Halloween stories in and around Mississauga
A story of an urban legend and a past tragedy situated in Mississauga.
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The man beside the fireplace
By Avneet Kaur
Down the valley, past the last lights of campus, there is a stone house with a fire that never seems to go out. The Glenerin Estate, also known as Glenerin Inn, sits a short walk from UTM on The Collegeway, tucked into the Sawmill Valley. It has beams, old stained glass and fireplaces built from grand stone. Heritage Mississauga counts it among the city’s estates with prominent ghost stories.
The stories tell of a man tending the fire in the great hall. He is not a guest nor a staff member. People describe him only as a figure at the hearth, doing a job nobody asked him to do. The fireplace is lit, and there he remains.
Before you can ask who he is, you have to ask exactly whom the estate belonged to.
According to the Inn’s website, Toronto lawyer Watson Evans built it in 1927 as a summer home for his family. They spent Christmas, Easter, and summers there, hosting balls and parties for Toronto’s elite.
In 1940, the estate sheltered 90 children from a school in Whitby, England, who fled to Canada amid German bombing campaigns during World War II. Mrs. Evans was ill in a Toronto hospital bed at the time and offered the house for as long as the war lasted. Eight staff and the schoolgirls moved into the house built for twelve.
In 1945, the Robert Simpson Company bought it as a rest home for employees recovering from serious illness. Nurses looked after the guests until they recovered and were fit to go back to work.
In 1961, the estate was sold and became a novitiate. After that came community events, a synagogue congregation that was waiting for its own building, and finally, the Inn. Through all of those changes, the hearth stayed.
Every era left someone behind. A host who threw parties by the fire, a caretaker keeping the house warm for a crowd, a patient resting near the flames, a novice, a visitor, and a stranger.
Nobody can say who the man by the hearth is, and the house keeps the secret. Maybe that’s why his tale lasted so long. A ghost with a proper name could be explained, but a ghost with a task cannot. He lurks to keep the fire burning.
There is no confirmed identity, no recorded death or documented incident. There are just repeated reports, passed along in local heritage write-ups, of a man beside the fireplace.
That is where the legends started telling their tales. A place sits through enough years, holds enough people, and eventually, someone sees a shape by the flames and tells someone else.
Whether you believe it or not, the fire is real, and so is the list of people who have warmed their hands by the golden flames. If you walk down there tonight, the lights will be low and the hall will reek of silence.
Take a look at the fireplace. Then maybe look again.
The Mississauga Miracle
By Zainab Khalil
On November 10, 1979, an orange glow spread across the Mississauga sky as explosions shook the night, waking residents across the city. A railway tanker burned near Mavis Road, and its contents were feeding a fire that would soon force hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Canadian Pacific Train 54 was travelling through the city at around 11:56 p.m. when an overheated wheel bearing failed. 24 cars derailed at the Mavis Road crossing. Among these were tankers that carried combustible chemicals, resulting in a fire spreading among the cars. Three propane tankers subsequently exploded.
Mississauga resident Alphy McCann highlighted that he thought it was a nuclear attack at first, because the flames alongside the explosions kept going one after the other and left the neighbourhood unrecognizable, according to Heritage Mississauga.
The Government of Canada warned of a probable chemical disaster shortly after the incident as well. One of the derailed tankers carried chlorine gas, and it suffered a hole two and a half feet in diameter. Evacuations began in the early hours of the morning.
More than 240,000 Mississauga residents were evacuated as highways and major roadways closed. At the time, this was one of the largest peacetime evacuations in North America, and some residents had to stay away from their homes for days. Remarkably, no one died. The incident is now known as the Mississauga Miracle.
Mississauga is the place where many of us live and pursue our dreams. As we gaze upon its orange evening sky, let us remember that we are living in a city with a miracle.
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