Eerie local tales come to life in pages of ‘Spooky Pacific Northwest’

For accomplished folklorist and author S.E. Schlosser, ghost stories aren’t just reserved for Halloween.

Schlosser has made a name for herself in the folklore world since 2003, when she partnered with the publishing group Globe Pequot to create the Spooky Series – a 33-book collection with each book being dedicated to a certain theme or specific United States region.

This past July, the Pacific Northwest received its first mention.

“Spooky Pacific Northwest,” officially published on July 1, contains 25 stories with origins in states such as Washington, Idaho and Oregon, as well as some parts of British Columbia, Schlosser said.

Being a folklorist, the stories Schlosser writes are not entirely her own, but retellings of the stories she encounters through an extensive research process.

“It’s traveling, interviews, archives – visiting the locations, my own personal impressions of what’s going on there,” Schlosser said. I just fell in love with Oregon and Eastern Washington … There’s a lot of good ghost stories all along there.”

Sometimes, the stories can come from spontaneous interviews.

“That’s how I got the story for Hell’s Canyon,” Schlosser said, referring to one of the book’s stories based in Idaho. “I went out for dinner, and I was the only one at the restaurant. And that guy (there) absolutely knew all the UFO stories from Hell’s Canyon, and had his own personal experience that went into the collection.”

Not all of the stories Schlosser collects come from interviews, however. A large amount is found in archives, with the University of Oregon’s Special Collections and University Archives in Eugene playing a significant role in Schlosser’s research. Anything from a seventh-grader’s typewritten essay on supernaturalism from the 1970s to stories on spiritualism that were frequently published in 19th century newspapers can be found in these kinds of university folklore archives, Schlosser said.

“Sometimes, nobody’s looked at them since the newspaper was published, and sometimes the stories would go through the whole country and every state would end up with their own version, like urban legends – the hitchhiker stories,” Schlosser said.

Although it’s located in Oregon, Schlosser said the Special Collections and University Archives in Eugene contain a great deal of folklore records from various places in the Pacific Northwest – Spokane being one of them.

According to the archive’s website, some of these Spokane-related archives include manuscripts from longtime columnist for The Spokesman-Review in the early 20th century, Stoddard King, as well as a collection of papers from founder of the Spokane Press, George Putnam.

“The people of Spokane have a history of ghost stories (and) of people who are saving something or saving somebody in a bad situation. So I had a plethora of stories to choose from,” Schlosser said. “There’s just the spirit about Spokane where people are very helpful and help people who are in need.”

One Spokane-based story that made the final cut into “Spooky Pacific Northwest’s” table of contents, Schlosser said, is titled “Steak and Eggs,” and dates back to the mid-20th century. In short, the story involves a poor family who comes across a restaurant attached to a motel in an isolated stretch during a road trip to Western Washington.

“After that, they got the car to the motel because they wanted to recommend the place to friends. So they were telling the story all over the place and one of the guys who lived in Spokane said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s no restaurant with that motel, what are you talking about?’” Schlosser said. “The restaurant had burned down several years before (the family) went in and got their steak and eggs. It was a moment where that waitress reappeared in that restaurant to feed these people in need.”

For Schlosser, what keeps her working with folklore after so many years is the way it balances history with humanity.

“Folklore is almost like the old version of social media. It’s where people emote. It’s where people tell stories … It’s how we used to do things, so I feel like it’s the heart of the people,” Schlosser said. “If you have history on one side of a coin, you don’t get the complete picture until you turn it over and you hear how people interpreted the history.”

It’s in those interpretations, Schlosser said, that folktales emerge – whether it’s over a family game of checkers or in the tavern on a late night.

“There are absolutely true stories, including ones from my family and myself in the collection,” Schlosser said. “There’s urban legends that have been passed along so many times, I couldn’t even begin to tell you where they started anymore. There’s regional folktales, there’s Native American folktales and belief stories and wonder stories that are in there that are collected from the tribes. It’s just fascinating, because it’s listening to the heart of the people and where they were at at a certain period of time.”

Schlosser’s love for folklore began far before she started writing it. During her childhood, Schlosser said the fascination was particularly influenced by old ghost stories her father would tell – with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill being some of the most prominent ones.

“My dad used to tell folklore stories out of the old books when we got bored – you know, the squirmy kid syndrome,” Schlosser said. “I’ve been a folklorist as long as I’ve been a writer at this point – probably even longer.”

While in pursuit of a masters degree in library science for information retrieval in 1997, Schlosser unknowingly laid the groundwork for the Spooky Story Series. One of the requirements for the program at Rutgers University in New Jersey was to design and publish a website, which led Schlosser to americanfolklore.net – a website featuring a compilation of folklore stories hand-selected by Schlosser from all over the United States. Globe Pequot found the site and loved it, Schlosser said, and the first book in the Spooky Series, “Spooky New England,” was published six years later.

“Schlosser is a talented storyteller and has guided readers to haunted corners in each area of the country, keeping whispered, campfire folklore alive,” said Globe Pequot’s acquisitions editor, Greta Schmitz in an email. “With a dramatic coastline and cloudy, rainy weather, it was no brainer to create (the Pacific Northwest) its own regional collection.”

While all of the material from the original 1997 website is still there, Schlosser said a current focus has been using the platform to bring older, lesser known stories to light.

“I’ve started specializing now in finding the older stories, ones that are out of print – the ones that are basically only in a dusty archive or were only captured once in a student paper that’s somewhere in some university. So a lot of those stories are now starting to publish out on the American Folklore website, or in the Spooky Series, because I hate for them to get lost – they’re fantastic.”

Schlosser said the books are intended for an adult audience, but that they are still suitable for children aged middle school or older.

“(The books) cross over very well with young adult literature, but the intention has always been for people who wanted to live in the area or go to the area and travel to have these as a companion,” Schlosser said.

Two weeks after “Spooky Pacific Northwest” was published, Schlosser had her 33rd book in the collection released – “Spooky Halloween.” Both books, as well as several others in the collection, are available for purchase on Globe Pequot’s website, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane.