S2 – 3: The Lake, it is Said, Never Gives up her Dead

north of the American side of the falls. Although the Griffin was fitted out with weaponry, her stated purpose was to deliver supplies for La Salle's expeditions into New France. Setting sail August seven, sixteen seventy nine, with Lasal on board, the Griffin left niagarapher Detroit, where several men joined the crew. The difficult maiden voyage took the Griffin from Lake Erie to St Ignace, through the Straights of Macinaw, and into

Lake Michigan. It anchored finally off the shore of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Soon afterward, Lassole decided to send the Griffin back to Niagara in order to pick up men and supplies. Carrying a cargo of furs, The Griffin set sail on September eighteen, sixteen seventy nine, under favorable weather conditions. Once they left Washington Harbor, however, the ship and her crew of six were never seen again. The Griffin disappeared without a trace.

As for what really happened to the Griffin, it very likely went down in a storm, but that hasn't stopped rumors of it reappearing as a ghost ship for centuries. Sailors on Lake Michigan have claimed to see the ghostly outlines of an antiquated ship emerged suddenly out of a fog bank, but just when the ship seem about to collide, the Griffin vanishes. Others swear that the Griffin can be glimpsed on foggy nights, still sailing out of Green Bay Harbor,

not sur risingly signing. The lost Griffin is regarded as a sign of bad luck. The Griffin was the first ship on record to be lost in the Great Lakes. Since then, there have been thousands more. So let's head to Sue St. Marie, Michigan and explore the haunted museum ship Valley Camp and why the most recent shipwreck on the Great Lakes may have everything to do with why the Valley Camp is haunted. I'm Amy Brunei, and this

is haunted Road. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where the Valley Camp is located, is sparsely populated compared to the rest of the state, but incredibly rich in history. It consists of the top one third of Michigan's land mass, yet only three of Michigan's population resides here. Locals are known as uper, a term derived from the term up Upper Peninsula uper. And if you live in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan under the Mackinaw Bridge, they affectionately refer

to you as a troll because you live under the bridge. Clearly, many of you probably haven't heard of the Valley Camp. The Valley Camp is a lake freighter that served on the Great Lakes for over fifty years. Built in nineteen seventeen and retired in nineteen sixties six, The now museum ship is five hundred fifty feet in length and features a variety of displays. More than one hundred exhibits populate

the ship's cargo hold. What once held iron, ore, coal, and limestone is now home to displays showcasing maritime memories shipwrecks, lighthouses, and local history. The ship is also reportedly quite haunted, which is why we're talking about it today, and I've

investigated there so I can vouch for this. But before we get to the ghost stories and the more in depth history of the ship itself, it's vital that we explore the history of the very area it is docked, and then we can get into just what is being kept in that ship's cargo hold. Sue St. Marie was settled as early as sixteen sixty eight, making it Michigan's oldest city and among the oldest cities in the United States,

according to siue St. Marie dot com. Over the course of its history, the flags of several sovereign nations have flown over the Sioux. Over two thousand years ago, Native Americans began to gather here for the wealth of fish and for found along the rushing waters of the wide, turbulent river that linked the great Lakes of Superior and here On. Spring and fall were important seasons for these original settlers, and they called the area the botting or

the gathering Place. The area's first full time residents lived in lodges framed of wood poles sheaths with bark or animal hides. The river below the rapids provided an abundance of fish for native peoples, as well as several tribes from throughout the region who migrated here during peak fishing season. In the sixteen hundreds, French missionaries and fur traders began to venture into the Sioux. The traders began calling the

wild area Sioux du Gaston. In sixteen sixty eight, the legendary Jesuit missionary and explorer Jacques Marquette renamed this burgeoning European settlement Sioue St. Marie, in honor of the Virgin Mary, the first city in the Great Lakes region. While there is some debate on the exact meaning of Siue, scholars of early French note that the word translates into jump, referring to the place where one needs to jump or

put into the St. Mary's River. This translation relates to the treacherous rapids and cascades that fall twenty one feet from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the Lower Lakes. Hundreds of years ago. This prohibited boat traffic and necessitated and overland portage from one lake to the other. This is how Portage Avenue, the main street running along the river, acquired its name. Due to this strategic location of the river and the abundant natural resources

