Columbia River folklore — and hauntings — focus of new book

Kitmacher has written and published three books in three years with connections to haunted folklore: “Haunted Graveyard of the Pacific,” a road trip up the northern Oregon Coast and along the Washington coast up to Canada; “Monsters and Miracles — Horror, Heroes and the Holocaust” about World War II and Europe; and now “Spirits Along the Columbia River,” published Sept. 26 by Arcadia Publishing.

The book covers shipwrecks, drownings and nautical superstitions as well as restless spirits of settlers who died on the Oregon Trail — and ghosts reported to have been seen at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River.

Kitmacher is an author, professor, attorney, public speaker and retired senior federal executive originally from Massachusetts and now living in Ocean Park, Wash.

“My wife Wendy and I moved to the Pacific Northwest three years ago from Washington, D.C., where I was a senior government executive (chief human capital officer for the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC),” he said. “I retired after 36 years as a senior executive and manager with FDIC, Treasury and other agencies in D.C. and the west and we wanted to live a more ‘peaceful’ existence, minus the politics and ‘climbing the ladder.’”

But it turns out he doesn’t like to sit still — even with the view of the Pacific Ocean out of their living room window — maybe because along with “author” and “retired senior federal executive,” he’s also an attorney, public speaker and professor; he’s designed and is teaching a course on haunted Pacific Northwest folklore at Clatsop Community College in Astoria and has previously taught graduate and undergraduate courses in human resources, business, government, political science, and Pacific Northwest history and folklore at Georgetown University in D.C., Portland State, and Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen, Wash.

“I’ve always loved researching and writing and have a particular interest in history and folklore — especially ‘haunted’ folklore,” he said. “Wherever I’ve/we’ve traveled, we’ve gone on ghost tours, including in Salem, Mass., Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. (where Washington Irving wrote about the Headless Horseman), New Orleans, and elsewhere.”

But due to the numerous tales surrounding the Columbia River and the Gorge, Kitmacher sees this area as “some of the most haunted places in the country.”

“Some of my favorite stories include the ‘Bandage Man’ of Cannon Beach (a mummy like creature), Shanghai tunnels in Astoria (like in Portland and Seattle), ‘Collosal Claude’ the sea serpent spotted in the Columbia River over the last 75 years, Memaloose Island near The Dalles where Native Americans placed their dead, and ‘Starvation Pass,’ where a train was stranded along the Oregon Trail in the late 19th century due to a blizzard,” Kitmacher said.

The book is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble, as well as local bookstores, museums and other booksellers.