk-uncovers-the-spooky-side-of-aurora-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/spirit-walk-uncovers-the-spooky-side-of-aurora-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirit Walk uncovers the spooky side of Aurora life"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Heard wasn\u2019t one for spooky things growing up.<\/p>\n

The mildest of peer pressures eventually left him an appreciation for the films of his childhood, but Mr. Heard has more recently embraced the spooky side of life beyond the movie screen; and helping others embrace it too on his annual Aurora Spirit Walk, an evening walking tour of the ghosts, spirits, and hauntings that hang around some of the storied neighbourhoods of Aurora. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was always afraid of those movies, but it\u2019s a genre people are drawn to,\u2019 he says. \u201cI think that\u2019s what the boomers who come on the tour like. They like that it is a creepy tour that makes you think and there is a plot to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

These plots come from the intricate web that has been spun through Aurora over the last 150 years, and even earlier than that in the Town\u2019s earliest days as Machell\u2019s Corners. Mr. Heard\u2019s own history is a part of this web as a descendant of some of Aurora\u2019s earliest settlers. It was while trying to unspin and find his own place in the web that his interest in the Town\u2019s past \u2013 creepy or otherwise \u2013 was truly sparked. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou find the skeletons in the closet and you choose to ignore those, but I found I had as reason to be proud being an Aurora resident,\u201d he says. \u201cI would start telling others what I was finding and they would motivate me to keep searching and keep looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was people like Aurora\u2019s Citizen of the Year Ron Wallace who were key in pushing him along on this journey. Mr. Heard\u2019s pride of Aurora grew on each step of the journey and that is what he wants to impart to others. <\/p>\n

When the tours take off through Downtown Aurora for the seventh year later this month, this year headquartered at Victoria Hall, they will have a distinctly local flavour. As this is Aurora\u2019s 150th anniversary, all proceeds from the tour will donate the Aurora Food Pantry. <\/p>\n

If you have gone on the Spirit Walk before, Mr. Heard promises there will be something new for everyone as the \u201cstory keeps evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year we uncover new information and it is connected to the previous year in some way,\u201d he says, illustrating an example from last year when hosts from TV\u2019s Rescue Mediums came to investigate some of Aurora\u2019s Most Haunted and encountered \u201cAnnie\u201d, a spirit in the basement of the Filly & Firkin pub. <\/p>\n

This \u201cAnnie\u201d was concluded to be Annie Dunning, whose family, it was later found out, owned land that is now the Aurora Pet Cemetery, something which has become something of a cause celebre for local historians over the last 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is almost as if I am on a journey and I keep searching for answers,\u201d he adds, noting people continually come to him with new stories of spooky sites and creepy coincidences. \u201cThe more I search, the more I meet new people and that has to be the greatest gift of doing the Spirit Walk. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I do promise is confidentiality. Some people are nervous about sharing these stories because they don\u2019t want to be called \u2018crazy\u2019. I say to them, \u2018You\u2019re not crazy. Something interesting happened and you want to share it.\u2019 I let them make the guidelines on how it is shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is important that people make up their own minds on these tours, he adds. Keeping an open mind is paramount, along with respect for the community and people who live here \u2013 today, and perhaps still lingering. Sometimes people are more curious than scared if they observe or encounter something spooky happening in their own homes or their businesses, but it is something that can be explored, ignored, or truly embraced, says Mr. Heard. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome say spirits are entities of energy that can come and go as they please. Sometimes we call them guardian angels sorting out the rite of passage. There are others from days gone by that are stuck. There could be a reason why they can\u2019t move on, and sometimes it is just a matter of being convinced to move on. Some people have told me they know there is somebody in their house and they are happy \u2013 it is an extra guest who doesn\u2019t eat food!<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people finish the tour, they walk away and they feel like they have experienced something in the community. They have got to share something, enjoy fresh air, meet new people, meet their neighbours from across town, and they got to find out a little about their history and get creeped out without watching a slasher film.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might turn that off halfway through, but I have never had somebody not finish a tour!\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Heard wasn\u2019t one for spooky things growing up.<\/p>\n

The mildest of peer pressures eventually left him an appreciation for the films of his childhood, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-13M","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-20 05:35:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/2013-10-02-08.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}