found here. The French and British often fought over the area and the right to trade with the Native Americans in the seventeen hundreds. In eighteen twenty the Treaty of the Sioux was signed, which turned control over to the United States. In eighteen twenty three, Fort Brady was built on the grounds of the old French Fort Ri Pontani, as the New Americans were concerned about possible British invasions

from nearby Canada. This fort on Water Street was eventually abandoned in the eighteen nineties and a new Fort Brady was constructed on the grounds of present day Lake Superior State University. Throughout all of this turbulent history, the St. Mary's River continued to dominate the life and events of Sioux St. Marie, as it continues to do today. An important component to Sue St. Marie and an engineering marvel to behold in person is the Sioux Lox. Turns out,

they did not come about so easily. In case you don't know what a lock is. According to Wikipedia. A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships, and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels

on river and canal waterways. Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level so again, according to Sue Saint Marie dot com, in seventeen ninety seven, the Northwest Fur Company constructed a navigation lock thirty eight feet long on the Canadian side of the river for small boats. This lock remained in use until destroyed in the War of eighteen twelve. Freighters and boats were again

portaged around the rapids at that point. Congress passed an act in eighteen fifty two granting seven hundred fifty thousand acres of public land to the State of Michigan has compensation to the company that would build a lock permitting waterborne commerce between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes. The Fairbanks Scale Company, which had extensive mining interests in Upper Peninsula, undertook this challenging construction project in eighteen fifty three.

In spite of adverse conditions, Fairbanks is aggressive accountant Charles T. Harvey, completed a system of two locks in tandem, each three fifty feet long. Within the two year deadline set by the State of Michigan. On May thirty one, eighteen fifty five, the locks were turned over to the state and designated as the State Lock. The federal government took control of the property and the lock system in the eighteen seventies. Their stewardship actually continues today, administered by the U. S.

Army Corps of Engineers. The Sioux Locks are the busiest locks in the world and include the largest lock in the Western Hemisphere, completed in nineteen sixty eight. Now sailing craft on the Great Lakes date to the first ships constructed on Lake Ontario in the seventeenth century. The first ships on the Lakes were built at Lake Ontario, due to the natural barriers posed by the St. Lawrence River

rapids and the falls at Niagara. All the earliest Great Lakes crafts were brigs, schooners or sloops of traditional European design. The ships were probably designed in either France and England by naval personnel. Between seventeen fifty six and seventeen sixty three, the British and French were involved in the Seven Years War.

Shipbuilding during that time followed admiralty designs. Even so, the fore and aft schooner rig had begun to demonstrate its suitability for the confined waters and shallow rivers of the Great Lakes. Four and aft rig vessels were lighter and more easily managed than square rig ships. Ease of maneuverability was also an important consideration in the lakes, where frequent course changes were necessary to navigate the twisting rivers and

in the relatively limited sea room. Modern day lake freighters or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels. Since the late nineteenth century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of materials such as limestone, iron, ore, grain, coal, or salt from the mine and fields of the upper Great Lakes to the populous industrial areas farther east. The sixty three commercial ports handled one hundred seventy three million

tons of cargo in two thousand six alone. Because of winter ice on the lakes, the navigation system is not usually year round. The Sux Locks, for example, closes from mid January to late March, when most boats are laid up for maintenance. Crew members spend those months ashore, hopefully ashore somewhere in like Hawaii. The Valley Camp in particular, was built by the American Shipbuilding Company in Lorraine, Ohio, and launched on July four, nineteen seventeen as the Lewis W. Hill.

A nineteen hundred horsepower triple expansion steam engine and two coal fired boilers powered the ship. During her career, the eleven thousand, five hundred tons ship logged three million miles and carried an excess of sixteen millions tons of cargo. The Valley Camp arrived in sue St. Marie on July third, nineteen sixty eight, and the Historical Society converted her into a twenty thousand square foot museum with over one hundred exhibits.

