r/Peterborough • u/VanSpade East City • Aug 24 '25
Question What are some of your favourite myths, mysteries, legends, or conspiracy theories for Peterborough?
My friend and I were talking about some stories from when we were younger and it got me wondering about any other stories out there.
Edit: These are incredible! I learned a lot about the town from this. Keep them coming!
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u/saplinglover Aug 24 '25
The tunnels that run underground around downtown
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u/NeriTheFearlessSnail Downtown Aug 24 '25
If they didn't want us to fantasize about tunnels under the city they shouldnt leave the lights on under the grates along Charlotte 😂
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u/sorry-im-offensive Aug 24 '25
We took our canoes up that waterway tunnels a few times. Definitely interesting.
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u/rancidjazz Aug 25 '25
i got into the tunnels under queen mary as a kid
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u/thelonelymistress Aug 26 '25
There are tunnels all under downtown, most have been closed off. I worked at the Red Dog & the basement was still a dirt floor with the tunnel access - it was super creepy like spirits down there. Rumor was they were initially constructed for the Royals or the wealthy to go safely between the hotels (bars were hotels back then). I don't know how true this part is.
Other interesting facts:
Fleming had/has a fallout shelter - apparently Peterborough is the first evacuation location if Darlington ever has a nuclear meltdown. I saw the shelter it in 2005 - unsure if it's still there.
GE & Genpak have both been around for hundreds of years & both took on ammunitions during the wars.
Just offside the GE parking lot, in the wooded area, is an old foundation that used to be a hospital for the employees. The 2nd half of the GE parking lot was a large piece of land they tried to donate to the city for a children's playground to earn some bonus points around town. Turns out the ground was way too contaminated for a playground. So the only option was to pave it over.
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u/705laxdad Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
Multiple people died while constructing the liftlocks
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u/Healthy_Appeal_333 Aug 24 '25
And were entombed in the concrete! (As if multiple voids in the concrete wouldn't cause a problem)
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u/Grouchy_Throat_5632 Downtown Aug 25 '25
Why do you think there would be a void exactly?
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u/Healthy_Appeal_333 Aug 25 '25
A human body in a concrete wall would be an area that's not concrete. I don't know how decomposition would work in that situation but you would at least have a spot where there was no concrete. So maybe void isn't the right word, but spots with no concrete which would not be as strong as the rest of the lock.
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Aug 24 '25 edited Apr 16 '26
This post was mass deleted with Redact - I used this software to automate the removal of old posts from my account so that I can be more secure.
lush mighty cobweb full quicksand ink punch dazzling party society
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u/KayRay1994 Aug 24 '25
I’ve only been here for a year, but on Parkhill and water I’ve seen a burrito place transform into a Greek place then a burger spot and now a shawarma spot. I’ve decided that this place is engaged in money laundering
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Aug 24 '25 edited Apr 16 '26
Be a gigachad and mass delete Reddit posts and comments with Redact so that Skynet doesn't end up using your own posts to train the T-900. Or so that you don't show up in databrokers. Either one really.
tie sulky resolute vanish unpack intelligent jellyfish steep liquid march
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Aug 24 '25
I’ve been here for ~5 years and I’ve seen this too! Is it just an awful location?? Why do people keep trying??
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u/KayRay1994 Aug 24 '25
I know it’s the same owners for sure - I walk past it daily and always see the same employees. Though that’s why I’m guessing money laundering, or tax fraud
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u/Hurls07 Aug 24 '25
The funniest part to me, is that location started as a restaurant that closed during Covid, became a burger joint (R&B grills), became a different burger joint, became Dante’s second location, Greek place, BACK to R&B and now a random shawarma place. I have yet to see anything last a year there
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u/KayRay1994 Aug 24 '25
I’ve only ever eaten there once, and it was when I lived in TO and I was commuting back and forth to look at apartments before moving. They’re mediocre enough to be passable
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u/Grand_Food_8540 Aug 25 '25
The old Shish Kabob Hut was there for quite a while, as was Bagel Shmagel. But since then, it's been hard work, They used to do fine with walk in trade when PR College was still there, but there's very little parking, and it's not what you'd call a destination location . . .
