Northlandia: Why Duluth is one of America's spookiest spots

DULUTH — Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence have been friends and collaborators for decades, touring across the country to meet readers of their popular series of books on spooky science. The story of their partnership could have happened anywhere, but it happened here. Coincidence?

"There are no coincidences," said Hafdahl, standing in the Great Hall of the St. Louis County Depot.

"We are believers now," confirmed Florence, standing next to her. "We're more Mulder than Scully now."

"The X-Files" played a pivotal role in bringing Florence and Hafdahl together in 2000. Florence was a student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and Hafdahl was still in high school, volunteering at the St. Mary's Hospital gift shop.

"I was in browsing, and I was wearing an 'X-Files' T-shirt, and all she had to say was, 'Hey, I like your shirt,'" said Florence, recounting a tale that's now been told many times. "It was like, boom! Another fan. Exchanged emails, and the rest is history."

Today, the two are nationally known for their series of books exploring the intersection of science and horror.

"Our best-seller is 'The Science of Stephen King,'" said Hafdahl. "People who love Stephen King are voracious for anything about him."

"Our personal favorite, that we were Bram Stoker (Award) nominated for, was 'The Science of Women in Horror,'" said Florence. "We like to lovingly call it our feminist manifesto."

While promoting their, to date, six "science of" books, the authors have traveled across the country. Those road trips led to their latest collaboration, "Travels of Terror: Strange and Spooky Spots Across America."

Cities covered in that book include Salem, Massachusetts, New York City, Los Angeles and — of course — Duluth.

"This is a hidden gem for spooky things," said Florence about the Zenith City.

"That huge, enormous lake just screams 'lake monster' to me. It has a very creepy aesthetic," said Hafdahl. Add to that Duluth's proclivity for preserving its historic architecture. "It feels like this sort of wonderful place where all this history happened — and where history is, ghosts are."

Among the authors' sources was "History Hailey" Eidenschink, the Depot's cultural coordinator. Earlier this month, Eidenschink stepped away from her desk to join Hafdahl and Florence in revisiting some of the former train station's supposedly haunted spots.

"When you have a history degree and go to work in a museum, you end up being linked with a lot of paranormal investigator people who want to come see the building after hours," said Eidenschink, standing in a former shower room that's now home to a St. Louis County Historical Society exhibit.

In that room, investigators of the paranormal "seem to get good readings on their devices," said Eidenschink, who shared a story about a woman who felt a mysterious touch while up on a ladder, and produced a photo of the room that showed a seemingly inexplicable blur of light.

"We both have been skeptical about ghosts," said Florence, "but after we did this travel book, we are believers now. We saw some things, we felt some things."

"I love everybody who marches to the beat of their own kazoo," said Eidenschink, praising Florence and Hafdahl. "You can find what you're passionate about, and make it happen."

Florence is originally from Cherry, and now lives in Duluth. "My first-grade teacher told us the story of Bigfoot, and a lot of kids were spooked by that. I was like, 'I'm going to go out in the woods and find this dude.' Ever since then, I've just sought out scary things."

Hafdahl "grew up all over the place" and moved to Duluth at age 12. "I went to East High School, I went to UMD, and I, like Kelly, was just fascinated with anything dark and spooky." She currently lives in Rochester, Minnesota.

The duo's first shared writing was for the stage, starting when Florence was tapped to direct a show for her alma mater Cherry High School. Their plays ranged from romance to Westerns but touched, inevitably, on speculative subjects.

"One was called 'Attack of the Killer Cophrages,' giant cockroaches that invaded the world," said Florence. "Then we also wrote one called 'Little Green Men,' about an alien invasion."

Their next project was a podcast called Horror Rewind, which has now been running since 2017. "We were talking about the horror movies that we loved and were watching, the books we were reading, TV shows," said Florence. "We're like, we should start a podcast!"

Research for the podcast led to the "science of" book series, and now "Travels of Terror." One of the Duluth ghouls mentioned in that book is a "Tall Man" who's been spotted in the Great Hall. Eidenschink walked the authors over to a handprint supposedly left by that supersized ghost on a wall high above an elevator door off the hallway to the Depot's performing arts wing on the Michigan Street level.

"Oh, creepy!" said Hafdahl.

"It's a little bit too big (for a human hand), too," said Eidenschink.

"Yeah, it is," agreed Hafdahl. "It's definitely the Tall Man."

"When we started going on book tours, we would naturally always try to find spooky places," said Florence during the earlier interview. "What's the hotel that's haunted? What's the best horror-themed bar or restaurant in town?"

In addition to the Depot, "Travels of Terror" points Duluth visitors to spots including the William A. Irvin, Enger Tower, and Nopeming Sanitorium. Depot Square, in the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, has a barber chair retrieved from the sanitorium, Eidenschink pointed out.

Peering into the window of the museum's barber shop display, with its array of vintage scissors and straight razors, Eidenschink mused that "if there was such a thing as a haunted barber chair ..."

Hafdahl finished the sentence. "That's got to be it."

In the wider region, there are plenty more eerie landmarks, the authors noted. "Wisconsin is home to a couple of prolific serial killers," observed Florence.

Hafdahl, who also writes fiction, has a short story called "The Pit" in which a girl lures a detested caretaker to a flooded Iron Range ore mine. "Go swim in an old ore pit," advised Hafdahl. "You'll feel creepy."

Although "Travels of Terror" took the authors into supposedly haunted real-life spaces, their comfort zone has long been among the fiends of fiction.

"I like that feeling of being scared, but I'm not going to go ride a roller coaster, necessarily, to do it," said Florence. "If I'm in a movie theater or watching a TV show or reading a book, I can feel scared in a safe way."

"We're all interested in the darker things, and some of us like opening that door a little bit more than others," Hafdahl observed. "There is so much to love about horror, and I think that one of (those things) is seeing somebody prevail, seeing that that person get away from the monster."

In Duluth, the authors and their fans might imagine, there are monsters to escape around every corner.

"It's a lot of woods, and there's a lot of weird things that go bump in the night," said Eidenschink. "We're right where the forest meets the largest fresh body of water in the world. It feels like there's got to be weird stuff on both ends that rubs up against itself."

Florence and Hafdahl will be leading their own hair-raising tour on Oct. 1, when they kick off their "Travels of Terror" book tour with an event hosted by the Bookstore at Fitger's.

"If you buy a book, that's your ticket for the walking tour that we're going to take you on," said Florence. The tour will explore part of downtown Duluth, with "some surprises along the way."

Florence reminisced about one of the first extended conversations she and Hafdahl ever had, in Duluth shortly after they met. "We were talking about some deep things," she said to her collaborator, "and I'm like, 'I believe in fate.' You're like, 'Do you believe in ghosts?', and I'm like, 'Maybe.'"