For the last fifty years, the Valley Camp has resided at five oh one East Water Street in sue St. Marie, Michigan. Work on Lake Freighter's was originally and still can be treacherous. The Great Lakes has a long history of groundings, shipwrecks, storms, and collisions. There have been over six thousand shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, having caused an estimated loss of thirty thousand mariners lives. It is also estimated that there are up to five hundred fifty wrecks in Lake Superior alone,

most of which are undiscovered. The largest and last major freighter wrecked on the lakes was the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November tenth, nineteen seventy five, with the loss of the entire row of twenty nine men carrying a full cargo of ore pellets. With Captain Ernest M. McSorley in command, she embarked on her ill fated voyage from Superior, Wisconsin,

near Duluth on the afternoon of November nine, nine. En route to a steel mill near Detroit, Edmund Fitzgerald joined a second tacon nite freighter, S. S Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day, the two ships were caught in a severe storm on Lake Superior, with near hurricane force

winds and waves up to thirty five feet high. Shortly after seven ten pm, Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Canadian waters five hundred thirty feet deep, about seventeen miles from Whitefish Bay, near the twin cities of Siue St. Marie, Michigan and Siue St. Marie, Ontario, a distance The Edmund Fitzgerald could have covered in just over an hour at her top speed under normal conditions. Although the search recovered debris, including lifeboats and rafts, none of the crew were found owned.

On her final voyage, Edmund Fitzgerald's crew of twenty nine consisted of the captain, the first, second and third mates, five engineers, three oilers, a cook, a wiper, two maintenance men, three watchmen, three decans, three wheelsman, two porters, a cadet and a steward. Artifacts on display at the Valley Camp include two lifeboats, photos, a movie of Edmund Fitzgerald, and

commemorative models and paintings. The lifeboats were two of the very few items removed from the wreck, and one is almost completely ripped in half, demonstrating the severity of the storm they faced. They are quite a thing to see in person. Most when viewing the boats just go silent. It does feel as though you are visiting a grave site. As far as hauntings on board the Valley Camp, you only need go as far as asking some of the boys.

Many have had experiences on board, including a general feeling of uneased when locking up at night. Staff and visitors alike have reported being touched or their clothes tugged with no apparent culprit. Some have seen shadow figures, while others have been overcome with feelings of an unseen presence on the ship. Numerous visitors have reported a heavy feeling in the area of the Edmund Fitzgerald lifeboats. A local team, the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society or u p p

r S, has investigated the ship many times. In addition to a number of experiences, they have captured very clear e vps, including one that says the name George George Hole was the chief engineer of the Fitzgerald when it went down. So to talk with us more about the hauntings on the valley camp, I've brought my two very good friends, Tim Ellis and Brad Blair from the u p p r S team, So we go way back.

So there's a lot of reminiscing here, but they also play us one of their very clear e vps that they capture while investigating the ship, so that is coming up after the break. I am sitting here now with Tim Ellis and Brad Blair, who are two of the three founders of u p p r S, a paranormal team located in the Upper Peninsula. They are also very well known for their yearly paranormal convention, Michigan Para Coon that I would say it's probably one of the most

respected paranormal conventions in the world at this point. And they have investigated the Valley Camp many times. I've investigated it with them, and so they seemed like the perfect people to talk to. So Hello guys, Hello, Hi, I was thinking about this this morning. Our history goes way back, especially Tim. So basically, way back in the day, we were part of paranormal teams that were part of the

TAPS Family network. And so for those who are not familiar the show ghost Hunters, which is kind of the o G of paranormal shows that I was on for a number of years, their team was called TAPS and they had a network of teams they would refer cases to. And so Tim and I were both on TAPS Family teams, and I think Brad you were as well, right, I don't think I worked with you as much though, No.

Tim did a little bit more on the side with that. Yeah, Tim was operating TAPS Family Radio, which was a podcast, and I was producing it. And I think this is going on like eighteen years ago, which is pretty insane to think about. And so I was producing it. So I would basically find the guests and do some research on them, and then Tim would host the podcast. And then Jay and Grant from Ghost Hunters heard the podcast

and they wanted to do their own radio show. They were working on Beyond Reality Radio, and so they stole me from Tim. Yes, and I met them that way, and that's how I ended up on ghost Hunters. So it is crazy how this all kind of comes full circle. I was just gonna say, it's full circle meeting back where we started. And I've never forgiven Jane Grant for stealing you Amy, but hey, you know, you gotta let

it go at some point, I guess. I love, though, that we have all remained friends through all of these kind of different projects and iterations we've done. Like I think that's probably one of my favorite things is that there are so many people that I met well before I was on TV that I still connect with, and so I count you guys in that circle and I love that, well, we appreciate that. Now, let's talk about the Valley Camp. I find the history of these ships

in the lakes, so interesting. I really wasn't that familiar with them until the first time I visited Michigan thanks to you guys. So what brought about you starting to investigate there? Well, it's an interesting area. You can look at where the ship is docked and to go back through the history. Just Sue St. Marie for a little bit of background, is Michigan's oldest city, and that's by European standards. If we go beyond that, this was a