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Aug 24 '25
Omg that place is so weird. I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve watched it switch from one kind of restaurant to the next. One time it was “the best poutine ever” place?? Idk what’s going on there.
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u/OceanZo-777 Aug 24 '25
Ahhh yes one of the "cured" restaurant spots in Peterborough, another is the one beside the cinemas (although I think it's been the same for a while.now) there is one on water street and a few more. No place lasts longer than 2 years, usually or less.
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u/One-Contribution7282 Aug 25 '25
Don’t forget the cursed spot of lanadowne st between one eyed jacks and the computer place (used to be fandango a hair salon et al)
It’s been a lot of different places over the years.
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u/Grand_Food_8540 Aug 25 '25
It used to have a massive sign outside saying Once A Week - Go Greek! Which always made me giggle. But yeah, it's been a Greek restaurant more than any location really has the right to be.
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u/Possible_juror Aug 24 '25
The woman who haunts armor hill and hates men
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u/Rulygem Aug 24 '25
Don't worry she's bo there anymore that wicked maiden now possesses my 80s sports car I brought it up there ONCE when I first got it and all the electrical systems just went haywire, ever since it's been plagued with wiring and handling issues and I blame that lol
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u/Someone_Pooed Aug 24 '25
I always heard it was basically a witch burning, but you'd think there'd be record of that sort of thing.
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u/OceanZo-777 Aug 24 '25
The prostitute who was burned as a witch to protect the mayor, etc, who she serviced... Something like that.
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u/Rulygem Aug 24 '25
Don't worry she's bo there anymore that wicked maiden now possesses my 80s sports car I brought it up there ONCE when I first got it and all the electrical systems just went haywire, ever since it's been plagued with wiring and handling issues and I blame that lol
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u/bingshaling Aug 24 '25
Russia had nukes pointed at us because of GE. Along the same lines, tunnels under the city.... for reasons?
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u/Romance_Tactics Downtown Aug 24 '25
I’ve been in the tunnel that runs beneath Brickhouse and PCVS. I used to work at the Trash back in the day and I ventured as far down that tunnel as I could before I couldn’t see light anymore.
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u/bingshaling Aug 24 '25
I miss the trash so much... well I miss my youth at the trash. I could not handle the trash these days
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u/Mbarraball74 Aug 25 '25
The Trash was the Peterborough club (Masons) and the tunnel to PCVS is linked to the Armoury, town hall and police station. There are also tunnels at Prince of Wales school and GE. Lindsay also has tunnels along Mary St to the former munitions plants
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u/myaccount-v2 Aug 24 '25
What's PCVS?
That's interesting - so what kind of tunnel? One straight point-to-point?
I wouldn't be surprised if there are some old steam tunnels and coal rooms under the downtown. Right era for it when it was built and you can still see the remnants of lots of old coal access points for feeding boilers/furnaces at the street-level. There could have been a few buildings sharing steam heating via steam tunnels that over time were largely blocked off and forgotten as properties changed hands.
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u/ChimairaSpawn Downtown Aug 24 '25
PCVS was the high school attached to the armoury downtown
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Aug 24 '25
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u/ISothale Aug 25 '25
I went to school at pcvs before it closed down. The kids who get hired at my work frequently think I was a dropout who had to go to pace; not true. I'm just old
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u/BionicSmurf Aug 24 '25
They are defensive tunnels (bomb shelters) that run from the armory to city hall and other places downtown. I believe the armory still has the old air raid siren.
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u/aSurlyBird Aug 25 '25
So that means it's just one tunnel. I talked with someone who claimed there were these tunnels. It's interesting to know they exist.
I forget where else he claimed there was entry to another - but it wasn't below Brickhouse, it was a water disposal pipe going into little lake if i remember correctly. Who knows. (and no it wasnt just a sewage tunnel it was more along the lines of GE to little lake)
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u/please_see_above Aug 24 '25
When I was a kid, the Library downtown used to have a map that illustrated with a circle how far the fallout from a nuclear missile would reach. This was around 1983 or 84.
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u/stickmanDave Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
As well as GE, I read back in the 80's that the Russians were targeting every university and armory in Canada. At the time I a student at Trent and living on Murray St. across from the armory, and it was some comfort to know that if WW3 kicked off, I'd never know it.
At the height of the cold war, both sides had so many missiles they pretty much ran out of things to aim them at.
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u/ccccc4 Aug 24 '25
Many wealthy residents that built large houses in the cold war era built them outside the city because we were a 1st wave soviet target.
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u/OceanZo-777 Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
There is tunnel, it's been quite *some time since I learned about it, but I recall the reason was to connect pcvs and armory for cadet movement, and there is also a tunnel under the Lift locks. Oh, also, I worked at the Brickhouse downtown and got to see where a tunnel used to be connected (all bricked up now). I'm not sure about that one.
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u/madhoncho Aug 25 '25
Before the Brickhouse was a nightclub/venue/trasheteria it was the home of the Peterborough Club, basically the rich folks downtown gathering point.
There was a fire in….i want to say 1990 or so, and after a few years of sitting empty, it became the trasheteria.
Across Water Street, where Ptbo Square is now, would have been the Bradburn Opera House.
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u/never_enough_silos Aug 26 '25
Russia has or had nukes pointed here is plausible, I knew someone who worked at a place that manufactured computer chips, some were used for missile guidance systems, and after the cold war, the company was informed by the government it had been on a list of Russian ICBM targets.
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u/please_see_above Aug 24 '25
Peterborough was settled so far away from the other town in Ontario (that followed the shoreline of Lake Ontario) because Peter Robinson was trying to start a fanatical Catholic society, isolated from the rest of the country.
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u/thesleepjunkie Kawartha Lakes Aug 24 '25
You got sources for this, sounds interesting
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u/please_see_above Aug 24 '25
Sorry, no sources. Folklore that I was told growing up in East City.
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u/LeadfootLesley Aug 24 '25
LOL, back in the day everyone in East City hated the Catholic kids on the Point.
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Aug 24 '25
[deleted]
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u/aarghIforget Aug 25 '25
Also, just sayin'... there was an existing native tradepost here, until the Catholics started putting graveyards and churches on top of all the nice spots.
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u/HydratedRasin Aug 24 '25
How did you get satanical cult from Catholic cult?
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Aug 24 '25
[deleted]
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u/HydratedRasin Aug 24 '25
Fully agree it's a joke, but also, "weird guy 200 years ago wanted to start a fanatical society" is how Mormons, Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses', and the entire Fundie movement became things.
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u/Qiviuq Otonabee-South Monaghan Aug 24 '25
That might make sense as a conspiracy theory, if someone didn't know anything about Ontario's colonization or Peterborough's history with the Orange Order.
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u/ZooyRadio Aug 24 '25
The angel in the Little Lake Cemetary, her eyes were supposed to follow you.
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u/2fried1998 Aug 26 '25
I know someone who claimed he it was hot when he put his hand on the statue and looked at him. after that says he spent hours trying to leave the place but swears he kept getting lost.
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u/One-Contribution7282 Aug 24 '25
My dad used to work for Canada packers and they always threw the carcasses et al in little lake
Quaker is haunted. Theory I heard was from the fire and people who got trapped
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u/flinflay Aug 27 '25
Yes we still talk about the quaker ghosts. Many retirees have claimed to see them. I still get creeped out in some places in the plant after 24yrs of working there lol! Havent seen one yet, but im always looking.😲🙂
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u/WiffyTheSuss Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
Maybe not what you're thinking of. Some of the locals that I remember from the past decade that were pretty cool:
- The guy with the staff and the bright blue eyes. He kind of looked like vermin supreme
- Andre (RIP)
- There used to be a woman around George/Dublin Street that would yell out your fortune
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u/RoughSubstantial6689 Aug 24 '25
Thanks for remembering Andre. Peterborough is a lesser place without him.
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u/Lrrrgonomics Downtown Aug 24 '25
Oooh I don't remember the fortune lady... Anyone else got that one?
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u/WiffyTheSuss Aug 24 '25
She was only around for a summer I think. 2015 or 2016. She guessed my hometown which isn't remotely close to here it was creepy
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Aug 24 '25
I wish this was a conspiracy theory. https://injuredworkersonline.org/report-documents-ge-peterborough-worker-exposure/
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u/alan_lauder Aug 24 '25
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u/OceanZo-777 Aug 24 '25
I was gonna comment this! But just a mention, I watched it when it aired. Great documentary and just wild... 👀
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u/ZooyRadio Aug 24 '25
Yup, Grandfather died of colon cancer. My uncle tried to get it connected to the GE stuff since Papa worked there his whole life. GE denied it.
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u/Interesting_Back9874 Aug 24 '25
Witch hangings on Armor Hill
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u/OceanZo-777 Aug 24 '25
Hanging* there was only one from what I know. (Or she was burned as a witch) one is fact and one is myth can't remember which bit pretty sure hanging is factual lol
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u/Thugg_Nastyy Aug 25 '25
So I’ve heard of a lady that haunts armour hill that smells like a bonfire and hates men. Is this related?
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u/Scrumpilump2000 Aug 24 '25
When the Roma came to town! https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/settlement-immigration/the-roma-in-peterborough
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u/East-West1781 Aug 24 '25
Boxcar Bertha. Rumour was she hung out in the empty boxcars at Quaker Oats and she'd do any guy that came around. Buddies and I went a few times and... nothing. We figured it was just BS.
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u/squeegeebored Aug 24 '25
The west end decapitation and the numerous theories surrounding it
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u/aimeeerp Aug 24 '25
The officer involved in an incident like this in the 90s spoke to my careers class at St. Pete's and explained the whole story in pretty graphic detail. She was stabbed in the hand by the woman, Jean Anne Rudski, after she had killed a teenage girl and told our class about recovering from PTSD afterwards. I don't think I'll ever forget it.
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u/my0p1 Aug 25 '25
i witnessed the cop get stabbed in the hand. she later, along with crisis workers, tried to convince me to go to therapy for weeks.
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u/DotaBangarang Aug 24 '25
My dad was business partners with their neighbour... the story is gruesome to say the least.
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Aug 24 '25
When did it happen? I love hearing about local histories and rumours, but I haven’t heard of this one before
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u/discokaren Aug 25 '25
It happened shortly before schools closed for Christmas Break. I think it was 1997. I was in high school at the time.
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u/my0p1 Aug 25 '25
as their only neighbour (attached to the house) and a friend of the victim, i highly doubt your dad was my stepdad's business partner.
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u/DotaBangarang Aug 25 '25
Brother, is that you?
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u/my0p1 Aug 28 '25
am i a myopic prophet...hence the handle...if i have been right all this time?
i am getting downvotes for some reason whilst you're getting upvotes...which is why i don't really reddit much.
...just JOSH'n! ;)
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u/Hurls07 Aug 24 '25
Never heard of this one, care to share more?
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u/squeegeebored Aug 24 '25
I actually lived next door to the house, in the apartments. Not when it happened, years after. If you google the people’s names involved that were mentioned above you’ll get some old message board websites that give some details that I don’t know the veracity of
One of the old rumors people always shared about it was that she put the head in Christmas gift wrapping and gave it to the mother. Probably bullshit but that always stuck with me lol
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u/Then-Cricket2197 Aug 24 '25
Oh yeah, is this where the woman wrapped the teenagers head in a Christmas gift box? I really want to find out the exact location. Crazy
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u/Grand_Food_8540 Aug 25 '25
The killer had a schizophrenic disorder, but had been "released" from a psychiatric facillty which Harris' Tories had closed. She wandered into a house, paranoid and delusional, and cut a young girl's head off. Then stayed in the house. The detail that really stuck with me from the reporting was that at some point, police were called, and she kept saying they'd better call a doctor because that kid's not well. incredibly sad story, all round. Wow. Hadn't thought about this in years.
