Strange noises. Objects knocked over. Fleeting glimpses of people who aren't there.

For Kristin White, these were once fairly regular occurrences at her bookshop in Tucker House, a building dating back to the 1750s in St George's.

“We always had strange things happening in there. Seeing flashes of people, seeing items knocked over, weird noises. Just unexplained things,” she recalled.

“It was something we had to deal with regularly. My staff would be like, I can't be here today, it's too much. We would sage. We never felt unsafe or in danger. Even if you're not worried something would happen, you still feel jumpy.”

White, who has been leading haunted history tours in St George's for more than a decade, has come to accept that unexplained experiences are simply part of life in a town with more than 400 years of history.

And she believes Bermuda's remarkably preserved buildings have something to do with it.

“When we look at other historic towns and cities, they don't have the amount of built heritage that we do. They've had fires and wars. Chicago, Boston, New York, they've all had massive fires and wars. St George's hasn't had that,” she said.

“We have the original streets, buildings, et cetera, and they hold energies. The buildings that our ancestors were in, we are in them.”

For White, places where people experienced trauma or unrest may hold on to something of the past.

“When you look at the histories of hauntings, it tends to be in places where there's some reason why the spirit doesn't move on, in places of trauma and unease. Obviously, we've had that in Bermuda.”

The stories that stay behind

Interestingly, White wasn't particularly interested in ghosts when she first began offering tours.

In 2015, she was working with the St George's Foundation at a time when the town was struggling economically.

“We were just a lot of us in the town thinking about what we could do to revitalise St George's. It was during our economic downturn. We lost the ships, businesses were closing.”

She came up with the idea of a theatrical ghost tour called Haunted History.

“At the time, I didn't have any particular interest in ghosts and horror movies. The real reason I did it was because I knew it would be good and attract people to St George's.”

But researching the stories changed her relationship with the town's history.

One discovery in particular continues to affect her.

While researching Tucker House, White came across an advertisement concerning an enslaved woman named Hagar, whose story also appears in Nellie Musson's Mind the Onion Seed.

“I read a book and I saw an ad for a woman who had run away, and it makes me burst out in tears. I would see that ad everywhere. I felt like she was trying to tell me something,” she said.

“I found out that she was enslaved in Tucker House.”

The account has stayed with her.

“I've told the same stories hundreds of times and yet there are still some stories that make me very emotional, make me physically feel like I'm going to vomit, that I feel like I'm going to faint.”

For White, the emotional weight comes from remembering that these aren't simply characters in frightening stories.

“These were real people who lived. They are real lives and heartbreak and trauma. It's like how people will remember us. It's how we are remembering them.”

When history meets the unexplained

White is careful not to claim she knows who, or what, might be responsible for the strange occurrences she has experienced.

“It's important for me to not think about who is haunting a place. I don't think about it that way. I just think there's an energy trapped here,” she explained.

“It could be any of the dozens of people who lived here. I don't know what it was or who it was.”

She has also encountered unexplained happenings elsewhere, including at her former home, while Carter House in St David's has its own reported ghostly photograph.

And then there are the experiences shared by people on her tours.

A few months ago, a visitor sent her photographs taken as White and her cast walked down Church Lane, behind St Peter's Church.

“There were these strange lights on the ground almost following us,” she said.

“There's always so many things, noises. Things happen and you feel like it could be a coincidence or a ghost. We don't know.”

She isn't interested in presenting speculation as historical fact.

“My ghost tours start with what I know to be true. And then I say, well, potentially this is why we have this heightened ghost energy in this area, because this happened in this area.”

That distinction is particularly important when dealing with the darker chapters of Bermuda's history.

“I don't shy away,” she said.

“I think it's the ability of a good storyteller to weave in moments of history, emotion, and I just bring my full self to the story. If it's a story that makes me sad, I'm going to be sad when I tell it. If I find it humorous or strange, that comes out.”

More than ghost stories

White now offers two experiences: Ghost and Folklore, a walking tour for private groups of four or more, and Haunted History, a larger theatrical experience featuring costumed performers for groups of ten or more.

Both can be booked by inquiry through her website.

Some visitors arrive equipped with ghost-hunting devices, hoping to detect something supernatural. White is happy for them to bring their equipment, but has no intention of joining the investigation.

“I'm not out there like, are you there, speak to me,” she laughed.

“If a ghost spoke to me, I would pass out and hit my head on the tombstone and that would be that.”

Despite the unexplained encounters, White's motivation remains the same as when she launched her first tour.

“The reason I do ghost tours is the same reason I do regular tours. It's because I love the stories and I want other people to love them too.”

And whether visitors believe in ghosts or not, she hopes they'll leave seeing St George's differently.

“What I want them to get out of it is St George's is a beautiful place with lots of stories.”