Native American fishing village for thousands of years. Literally on the same block that the Valley Camp is moored right now is an ancient Indian burial ground. So kind of sounding like a takeoff from Hollywood there, but there there is a lot going on down there, a lot of history, and we started hearing stories, I guess a few and far between when we were kids. Tim and I both

grew up here in Sue Saint Marie. Yeah, and it's a pretty special place when you grow up and you get to watch these amazing feats of human creation, right these ships that should not be floating by you know, by sign standards, but they are there that they've created, These monsters that cut right through our downtown areas, So the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes Freighters is a big part of anyone who grows up in in this

corner of the world that we live in. So growing up and seeing the Valley Camp every day we were downtown and hearing the stories about it, of course we were in awe of it. And you can tour it during the summertime. Uh, it is open as a museum ship. And then as we got older and started working with our our team for paranormal investigations, it was just it was a natural. We couldn't wait till we had a

chance to finally get on there. And over the years, it's a handful of times we've been able to investigate the Valley Camp. Yeah, and I I've had the privilege of investigating it. And I have to say, you do set foot on that ship, and uh, it's very spooky. That's my professional term for it. And I think I

think you can lit on the head with that professional term. Um, there's an energy and the minute you walk across that gang plank and you get inside and you're surrounded by all that metal and steel and that history, there's an energy in there. There's no denying that. And you look at the Valley Camp and other ships similar to it. The Valley Camp itself had served for forty nine years. I believe it was just shy of fifty years on the lakes, and you had a crew of thirty two

sailors at a time that we're living on board. So you've had so many people, hundreds of people that called that home through at least one year service on the lakes. And that's a stressful job. Especially back when that was on the lakes, there weren't quite as many safety features as we have now on the current freighters, and shipwrecks were a risk of daily life well. And and you know the Valley Camp being built as it was as nineteen seventeen, think of how old that was. It was

built with a coal fired engine. So even the conditions of people having got to work in the back part of the ship shoveling that coal in, I mean, I couldn't even imagine what it was like on a hot summer day down in that area and you're buy those

boilers and shoveling that coal in. I mean, the work standards back then, no, thank you, Osha wasn't jumping in at the time, No, And it's not hard to go back through historical records and find, you know, a lot of accidents that took place on these ships, and there were a number that like ran aground or there were shipwrecks, and I'm sure the Valley camp was no exception. And like you said, the conditions are just wild that these

men worked under. And that kind of brings to the point the boiler room area now is the boiler room I'm trying to reaquate myself in my brain. The boiler room is that in the very I never get these terms right the back of the ship, like the aft, Yes, aft,

that would be the word. In the aft and in the bowel of the ship, Okay, because I do remember investigating in the aft section and you can kind of separate yourself pretty easily there because it's way in the back, away from everything, and that was probably one of the more active areas for us. And I feel like maybe that is either could be attributed to just what went on their stus wise and work wise, or maybe there

was some sort of incident there at some point. But we heard a man coughing and there at one point, and then there was at one point we were all standing. I think I probably had eight or ten people with me, and we were all just aware of who was there in this group, and it's dark. It is very dark in that area. I don't remember if they're even windows, but we were there in the middle of the night, and at some point we all realized that this man who had been part of our group, like this shadow,

was just not there anymore. And everyone had kind of just noted this person. But then suddenly everyone just kind of noted that the number of people seemed off, And this woman said, wasn't there a man standing right here? And I was like, I thought there was too. Did someone move? And there was, but there was no one. No one moved, No one owned up to it. It was very strange because a number of us saw it. And that's happened to me one other time at the St.

