We have one question: How do they manage to do all this in that much snow?

The answers to this quiz may surprise you, unless you've been to Winnipeg for a film festival lately.

1. Wicked Canadian theatre owner Ambrose Small is reputed to reappear as a ghost at the Grand Opera House in Toronto. What naughty thing does he do?
   
   • Fondles actresses. (True to form.)
2. Ambrose Small disappeared mysteriously in 1919. What did Charles Fort have to say about this incident?
   
   • 'Was somebody collecting Ambroses?' (Referring to Ambrose Bierce's 1914 disappearance.)
3. In 1989, renters in a small apartment house in Beauport, Quebec, were forced to move. The loud bangs and sudden holes in their walls were driving them crazy. What did local authorities decide was the cause of the disturbance?
   
   • Uneven subsidence from dry weather. (How boring. But the clay soil was drying out.)
4. In 1924, Canadian prospector Albert Ostman arrived at a mining camp with a hair-raising tale. What harrowing experience did he report?
   
   • He had been abducted by Sasquatches. (Only in Canada. They held him for six days before he escaped.)
5. William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950) was Prime Minister of Canada. What unusual hobby was he famous for?
   
   • Talking to dead people. (Whether he discussed politics with them is a subject of fierce historical debate. No, seriously.)
6. Back in the 1930s, some very respectable Canadian researchers were into collecting teleplasm. What is this, and would you want it in your living room?
   
   • No, it's even yuckier than that slime in Ghostbusters. It's viscous ectoplasm. (Sometimes it has faces in. Here are some Canadian teleplasm photos. It's creepy stuff.)
7. Canadian inventor Arthur Matthews was an intense admirer of Nikola Tesla. According to Matthews, what was Tesla by nationality?
   
   • A space alien. (The Venusians told him so.)
8. Arthur Matthews was a serious inventor. He had patents. He liked to discuss his work with visitors. According to him, some of his visitors came from how far away?
   
   • Venus. (One commentator suggested thinking of Matthews along with John Forbes Nash.)
9. Still talking about Tesla: Canadian anti-gravity expert John Hutchison is also a fan. According to him, why did neighbours object to his carrying out anti-gravity experiments at home?
   
   • They made objects in their houses float randomly. (The Hutchison Effect is hotly debated, and the subject of conspiracy theories about its weaponisation. Of course it is: if you find something this wonderful, you have to weaponise it immediately.)
10. On to anthropology: Canadian researcher Wade Davis is an expert on the pharmacological basis of what horror-movie staple?
    
    • Zombies. (Drugs made from fugu fish relatives, nasty shamans, slavery. Read about it, if you haven't yet, in The Serpent and the Rainbow.)

Believe it or not, I got all these questions from a Canadian television show called Portal to the Unknown. (But I double-checked the facts.) I recommend the series: it's low-budget, but informative. Somehow, supernatural doings seem such much less scary when described in a Canadian accent.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

12.06.17 Front Page

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