|
Another story from the town-site of Nordegg, Alberta, This paranormal incident took place around February 2017. I had opened the store for the business day and had been working for a couple hours before things started happening. I was working alone, typical for the early morning shift. I was not used to it though, the guy who normally worked it was on vacation or something. I think it was around eight that morning that the first thing happened. I was up by the front counter when I thought I heard something move out on the sales floor. I paused to listen again but heard nothing, so I continued to catch up on my paperwork. I think about ten minutes had passed when suddenly there was a single thump sound coming from the aisle just out of view. It sounded like something had fallen on the floor. I walked over to find a box of liquid cold medicine laying on the floor. I was completely alone in the store. If I recall correctly there might have been one person in the store in nearly three hours and they were nowhere near that aisle. I know what I heard, even though I did not see it, and it had just then fallen onto the floor. I put the box back on the shelf and went back up to the counter. It was past eight-thirty, so I decided to give the restrooms a cleaning before the mid-shifter came in around eleven. I went back to the hallway where the two restrooms were located. I felt like someone was there, but I was still the only human in the entire building. I brushed the feeling off, ignoring whatever it was in order to get this gross task completed as soon as I could. I had gloves but I did not wear them. I did a few quick sprays with the cleaner and then wiped down the surfaces with paper towel. I have never been affected by the cleaner before, physically, and I believe the cleaner I use at home today in my bathroom is far stronger in smell and effect. I know I did not touch my hands or arms the whole time I was in there, less than five minutes, and I promptly washed them, at the main sink, afterwards. I went back to the front counter (where the main sink was) and thought for a moment about the feeling I was with someone back there. I got the visualization of a young girl, maybe five or six years old, standing about four feet tall, with dirty blonde hair just to her shoulders. She had a somewhat rounded small face with no expression.  It was about eleven when my co-worker, a young woman, came in for her mid-shift. We were standing at the counter talking about work or whatever. She looked down at my arm and asked, “what did you do to your arm?” I looked down and to my surprise three red marks had formed on my left arm just above my wrist. “Nothing” I said somewhat confused. I took out my phone and took a picture of it. I do not know if it was me or her who said, “it looks like fingers”, and sure enough it did.  Actual photo taken that day. The three marks were red, the flesh felt a little rough, almost raw like it had been frost burned, but it was not hot or cold. The marks remained on my arm for a couple days even though when I got home, I put medicated salve on them. After I thought about the incident and I think the young girl was a spirit, perhaps a former resident of the town. She was mischievous, as children are, and was playing with me. I do not think she had intended to hurt me; I hope, I think she just wanted to let me know she was there. What do you think?
0 Comments
I wrote this article about the night we experienced the demonic presence near the foothills south of Nordegg, Alberta. I have messaged with Greg about that night and his comments are included during my recollection of the events. It was in the late winter of 2017. I was living in a small town-site called Nordegg, Alberta, located about half an hour east of the Rocky Mountains, where I had been living since moving to Alberta in 2013. The frontier town-site is divided into four parts. The historic coal mine buildings and grounds , closed off to the unattended public, is managed by Clearwater County and the Province of Alberta. The ghost town, also known as Brazeau (after the company town owners, Brazeau Collieries, back in the day) consists of nearly a dozen run-down neglected buildings. A modern town-site consisting of townhouses, trailer homes, a few businesses, a museum, a motel, and a gas station. And the last section, located to the north on the opposite side of Highway 11, is a resort district of seasonal homes. Nordegg, Alberta the site of a fatal mine explosion that killed thirty-two miners on October 31, 1941. The tragedy shook the small mountain town of 800, however, mining resumed six weeks following the disaster and continued for another decade. I was visiting with a friend of mine, Greg, up on the street south from where I lived. We were both outdoors types and loved going for hikes along the old railway lines above the ghost town. It was late, around 10 pm, when we decided to go for a walk up toward the long abandoned Main Street section. Greg had a stray cat he had befriended. It hung outside around the front porch where he fed it cat kibble from the local general store.  Nordegg, Alberta is located, literally, out in the middle of nowhere south-east of the intersection of David Thompson Highway 11 and the 734 Forestry Trunk Road. It is surrounded by a dense wilderness populated by hungry bears, wolves, coyotes, and cougars. It was the sort of place where it was considered somewhat habit to keep a large knife, can of bear spray, or a firearm within quick reach. Our walk up into the dark hills bore no exception to this rule and my friend and me were both armed respectively to our individual abilities for this hike. We set off up the street toward a distant Y intersection* a quarter of the way up the foothills behind the town. It was a mild, partly cloudy night, but light enough to see about fifty metres ahead. The cat, a short hair tabby, decided to take the walk with us. She was an outdoor cat and walked about ten to fifteen metres away from us, crisscrossing back and forth across the road. She would stop on occasion to sniff at the scrubby weeds along the shoulder and bat at any insects she disturbed in the long uncut wild grass. After a few minutes walk we got up to near the intersection in the road. The cat suddenly started walking within a metre of us. She clearly sensed something or someone in the darkness. I could just make out the thin trunk trees and wild bushes on the patch of land triangle between the dirt and gravel roads. Our flashlights, while quite bright, did not pierce the darkness beyond the area they were pointed at leaving a lot of space around us unlit. There was, it seemed, a darker patch of shadows among the gnarled bushes and I could not identify it as having any particular shape or form. I used to have a saying back then, “question the shadows in the light of day but fear the shadows in the darkness at night”.  I know that Greg and I felt it at the same time. “There was definitely something wrong that night”, Greg expressed later in a chat on Facebook, “that was freaky as hell”. I would agree with that statement and describe it further as a dark, ominous feeling, like something was there in the shadows watching us. We stood there in silence staring at the spot and the cat remained close by our side. I do not know if she was trying to warn us, protecting us, or she had felt the same uneasy feeling of the darkness. I did not feel afraid it might be some weird person lurking though, like I said we were both armed and my friend Greg is a hunter with a background in security. I think we stood there for a solid five minutes just trying to explain it away as being a person or animal, but no evidence presented itself to support either theory. “I kept my pistol in my hand for the rest of the way”, Greg recalled.  When we were satisfied it was not a predator or human, we continued on our trek up the road to the right toward the historic Main Street of the ghost town. The cat seemed to relax again and continued on his free-spirited walk away from our feet. We took a different road back down so we would not walk past the area a second time. “I did not feel safe until we passed by the creepy ass cemetery”, Greg said after reading the draft of this article. It was an experience we will not soon forget, and three years after we can still recall like it was yesterday. There are several other stories I will be sharing about the strange things that happened in Nordegg, along with some of the ones I heard second-hand from residents and co-workers. This is a Google Maps image of the area described in this article. The triangle patch of land was thick with young trees and bushes in early 2017. The historic Main Street is located down the road to the right, the cluster of buildings beneath the label Brazeau. The large building to the lower right was a minimum security detention facility. It was torn down in 2016.  |
AuthorStories of the paranormal, the psychological and the unexplained. Archives
October 2022
Categories |
RSS Feed
Copyright 2019 - 2023 Kevin M. 'ledicarus' Klerks, Ledicarus TM Media
ledicarus TM
ledicarus TM