Augustine Lighthouse where someone kind of joined our group. And so, have you guys gotten any particular activity in that area, you know, shadow figures aren't uncommon on the valley camp. I think it was our first investigation that we ever did. Um Michelle, one of our team members. We heard her give out a yel and she'd been alone and it would have been up above. It would have been, I believe, in the kitchen area. And I said, the shadow shot

across the room. It looked like a man. She thought it was someone else on the team, and all of a sudden it took off across the room and into the back. And again the kitchen area would be right, yeah, directly above where you were amy in the coal areas. So same part of the ship, just on the upper deck right. And I do remember that now too because there are stairs going up in that direction. So that

definitely caught us off guard. So the host as well, uh shadow figure has been reported by numerous guests, along with some of the staff of the Valley camp. Yeah, we've heard gotten even reports from the workers there who have come to us with tourists who come in psychic self proclaimed psychics and that will come up to him and say is this ship haunted? And of course you know they embraced their ghosts there, and and so you know, many times those shadow figures have been spotted by other

people as well. And you had mentioned hearing a cough in the boiler room. That was actually captured by one of our own investigations too. We captured that as an e v P. And to this day it is one of our favorites that we've gotten over the years. You know, I actually have I think Tim sent it to me, so let me play it really quick, because I let me play the whole thing first, almost like a conversation. You're somebody just coughed or just sound like that is

so wild. I just got chills, so clearly that's like coughing. Yes, that voice you hear that first voice you here, that's actually Brad and he's in there with another group. We were doing a pay to play what we call well we did. We did a fundraiser I don't remember for who, but one of the local charity organizations, and we had set it up that we we raffled off a ghost hunt for two and it would have been one of

our Halloween shows, I believe that we did. And we were right down in the coal room, which we were speaking of earlier, and it's just such an eerie feeling down there. There's still chunks of coal and it's so dusty and so dirty, and this is an area that they don't normally allowed tourists down into as part of the tour. It's it's very congested, very dangerous, and we heard what sounded like somebody moving at the time, and that's where you hear me saying, hear that, and it

sounded like somebody coughing. One of the young ladies that won the contest with us said, and you could hear that. That was plain, very plain. That was that was audible to the ear. And then as I'm saying, you know, it sounded like somebody coughing or you hear that voice, go over it and it says, I am coughing, very defendtively, male voice, very gruff, I am coughing, as if somebody that would have been working down in that room in the conditions that they would have been under while the

valley camp was sailing. So it is difficult to investigate on a boat of any kind or ship because there's always this kind of background noise and you really have to acquaint yourself with it if you're going to spend any amount of time on there, and be familiar with what those sounds are versus sounds that might be paranormal.

But I like about that is that it's clearly close to the microphone and it's clearly not you because it has a different cadence, and b it doesn't sound like it's even in the room with you per se, like you all have kind of an echo. This is more of like a very clear whisper. It's very strange, right, we heard the cough. Just to clarify, we heard the cough, but we did not hear that I am coughing. That

didn't come up until we did review. So the cough, though, was that caused by someone there who was living or was that like a disembodied cough. Honestly, we think it was disembodied. It was nobody in our group, and we were far enough away from the other groups at the time that I don't believe it was somebody else that was there. Yeah, that's strange because that's again that's we did hear a cough in one of our groups at

one point, just this kind of really groff cough. It makes me wonder if there's maybe some bit of history that we have not found yet, or maybe something happened on board the Valley Camp that involved something in the coal room, because that's a lot of activity like that, especially in that Yeah, and you know that that's one thing about the Valley Camp. Even in our research over the years with it is, we've never found like this dramatic incident that there was a large loss of life

on the ship. But keeping in mind it is now a museum ship, and there are a ton of artifacts on that ship now that we're from other shipwrecks and loss of life. So there's this accumulated energy that's in their now that comes from those items as well. So whether whatever we caught there was actually from the Valley camp to begin with or as an attachment, we don't know.

But there's so many artifacts on that ship now, right, And if you look at history of the Great Lakes and and shipwrecks, a conservative estimate is at least six thousand ships have gone down on the Great Lakes and loss of life better than thirty thousand, And that's that's conservative. If you go back prior to the mid eight hundreds, they really weren't tracking this. Yeah, that's true. I had

no idea. That is wild to think about. And I mean, we've seen hauntings that are just surrounding an object alone. I don't necessarily think it's important for there to have been some sort of tragedy or loss of life in a space just to make it haunted. And I think that museums are kind of a perfect example of that. Like I I investigated the Titanic exhibit a couple of times, you know, the idea of being that those objects were haunted, So I can see why this would be the same.