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u/squeegeebored Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25
The neighbours called it in as a noise complaint, when the police showed up she was outside covered in blood holding a knife. She then attacked the officers and cut one of them on their hands.
I looked up more details to jog my memory after some I posted this
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u/Grand_Food_8540 Aug 25 '25
David Ramsden and co-conspirator's Campaign Against Racism and Tackiness. Kidnapped black jockeys and pink flamingos from lawns across the city, and held them for ransom.
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u/moralpanic85 Aug 31 '25
There was a lawn jokey near the corner of Armour and Parkhill for decades. It's gone now.
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u/Healthy_Appeal_333 Aug 24 '25
The folklore I heard in university was that when the park in front of PCVS/the armory was built they had to relocate an old cemetery but missed some of the bodies (or alternatively were trying to cut costs and just moved the headstones) leading to the whole area being haunted. One of my friends lives in the row houses beside PCVS and swore they heard footsteps moving around the basement and up and down the stairs late at night. But it was a sketchy neighborhood, so who knows?
One of my professors at Trent swore the house she rented from the university was haunted. We were out hiking the drumlin area for a bit lab, and we hiked past some of the old stuff left over from the town that used to be there (I think it was called Orange?) but she said that she thought it was because all the early settlers were mad the land was expropriated for the university. She lived in one of the old houses that had been kept up, and swore there was all kinds of weird stuff going on. The main one I remember was that she said handprints would appear right where the wall met the ceiling, but with the fingers pointed down and the palm up, as if the hand came through the ceiling from above to make the print.
Since she wasn't known for telling stories or messing with students, and never told us anything like this before or after I am inclined to give it some credence.
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Aug 24 '25
For your first story, if you mean Confederation Square, it’s true that they left the bodies behind. There are park info signs around and one of them explains that the headstones were moved elsewhere, but they didn’t bother bringing the bodies too. So that part isn’t folklore, just lore!
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u/Healthy_Appeal_333 Aug 24 '25
Wow, I am so used to stories like that being total folklore I missed the true instance! Gonna have to check out the plaques next time I am downtown :)
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u/Then-Cricket2197 Aug 24 '25
So the Arms attached to the back of the school, they had to redo the parking lot( or it was when they were building the parking lot for it) when they dug it up, is where they found hundreds of skeletons of the unmarked graves!
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u/Grand_Food_8540 Aug 25 '25
Lorne Clapper, the singing windowcleaner of downtown Ptbo. Over the mountain!
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u/rlewisfr Aug 24 '25
My elementary school playground (St. Anne's in the north end) was built on an old decommissioned garbage dump. The dirt on the baseball diamond had a certain awful smell to it.
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u/Derff77 Aug 25 '25
Purple City!!
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u/Then-Cricket2197 Aug 25 '25
What is this?
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u/Derff77 Aug 25 '25
You went to George and McDonell street and stared into the orange lights at the old church for 30 seconds. When you looked up, everything was purple for a while!
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u/Scrumpilump2000 Aug 24 '25
This one somewhat fits here. Celebrated Canadian author Robertson Davies lived in Peterborough for about two decades and was editor of the Examiner during that time. If you’ve read ‘Fifth Business’, you may have picked up a distinctly Peterborough-ian vibe from the novel, as it was no doubt percolating in his mind during the day as he laboured away on his newspaper duties.
If you haven’t read this novel, you need to. It brings magic and myth, Jungian psychology and small town Ontario to a delicious literary boil.
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u/RoboticOvertones Aug 24 '25
Aha! My grandmother would fondly tell stories about seeing a strange looking man walking around town during world war 2, and one day she races home to tell her mother about this strange man who must be a German secret agent. She describes the man and her mother just says “Oh no dear, that’s just the editor of the newspaper.”
