Dale Gilbert Jarvis - Storyteller

With a history dating back to the 1840s, originally serving as the Bank of British North America, the iconic Anna Templeton Centre on Duckworth Street is the perfect spot for an exclusive exploration into true hauntings. In partnership with the ATC, the St. John's Haunted Hike hosted two investigations into the building's reported hauntings on Friday, February 13th, 2026, at 7pm and 10pm.

Back around 2009, I had talked with Ashlynn Kenny, who was then a student at the Anna Templeton Center. She claimed not to be the only person who has experienced weird things in the building.

“It was almost the end of the semester and I was in the dye studio waiting for a classmate so we could do our final project together,” says Kenny. “I was sitting in the window doing some embroidery with one earphone in listening to some music so I didn't feel so lonely and I hadn't bothered turning on the lights since there was plenty of natural light coming in through the windows.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kenny could see the door of the new elevator addition. Suddenly, she saw a figure walk into the room.

“I hadn't heard the elevator doors open or the ding that preceded that, but I didn't even think about that at the time,” she describes. “I looked up to say hi, thinking it was my friend, but there was nobody there. I was so freaked out by that I had to go down to the weaving studio where I knew there were people and couldn't go back up to the dye studio for over an hour.”

A classmate also had some experiences in the dye studio. One day she felt as if someone or something had tugged on her apron. Other students have heard things like shuffling on the tables in the dye studio and the looms in the weaving studio, and even the noises of children.

“I don't really know much of the history of the building so I have no idea of anything that may have happened on the premises in the past,” says Kenny. “I don’t know how much of this is true and my own experience could have been due to an active imagination, but there's no denying the creepy feeling that comes with being alone in the dye studio.”
Other stories I heard before the investigation included references to similar experiences with children's voices and the sound of laughing or giggling, the sound of children playing when none were there, and even of doors locking from the inside on their own. 

Our investigators were given an introduction to the history of the building, and a walkthrough of the space. Then, they proceeded to explore the building, and utilize a series of tools in an attempt to make contact with the property's supernatural residents. Over the course of the evening, several things were reported by the investigators:

• One participant felt the presence of someone, possibly male, standing behind him on the 2nd floor
• Others reported drained camera batteries, or phone apps starting/stopping on their own
• One woman reported seeing the Spirit Trumpet “wobble”; one man heard a voice answer “yes” through the trumpet when he asked if anyone was present.
• Words and phrases revealed through various means seemed to have an emphasis on financial matters, debts, or losses.
• A gentleman who identified as one who has had experiences in the past stated that he felt no negative spirits in the building during his time there.
• Several people reported weird feelings or sensations in the former bank vaults: one woman felt she had to push her way through something that didn’t want her there as she moved deeper into the vaults; another experienced a sudden sharp headache when entering the far vault.
• Two people, one from each group, took photos in the same room on the third floor that turned out foggy; another captured a short video of an orb moving in one of the building’s stairwells.

More research is needed to futher explore and explain these experiences.  To be notified of future possible investigations at this property and others, join the Haunted Hike Investigations email list. 

To learn more on the building's history and use see:

1. https://heritagenl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/044-Bank-of-British-North-America.pdf
2. https://www.annatempletoncentre.ca/who-we-are

Looking for non-fiction books on Newfoundland and Labrador supernatural folklore? You could always start with some of mine, of course, but there are a lot of other titles out there for lovers of the paranormal!

Here is a selection to get you started: 

Fairies and Witches

• Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland by Barbara Rieti
• Making Witches: Newfoundland Traditions of Spells and Counterspells by Barbara Rieti
• Spirited Away: Fairy stories of old Newfoundland by Tom Dawe 
• Fables, Fairies & Folklore by Mike Mccarthy

Ghosts and Hauntings

• The Ferryland Visitor: A mysterious tale by Charis Cotter and Gerald Squires
• Screech!: Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland by Charis Cotter
• Haunted Towns: Ghost Stories Of Newfoundland And Labrador by Geraldine Ryan-Lush
• Ghost Stories of Newfoundland and Labrador by Edward Butts 
• Ghost Stories from Newfoundland Folklore by Alice Lannon and Mike McCarthy 

Cryptozoology and The Old Hag

• Here Be Dragons by Bruce Hynes
• The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions by David J. Hufford

PDF volumes

• Folk Cures and Practical Magic (2017)
• Folk Belief and Legends of Bay Roberts and Area (2014)
• Devine's folk lore of Newfoundland in old words, phrases and expressions (1937)
• Tales of Fogo Island edited by Della Coish
• Some superstitions and traditions of Newfoundland (1919)

Fiction more your style? I've got you covered here! 

