The Ghost of Dunvegan Bridge

Happy Hallowe’en, Spirit River!  Here’s one last local ghost story:

Everyone has heard of her, vaguely.  The story is like a ghost itself, dim and diaphanous, glimpsed sometimes in the imagination and then disappearing like a curl of mist.  Let’s see if we can make it stay a little longer.

In the winter after the bridge was completed, in November of 1960, two men were driving through the valley.  It was a snowy night, very dark and cold, and they drove with extra care.

When they reached the middle of the bridge, they were astonished to see a woman, leaning into the swirling snow with her head bent inside a hooded cloak.  The cloak may have been warm, but certainly her bare feet were not.  The men slowed to see if she was in trouble, but she showed no sign.  She did not acknowledge them.

Worried about stopping the car on the bridge, the men continued to the opposite shore to find somewhere to pull over.  Then one stepped out in the wind and snow and trudged back to where they had seen the woman, calling to her as he approached.

There was no one else on the bridge.  The man had followed their fresh tire tracks through the snow all the way, leaving his own footprints, but there were no one else’s footprints either.

The woman could not have been there, and yet both men had seen her.

Determined to see her again, the two returned on several subsequent nights, bringing more friends with them.  They concentrated their efforts on the bridge, but when they finally spotted the figure again she was part way up one of the hills.

She appeared to be standing knee-high in the snow, picking berries.  That’s when the witnesses knew for sure that she must be a spirit.

There is another story of the Ghost of Dunvegan Bridge with even fewer details.  It is said that a man from Spirit River had an encounter with the ghost woman, but it frightened him so badly he would never speak of it to anyone.

Other people must have seen this ghost because she is often described as wearing something more like a habit than a hooded cloak.  That is why she is often depicted as a nun.  But why should a nun, from Dunvegan’s distant past, haunt a bridge constructed in the late 1950s?  Why should anyone haunt Dunvegan Bridge (except that it must be a lovely place to walk most evenings)?

Do you know more about this story, or any other ghost stories from the Spirit River area?  Please tell us through Town Spirit!  townspirit@hotmail.com

If you liked this story, check out Ghost River I and II!