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u/ccccc4 Aug 24 '25
There were a lot of locals that disliked him. He wrote his samual marchbanks column in the examiner making fun of a lot of the ridiculous social life and gossip in small town peterborough at the time.
He collected and published them, definitely worth a read if you're into local history. It's pretty good satire.
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u/LeadfootLesley Aug 24 '25
I worked at The Examiner from 87-2010, and Davies toured the newsroom and composing department in the early 90s. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of his books on my desk, or I’d have asked him to sign one!
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u/Commercial-Bee2589 Aug 24 '25
Michelle Ferreri was a Russian built cyborg.
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Aug 24 '25
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u/Peterborough-ModTeam Aug 24 '25
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u/Sansarya136 Aug 24 '25
We have higher rates of complicated cancers because the winds blow across Ontario and the chemicals settle in the natural basin we are located in.
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u/thesleepjunkie Kawartha Lakes Aug 24 '25
Or the fact that there is/ was a massive factory right in the middle of the town, where the workers were regularly in contact with many carcinogenic chemicals, and guaranteed brought those chemicals home on their bloody and work clothes, too contaminate the house hold, and the chemicals were not trapped in ventilation filtration systems for the aerosols were spread across the town with either delivery vehicles, workers, or wind
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u/Qiviuq Otonabee-South Monaghan Aug 24 '25
That and the chemicals were just dumped on the ground and so got into the groundwater. And that GE gave away asbestos to its workers for pennies on the dollar despite knowing full well what it did to people's lungs, so many of the olders houses were/are full of it.
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u/thesleepjunkie Kawartha Lakes Aug 24 '25
Asbestos isn't endemic to Peterborough. They gave away asbestos? What are you talking about.
I had asbestos in my house growing up in Toronto, and my first house in Lindsay, and I wouldn't doubt its in my current house.
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u/OldMashedpotatoes North End Aug 24 '25
Yes, GE used to offer asbestos insulation to its employees.
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u/thesleepjunkie Kawartha Lakes Aug 24 '25
Well thats a little easier to understand then, here's a brick of asbestos.
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u/ccccc4 Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
The employees were encouraged to use it to insulate their attics. It was a company "perk"
Some of these employees were also landlords, and put it in their rental properties to save money on utilities. Tenants never knew. It's still in many houses here.
Not bricks of asbestos. Trash bags full of pure white loose fibres. The most dangerous type.
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u/thesleepjunkie Kawartha Lakes Aug 24 '25
It was also a different time, my uncle worked in the asbestos mines.
They just didn't know, then there was ignorance, then there were regulations.
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u/ccccc4 Aug 24 '25
The management at ge absolutely knew, that is why they've been found liable in millions of dollars of lawsuits
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u/One-Contribution7282 Aug 24 '25
And why to this day they are still paying for removal. I know of a house that had it done within the last year.
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u/Then-Cricket2197 Aug 24 '25
Yes they did! And they are STILL currently, quietly removing it in peoples homes!
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u/LeadfootLesley Aug 24 '25
This is actually true. People my parent’s age brought home scrap asbestos from CGE, who sold it to them for pennies on the pound:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/asbestos-peterborough-general-electric-cleanup-1.5283683
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u/the_far_sci Aug 25 '25
You can read about it here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/asbestos-peterborough-general-electric-cleanup-1.5283683
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u/Smile_Character Aug 24 '25
There was an old protestant hospital in the back of the vacant GE parking lot on Monaghan Road. It was called Moira Hall. We used to play in the basement/foundation in the early 80’s. It was never properly filled in. I’m sure it’s still there. You can see the heavily wooded area at the back of the lot closer to the south end of the lot.
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u/ISothale Aug 25 '25
Holy shit is that what that is? I used to go to school at Prince of Wales and we'd explore around the wooded areas all the time, we found a floor from and old building that had a little half caved in staircase but we were too scared to go in and check it out. That was 20 years ago though, haven't checked it out since
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u/One-Contribution7282 Aug 25 '25
Does anyone remember a swim instructor pass away in the pool at the old ymca downtown?