And I mean that being said, I think probably the most notorious exhibit there is involving the Edmund Fitzgerald. Right, how do you feel about that? Do you think there's something coming from that as far as paranormal activity goes? Yeah, n it's a great question. I mean, it's it's certainly the most um solemn area of the ship as far as I'm concerned. When you walked that area, you just pay respect those twenty nine lives that were lost on

the Fitzgerald. And in that room then surrounded by the names of all those that are lost, is this lifeboat that is ripped right in half caused by the strength and the fury of Lake Superior on that night it ripped this lifeboat completely in half. That lifeboat eventually what was left of it washed up on shore and became part of the museum at the Valley Camp. So there certainly is that thought that wonder of lives lost instantly. I mean, one wave came in, crashed that ship. They

went under and never came back up again. So that quick of loss in one area, who knows. I mean, it certainly lends itself to that, right, Yeah, and quite literally too, because these bodies were never recovered. So the trans the radio transmissions from that night I was going through and listening to them again, they you know, for lack of a better word, they are haunting. It is very hard to listen to because you can just kind

of hear the urgency and everyone's voice. It was just it was such a tragedy, so and really puts into perspective the dangers that these workers faced every day. Yeah, but we ure on one investigation, and I know Tim

knows exactly what I'm talking about. Right away, we were playing the final radio transmission between the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Arthur M. Anderson, which was the ship that was following it through the storm that night back in November, and we were conducting an e v P session while we were playing this in the background, thinking that it

might stir something up. This was in the room that the Edmund Fitzgerald lifeboat is in and somebody came across one of the two way radios and said, hey, you guys have to get up here right now. And we got a little bit agitated because we were right in the middle of this session, and we said, well, we're kind of bit no, you need to get up here right now. So we're playing this final communication between the

Arthur Anderson and the Fitzgerald. Right before the last words off the Fitzgerald, we're we're holding our own and after that they disappeared from radar and we're never seen again. So we get called up, so we run up the flights of stairs. Well we don't really run anymore, but we went our way up the flights of stairs and get to the back of the ship and the rest of the team is sitting there staring, and they're just yards out in the St. Mary's River. The Arthur M

Anderson is passing. Wow. Not not supernatural, but the synchronicity this is so bizarre. It wasn't lost anyone though. It was a powerful moment, and everyone just stood there in silence, almost in respect of the very ship that was in contact. And then the coast guard asked them to turn around.

They were ahead of the Fitzgerald and the Coast Guard asked the Anderson to turn around to go back into the very storm that just sunk a ship to try to find survivors, and they did reluctantly, but they did so. The Arthur and Anderson is still one of those ships that sails the Great Lakes today that every time you see it come through the St. Mary's River by Sue St. Marie, you just kind of stopped and watch. You're just kind of in awe of it of what it saw and

witness that night. And that night it was so powerful to see that ship. Wow. I don't think there are any accidents when it comes to things like that, right, No, the timing was so bizarre and we we just stood there in reverence. Yeah, what other areas do you think have activity or are there any other artifacts on board that you think might be causing activity? You know, oddly there's there's a theater that doesn't have any artifacts in it.

It's just a number of ships and they show a film on the Fitzgerald on some of the shipwrecks of the Lakes. And we were in there one night with the ghost Box trying to do a session. Absolutely nothing was coming across and this was one of the old school shock hacks, and it's just white noise coming at you. And we finally got to the end of the session and I said, well, I guess it's time to wrap this up. We would like to thank you for allowing us to be here and try to communicate with you tonight.

And that was the one communication we had come across it after I said, that was your welcome very clearly through the box. And that very same room one of

our first investigations on there. The door was closed and there was a light on so you could see the light coming through underneath part of the door, and a couple of the members of the team actually saw what seemed like a shadow kind of pacing back and forth in the room in there, and of course upon investigating and opening the door, there was no one in there too. So we've had a couple of incidences in that theater room as well, which is kind of as you walk

in the plank to enter into the ship. It's you just walk up a little bit and it's around your right if I down on the lower floor though, but it's about midway through the ship, right. I actually remember that space because you told me about that when I was on there, and so I did do some e VP work in there while I was investigating, and we did get a very gruff male voice, and I wish I had the recording. I don't, but we did get

a gruff male voice in there. And the nice thing about that room is that you can just like close yourself off from everything, so you don't have kind of the echo that's some of the more open areas of the ship and so completely silent. And we played it back and there was this male voice, and I do I think there was a woman there with her son, and I think that they had enough at that point.