Someone asked for these today, so I've decided to put them all in one blog entry! Jarvis. Dale Gilbert. Exploring God's Acre: The Moravian Church Mission Graveyard at Hebron, Labrador. Newfoundland Ancestor, 13.2 (Summer 1997): 93-95. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jcSZYou8wZoZO9VHRaSpG56u74WktaDB/viewA History of St. Mark’s Anglican Cemetery, New Perlican. Heritage NL Fieldnotes Series, 001, November 2018. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R8FjVWaAr3YBiNH5TuvWVwvE3-UrBETmuHnk1lQuI94/editLych Gates in Newfoundland. Occasional Paper on Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 004. St. John's: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, August 2013.  https://www.mun.ca/ich/resources/Occasional_Paper_04.pdfThe Moravian Dead Houses of Labrador, Canada.  Communal Societies Volume 21, 2001 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KvXSjUJh6zmnX2_v-oxV6qmlSIu2cPC8/view Jarvis, Dale Gilbert; Drover, Kelly. A Survey of White Bronze Mortuary Monuments in St. John's [Newfoundland, Canada]. Newfoundland Ancestor, 34.1 (2018): 27-38.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OeirdK9BDJxEcuBZgVaJ45ZjcqpDSt7-/view Jarvis, Dale Gilbert; Barrett, Terra; Elliott, Heather; Li Xingpei. Chinese Graves at the General Protestant Cemetery, St. John's.  Occasional Paper on Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 007. St. John's: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, February 2017. https://www.mun.ca/ich/resources/Occasional_Paper_07_Web.pdf

In 1999, Fogo Island Literacy Association published a small book called “Tales of Fogo Island,” compiled and edited by Della Coish. The publication was designed as easy-to-read book about local life and culture, for use with adult learners in literacy programs. The book includes references to two (presumably) different Fogo Island headless ghosts. The first headless phantom was spotted by a man named Lynch, of Island Harbour. Lynch was on his way from Payne's Harbour to Butt's Point when he met a man on the road, dressed in a black suit of clothes. When Lynch spoke to the stranger, he got no reply, probably because the figure was missing his head. On a different occasion, a woman from Fogo was walking home, when she became aware of a man walking in front of her. Thinking it was her brother, she called out to him, and found out that he too was headless. I'd love to know if there are more recent encounters with these ghosts, and would like to gather more details about either of the stories, or other stories of hauntings from Fogo Island. If you have info for me , drop me a line at [email protected].

I've been vocal on what library closures mean to me, and what libraries mean to communities. Since I started sharing my thoughts, librarians across the province, worried about their positions, have been writing to me private. This is just one of their stories. The librarian who sent it to me said I could edit it as I saw fit. I haven't changed a single word. Please read, and then share. - Dale Jarvis We've all heard some version of "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life". Call me Pollyanna, but I wholeheartedly believed that; that is, until I started working in one of our province's public libraries. Don't get me wrong, I grew up thinking of libraries as a magical place filled with tickets to places I could only get to in my dreams. Because of my library I was a little pioneer girl living in the big woods with Ma and Pa, a red-headed orphan on a farm in in P.E.I, a lost boy in Neverland, one of the March sisters ensconced at home with Marmee waiting for news of a father away at war, Encyclopedia Brown on the case, and the main character in any number of choose-my-own-adventures. Lessons I learned from literature shaped who I am, and how I choose to live my life. As it was for countless others, my local library was a repository of imagination, and a safe place to read, explore, learn about the world and find myself. The thought that I could somehow make that experience possible for children and adults as a career was irresistible to me.  I realize now that my childhood was a lucky one; my parents felt the same way that I had and instilled that belief in me. They, of course, grew up without a public library in their town. Both were voracious readers who had parents who believed reading and education were the single and most important gifts they could offer. In fact, they sacrificed to ensure they provided that gift to their own children. My parents believed that the public library was the crowning glory of our community and they made sure we didn't take it for granted. When I was finally offered a job in one of our public libraries I had an idea of what my role would be. I had substituted for a while and understood that everyone who walked in the door wasn't looking for the magical experience I had been looking for, though many of them were. But it took working in my library for a few years before I really understood the role libraries play in this province. It's not always about Knitting Groups, Seniors' Days, Adult Colouring and Storytimes. It's not about checking TV Series and movies out to people who can't afford cable, or watching people come in day after day to check Facebook and job listings. It's not the ones who print off resumes and fax them to prospective employers. It's not the people who come in desperate to read the latest James Patterson, or Nora Roberts or Clive Cussler book or the kids looking for Butterfly Fairies or super hero books. I am devastated for the children in this province, the ones like me who will read every children's book we have and then start on the adult collection. They still exist, and they need to be nurtured, because some of those children who are turned on to art, literature and imaginary worlds will be the ones who are just imaginative enough to run this province in the future, or maybe they'll be part of our vibrant and resilient arts community. Perhaps they'll be entrepreneurs who create jobs for hundreds in this province, or the teachers who inspire future generations. What they probably won't be, are librarians, and that makes me ache. Still, they're not the ones my heart aches for the most. In my years in the public library, I've had the privilege of serving patrons from all walks of life. Indeed, the ones I see the most of are the marginalized; people who are ignored, looked over and treated by many as though they don't exist. These people need our libraries, and they need the kind treatment they receive in them. Some people visit my library, and I know for