Driving a stake through the vampire story of Wilno, Ontario
How digging into a supernatural tale helped these filmmakers discover a small town's identity
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Mike Smaglinski, who grew up hunting and playing hockey and broomball in the Ottawa Valley, says he was at first puzzled to hear of something supernatural in his hometown.
"I find it intriguing. It's silly … because I'm kind of a big horror movie fan. So I immediately gravitated toward this story," said Smaglinski, mentioning the story of Wilno, Ont., and its population years ago of "a couple hundred."
"I saw an article in the Ottawa Citizen and at the time, I just thought it was cool that the Ottawa Citizen knew where Wilno was because we never get mentioned anywhere, right?"
As he started digging, he was surprised to discover years of newspaper articles — all stemming from a 1972 report by Slavic folklorist Jan Perkowski — particularly since he had never heard anything about vampires in the tight-knit community.
He visited Library and Archives Canada to read the original, which tells of — among other things — residents warding off the fanged creatures by digging up graves and cutting off the heads of corpses.
"It was sort of crazy … It sounds like [Perkowski is] just trying to create a story — some kind of sensationalized story so that he can further his career or something," said Smaglinski.
'It's all bullcrap'
David Shulist is more blunt.
"It's all bullcrap," said the co-founder of the Wilno Heritage Society, adding he has also never heard anyone mention vampires.
Historian and former resident Joshua C. Blank looked into the report's claims as part of his master's research and later his book.
"Perkowki's work is not well-researched. It's not contextualized. And he totally misread the community and his informants," said Blank, who teaches history and law.
"He took a lot of the words from residents and twisted them."
When his findings were published, they made headlines across the country and were even brought up in Question Period on Parliament Hill.
The condemnation residents felt had a lasting impact, making residents wary of speaking to external researchers, something Blank has dubbed "the Perkowski effect."
"There was a lot of hurt in the '60s and '70s when this work came out, and still to this day, " he said. "Unfortunately [the vampire story] has survived and the true stories haven't come out."
'The real Wilno'
He says residents today want to be known for something different.
"There's much more history, much more rich traditions in the area," said Blank, pointing to the large number of artists, the jet fighter and Avro Arrow test pilot who lived in Barry's Bay, the perogies at the Wilno Tavern, as well as Wilno's Polish Kashub Heritage Museum.
"That's what we want this community to be known for and not something that's made up and supernatural."
Shulist said he is "sick and tired of this [vampire nonsense]." He helped launch a heritage day to celebrate local culture, including dancing, music, and language learning.
"I'm going to redirect this thing to the positive. I want people to focus on the real Wilno — who we are," said Shulist.
Kashubian Discovery
For Shulist, that means being proud of a heritage he only discovered later in life: being Kashubian.
Kashubia refers to an area in what is now called Poland with its own language and traditions. Many of Wilno's settlers immigrated from there in the mid-1800s in search of land.
According to Shulist, the arrival of a Polish priest in the 1870s led to the town identifying as Polish, despite confusion when Kashubian speakers struggled to communicate with Polish visitors.
"We were always told that we were Polish and that we were of Polish heritage. And even the language that we speak was the Polish language," he said.
"We found out later that [Kashubian] is a language, a Slavic language that stands on its own."
Shulist has since visited Kashubia 13 times, and during his time as the mayor in the Ottawa Valley, established a twinning agreement between the two regions.
Kashubian and Polish?
For others, including the most recent president of the heritage society, it's important to celebrate both the recently revived Kashubian identity and the Polish heritage many grew up with.
"This is who our ancestors were. This is who we are," explained Peter Glofcheskie.
Blank, Glofcheskie's nephew, agrees but also understands why some residents have conflicted feelings around Polishness. He says one reason was tension created when a wave of wealthier Polish arrived and built cottages in the area post-war.
They called what they spoke "high Polish" while the often working class locals spoke a dialect called "low Polish."
"Over the years, socioeconomic status fuelled a lot of [the tension]," he said. "Only recently … have a lot of those bridges been mended."
Though the town bears a plaque designating it "Canada's oldest Polish community," the heritage museum's website "celebrates Canada's unique Polish Kashub cultural heritage," while the building itself bears a sign saying "Welcome to Canada's Kashubia."
Digging deeper
It's clear frustration remains over how the town's story has been told.
"If you're looking at a vampire story, basically our identity was sucked right out of us," said Shulist. "Sometimes the journalists and media are the vampires because they like to spread that falsehood, because it makes great television."
"But it's not fair to the people of Wilno, because that is not our history," Shulist told filmmakers Tys Burger and Josh Murphy, who created this video for CBC Ottawa's Creator Network.
Burger and Murphy, both horror buffs, had heard about vampires growing up in nearby Pembroke and were intrigued to dig into the valley lore. They say they uncovered a tale at once more complicated and richer.
"On paper … there's this vampire story. But if you dig deep enough, you'll get at the heart of people, you'll get at the heart of this town," said Murphy.
Smaglinski, who at this time of year often returns home for the annual festival, calls it a chance to celebrate the town's own story and cultural identity.
"It has created a sense of pride in the community, just having a better knowledge of where they come from and what their ancestors were like before them."
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