I think sometimes that people go into these investigations and they think it's going to be spooky and fun, and then something actually happens and they either get very excited or sometimes they just suddenly find a reason to go home early. Yeah, sitting in the comfort of your living room watching the TV shows and seeing that happen. I think it's a lot different for some people, and they don't realize it until it happens to them, right exactly.

I'm remembering because I did just go through the history, but I feel like it's like five hundred feet long. Is that sound about right? Or I think it's five range. Yeah, and now it's been a museum ship at this point for over fifty years, right, Yeah, it came to the Sue in what is when it finally came here, then decommissioned. I believe in sixty six sixty six they've logged over three million miles. If you can just think of the

range that that ship has been through. Oh yeah, and the and here's here's the interesting thing I find about the Valley Camp because old maritime legend is once you name a ship, you don't change the names, otherwise it brings bad luck. But the Valley Camp was actually when it first was built in nineteen seventeen, was the Lewis W. Hill and did not change until nineteen when it was sold. It actually went through a couple of different sales, but

stayed the Valley Camp through the last two sales. But yeah, so the fact that they changed the name through its career I've always found very interesting. Yeah. And now he was like a railroad magnate or something, you know, he was. He was a very famous railroad man, and so I think he did he own it initially? I think he might have owned it initially. Uh that I'm not sure.

That's Uh, I'd have to look into that one. You're talking about Louis Hill, Yeah, because I was going through because obviously when you're researching, like I was first looking at for Valley Camp, and then I realized it had a different name, which you're right, I had not really seen before with a ship, and so then I had to kind of restart and start researching when it was called the Lewis W. Hill, which you know, posed a whole new set of problems because then everything about that

man started coming exactly. Yeah, I mean they were the ship itself was owned by an actual company, the American ship building companies who built it um, So I don't know, he maybe had something to do with the actual company that owned the ship. It was part of a fleet, so maybe he had something to do with it, right, right, A lot of transportation companies were intertwined, get back into lakes and the railways. I could see that. So you had brought up earlier just kind of the general history

in that area. It is very rich, Like I know, having investigated Mackinaw Island a number of times, and things that like the indigenous people, the Native Americans that were there originally. There's so much to that. Do you think that that is affecting the hauntings on the Valley Camp

at all? I think it could just for the same simple reason we've investigated to adjacent properties to that that have both turned out to have activity in them, and just down the road, and and where it's located right on the St. Mary's River next door to it as a huge hydro electric plant, there's so much energy in the area in running water through the same areas river we have right next to it as well are the historical homes which were moved from different parts of the

of the city back in the day. So there's kind of like this perfect storm, if you will, to allow uh energy to be created right where the Valley Camp is. You've got this huge metal ship right on running water, right next to a huge hydro electric plant, next to more historical homes. So you just kind of mix it all up and and and you get this kind of perfect storm for energy to survive. Yeah. Well, I mean I think that regardless of its paranormal happenings, it's a

very interesting place to visit. That whole downtown area is very it's very fun, it's very cute. Not in January or February. The first time we investigated Mackinaw Island, it was January or February, and that was It's one of those times that I look back and I think back on it fondly and I'm glad we did it. But we were on that island for two weeks, and when I was there, I really was not into it. But here's a funny story about that. And I don't know if we've ever shared this with you, Amy over a

beer and a glass of wine. But so, our group, the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society, we had been working with Mission Point Resort, which is the main area you guys investigated for that episode, and we had been talking to Mission Point. We're getting ready to come over to do an investigation. And we were maybe a week or so out and we get a phone call and like, yeah, we just want to let you guys know, have you

ever heard of a TV show called ghost Hunters. We're like yeah, Like, we're gonna put you guys on hold for a bit. We got them coming into film. We're like, gosh, darn it again again. Yes, So they put us off for that moment. You guys came over in the winter, and then in that spring, as soon as the Straits and MCNA opened up, we took the first ferry and they gave us a resort for the weekend. Yeah, it

was an amazing, amazing experience. Yeah, that place. We're going to have to do a whole other episode on MCINA alone because it's a fascinating place. There's a lot going on in the u P. I can see why you guys have like a full on paranormal team going on there. I can see why you have that amazing convention going on there. There's you know, haunts wise, there is no shortage. You would never know that. And then also there's all kinds of like UFO things going on up there too.

