Phantom ship sets sail for storytellers circle

By MONICA GRAHAM Mon. Jun 29 - 4:46 AM
PICTOU — After more than 60 years, Ed MacMaster still isn’t sure if the pulsing, pinkish-orange apparition he saw was a ghost.
"It was very large: wide and high," he said Saturday. "It was like a very high fire in the water."
At first he thought it was a fire on the beach, until he realized it sat out on the water.
"I figured it had to be the phantom ship," he added. "It scared the hell out of me, to be frank."
Mr. MacMaster viewed the legendary ship while cycling as a boy near Caribou Provincial Park. His 1940s vantage point is now obscured by changes in the landscape, a fact that mystifies listeners when he tells his story.
Since his boyhood experience, he’s heard his mother and others describe appearances of the ghost ship. He’s had plenty of time to study the phenomenon.
Mr. MacMaster, a long-time Pictou County councillor, can relate similar sightings along the shore from Chaleur Bay in northern New Brunswick all the way through the Northumberland Strait. The apparition has been seen by whole families, police officers, even a rum-runner that sailed right through the ghost ship unaffected.
A variation of the story tells of a fiery-haired woman, in a glowing white bridal gown, walking into the sea who emerges far from shore as the burning phantom ship.
Witnesses have described flames leaping up the rigging of a tall sailing ship; some have described people scurrying around the deck as the ship sailed eastward. The vision usually disappears by sinking into the sea or simply vanishing.
But Mr. MacMaster didn’t see rigging or any form resembling a ship, nor did he see people.
"It was something like a fire, or a reflection of something. It was something like a mirage. It looked like flames."
Drawing a deep breath, he added, "It’s hard to describe."
That won’t stop him from joining other phantom ship witnesses during a July 9 storytellers circle at the Pictou library, where the tales will likely make listeners’ hair stand up.
"I like to tell ghost stories, but I think this is something very real," Mr. MacMaster said.
He believes there are logical reasons for the strange lights seen over the water, all around the world, but his ghost stories won’t include phenomena like St. Elmo’s fire, the green flash or haloes.
He’ll just tell what he saw and relay any stories he’s heard from others, just as he heard them, he said.
"There are a lot of different stories," he said, adding phantom ship tales go back hundreds of years.
The storytellers circle begins at 6:30 p.m. in the program room at the library. It includes four other speakers besides Mr. MacMaster.
( mgraham@herald.ca)