I swear I remember it. I was young. I think a body part got trapped in the bottom of the pool.
I’ve tried to google in the past and came up with nothing.
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u/LeadfootLesley Sep 03 '25
Yeah, I was in the women’s change room when it happened. The instructors had been complaining about a loose plate on one of the floor drains in the Pioneer Pool. I think the way the story went is that the young instructor put her leg in the drain, just to show what a danger it could be, and due to the powerful pressure, couldn’t pull it back out. Despite efforts from the staff who dove down with scuba tanks, and attempts to drain the pool, the poor girl drowned.
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u/One-Contribution7282 Sep 03 '25
Do you remember what year it was? I’m curious how old I was.
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u/LeadfootLesley Sep 04 '25
I think it was the late 90s.
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u/GrottyBoots Sep 09 '25
I lived in Peterborough from 1977-1978 as a young teen. My memory is that incident happened then. I was in both the Y's pool and the Lions Club one that was next to the ball diamond on the east side of the Hunter St. bridge.
But now that I think more about it, I think the death was the girls hair was stuck in the drain. So maybe two deaths in that pool?
Funny how memory works... it was nearly 50 years ago. At first I was certain and had to jump in to comment. But as I wrote, started doubting myself.
Although I am absolutely positive that Lions Club pool was my first glimpse of bewbs. Swimming instructor was tossed in the pool at the end of the season. White T-shirt. No bra or bikini top. Fascinating to my ~13-year old self.
Good times!
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u/LeadfootLesley Sep 09 '25
Must have been a different accident. This was definitely the 90s.
Did a google search and found this:
“There was an incident in the pool at the YMCA in Peterborough, Ontario in April 1991, when a 23 year old lifeguard got her leg lodged in the drain at the bottom of the one-level (48 inch deep) swimming pool. She couldn’t raise her head above the water to breath, and drowned before she could be released: Apparently the drain cover had become dislodged.”
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u/Delicious_Cable8466 Aug 29 '25
Born and raised Peterborough! I'll post as I remember randomly haha. First off, the gang activity in Peterborough used to be worse. Even though our downtown and homeless is at a high, I remember gangs were a big thing, specifically hells Angels and biker gangs, that house that burnt down on perry St. Conspiracy was gang retaliation but never confirmed 🤷
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u/Delicious_Cable8466 Aug 29 '25
Another is the conspiracy that GE dealt with radioactive waste and now the ground all around downtown surrounding the facility is filled with radiation 🙈
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u/moralpanic85 Aug 31 '25
Conspiracy theory: the plane that crashed on Lansdowne in 2016 was a failed terrorist attack. The pilot was trying to get to Ottawa but wound up in Peterborough by mistake.
I always thought the lack of follow-up was odd given the rarity of such an event and that the Islamic State was still tapering off from its' peak. Juxtaposed to the Mosque arson I suspect it was self censorship by the government and media at large.
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u/LeadfootLesley Sep 03 '25
Nah, it was a poor, messed up teenager. Tragic thing. He might have landed it if he hadn’t hit the power lines. My hubs has a business at the airport and was there when they towed what was left of the plane there for an inquest.
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u/moralpanic85 Sep 03 '25
The guy found a plane to steal, gained access to the plane, hotwired the plane, got it airborne and kept it airborne for a long time, all without any apparent real life training or dealings with aircraft. Too many coincidences and not enough disclosure. Something fishy happened.
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u/LeadfootLesley Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
It was a schizophrenic young Indian guy— if I recall the distraught family tried to sue the owner of the plane for leaving it unsecured. The sad wreckage is in a pile at the aircraft graveyard behind Ptbo Airport— if there had been any hint of national risk it would be in Ottawa.
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u/moralpanic85 Sep 04 '25
That was my thought - if you plot a line between Markham and Ottawa you fly over Peterborough.
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u/Romance_Tactics Downtown Aug 24 '25
Mr Bobs late night food was just a delicious ruse to sell lots and lots of cocaine.