DELMER & CECIL DELMER AND CECIL Creepy tales from the Valley In this issue we thought we’d reveal


some of the more spooky stories that abound in the Valley and surroundings. Our first story concerns the Town


of Swisha. Its real name is Rapides des Joachims, but the English, Irish and Scots couldn’t get their tongues around that, so they simply called it “Swisha”. It was a roaring town in the old


days! It was the end of the line for the steamships that went up the Ottawa River and back. Just think: you could book a cabin on a ship and travel through the wilds of the Upper Ottawa in comfort and luxury. The Town of Swisha was always a


wild and wooly affair with at least three hotels. Many times a band was just a fiddle and piano. It was also a lumbering town, and many of the huge log rafts were sent downstream to be cut and sent to far flung places such as Britain. On the Dumoine


river there’s a bend that was a frequent scene of log jams. The men would be sent out to free the jams, and agility and bravery would be the order of the day. Many of the


drivers were killed in that spot and their corpses would be fished out of the river, and a hasty grave would be dug in a small clearing by the rapids. A rough cross of birch boughs would be hammered into the soil and the unlucky soul’s hobnail boots would be hung on the cross − the only marking that a brave man had moved on. There were several such crosses in that


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clearing. Today the crosses are gone. But if you look closely beneath the tangled grass, you may still see the rotting soles of hobnail boots. It’s an eerie place with a feeling of loneliness and foreboding. It’s no place to linger. On the Dumoine road, a few


kilometres out of Swisha, was a fine old square timber house that was the home place of the Demel family. It was a large place with dormer windows and huge pine log walls. There was never any hydro in there (still isn’t). It was real pioneer stuff. You’d chop ice for the ice house, raise chickens and pigs and be self sufficient. Like many families of those times, there were a lot children. In this case we were told there were more than 12, and they walked the 12 kilometres into town to go to school every day. There was a baby born to the family.


It turned out to be sickly, and after a few days it passed away. The baby was waked in the parlour and then taken across the road and buried near the lilac bushes. After the family eventually moved


away, strange things began to happen. Two lads we know personally had a flat tire at that location. They got out to fix the tire and they both heard a baby crying somewhere in the bushes. They were so scared they hopped back in the pick-up and drove all the way to Swisha on a flat tire. We suggested they might have heard a rabbit being killed by a fox or fisher, but these guys have lived in the bush all their lives and they know what a wounded rabbit sounds like. They swear it was no rabbit. Just last fall another friend of ours


took his dog for a walk down that road and as they approached the spot where


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the house used to be, the dog stopped dead in his tracks, and the hair along its neck and back stood straight up, and he just stared into the bushes and refused to go any further. Our buddy had to turn around because the dog was adamant. There’s quite a few people in


Swisha who know about the crying, and they all speed up when they drive past the Demels. A few years ago the house was sold and moved to Mississauga, but the crying remains. There are many stories around the


Valley. This is just one of them. It was with great surprise just


recently that we heard about Darryl McCready and his wife, Doris, from over on the fifth concession. Those who knew Darryl and his wife knew they could drink almost anyone under the table. Many’s the night they proved it.


Last Saturday, Darryl built a new


outhouse on the site of the old one, and seeing as the pogey checks had come in, they headed for the beer store. They got four two-fours and started drinking around noon. At about 10:30 that night, Darryl


decided to go out and try the new house of convenience. He couldn’t find a flashlight, but he’d travelled that route a million times and was confident he could make it, no problem. Unfortunately, Darryl forgot he hadn’t put the seating platform on the outhouse, and when he sat down he did a Louganis into the you-know- what and expired down there. At midnight, delirious Doris, in her


fog-bound mind, thought something was wrong and went looking for Darryl. She tripped over the new sill and went into the same place as Darryl. She expired as well. It was in the paper the other day: “Interred Together”, said the headline.


*** Till next time, this is Delmer &


Cecil saying pop one for us!


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