Harriet's Haunted House

Harriet L'Orsa lived in this house, the one her parents built on the Telkwa-Moricetown Highroad in the 1940s. She passed away at 90 in 1987, and since then, many people who've lived here have had some strange encounters. Even while she was alive, there was an unsettling feeling about the place.

Sherry Wertz remembers Harriet, in her eighties, talking to people no one else could see. She’d scold them for not using the doors to come inside, and Sherry would just go along with it, saying hello to Harriet’s "friends."

Joe L'Orsa, Harriet's son, told Sita Then that his family's farm was on a "thin spot," a magnetic line where our plane of existence and another could cross. He explained that his mother was always surrounded by people from this other plane and treated them as real. He believed Smithers, his home, and the Babine Mountains were all directly on this line.

Tenants who lived here after Harriet died reported objects moving on their own. A teapot left on a table might be found in another room, or a doll would appear that didn't belong to any of the children. Others heard children playing outside. One man who initially dismissed the stories reportedly left after spending just one night.

Sherry and Sita, who never spoke to each other about these experiences, had remarkably similar stories. Sherry recalls a cold, snowy December night when she and her daughter Megan were staying with Harriet. Between two and three AM, she heard men talking and banging noises, like heavy metal objects being loaded, right outside the kitchen window. Harriet was asleep in her room, and when Sherry turned on the outside lights, no one was there.

Sita also described a winter night when she and Ron heard loud noises, like two men talking and unloading empty metal milk containers, from the parking area behind the house. They rushed to the back door, but saw nothing through the glass. When they checked the living room windows, there were no tire tracks or footprints in the fresh, sparkling snow.