So there's a lot of weirdness where you guys are. There really is, and I think that's why Brad and I love us. So. Yeah, a lot ofpted sightings, a lot of upology see monster right. Yeah, I mean it's just we've got a little bit of everything up here. And maybe it's the winter that makes us that weird, But I mean I enjoy it, and the people are

always wonderful. Let's talk real quick about the convention, just because I want people to know we are investigating the Valley Camp during the Michigan Para con This year's of the second time we've done it. Adam Burry and I will be doing a private investigation there with people who want to join. So just tell them about just the convention and how they can find you guys. Yeah, it's August two. This will be our twelfth annual. Should have been the thirteenth, but COVID bumped us a year. Yeah,

and all of the info we're still updating. We're still getting new speakers in new workshops, new galleries. You can find it all at m I paracon dot com and m I as in Michigan, So m I paracon dot com. It's wonderful. I mean, I think I've been for the last ten years. I think there was one year I couldn't make it. I even was there, hugely pregnant one year. Yes, yes you were, Yes you were. You had to be escorted around to make sure maybe that she didn't decide

to come then. And yeah you remember that that that was dedication, Yeah, it was, it was that was my I was my last event before I tucked myself away and waited for that child, who ended up being like two weeks late. You know, she's so but now she's nine, which is so crazy. So I think, actually, I'm going to bring her with me this year and we're gonna try to make I think we're gonna make a little vacation out of the whole thing and do Macanon. That

would be fantastic. We would love to have her there. We we you know you you share so much of her on social media, so we feel like we've watched her grow up as well, and it would be great to have her there and she can we can remind her that she was here at one time in mama's belly, and but now she gets to experience it. Amy. I just want to take a quick second to thank you. Though in the intro you would mentioned that you know, m I Para Con is one of the most respected

out there. That means a lot to us. We've worked hard over the years to make it that way. We know there's a lot of things that have done wrong in the field with stuff like that, but thank you for those words because that means a lot to us. Yeah. Absolutely, I love all the work you guys are doing with the team with the book with the Para coron, Like you guys are always up to something, so yeah, I know seriously, and I know what kind of trouble you

guys can get into. So well. Thank you so much for taking the time and I super appreciate it, and I will be seeing you guys soon this summer, Yes you will, so as an honor, Amy, thank you for having us, of course, anytime. Before we go, I did want to point out that in n Gordon, Lightfoot composed and recorded the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which obviously was done to commemorate what happened with that ship.

Now that I know so much more about it, it is a particularly haunting tune, so if you have some time, give it a listen. I know, so far on Haunted Road we've tended toward more well known haunts than say the Valley Camp, but it's nice to take a stroll off the beaten path every once in a while and discover something new. Plus we get to learn a lot of history. Not to mention the Valley Camp poses all sorts of questions and theories about what causes a haunting.

Certainly high strangeness and history, so round It and the Edmund Fitzgerald Lifeboats may have everything to do with what's going on there or nothing to do with it, but I find that sometimes putting places like these into the public eye often brings forth some answers. So regardless, a trip to the Sioux should be high on your list of destinations in the US, just maybe not in February,

as I learned, unless you're extra adventurous. So maybe I'll see you all there this summer though, until next time, I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. If you want to join us on a spooky vacation, please check out my company, Strange Escapes at Strange dash Escapes dot com. Also, new episodes of Kindred Spirits are currently airing on Travel Channel on Saturday nights at ten ninth Central or streaming

on Discovery Plus Special. Thanks to Lake Effect Living dot com, Sue St Marie dot com, the book Uber Natural Haunts by Tim Ellis, Fred Blair and Steve Laplant, and the Chippewa County Historical Society of Michigan for making great resources for today's episode. Haunted Road is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show

is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Research by Taylor Haggerdorn, Amy Bruney and Robin Miniter. For more podcasts from i Heeart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.