Halloween’s Gaelic roots are palpable on Cape Breton and reach back to Ireland and Scotland. In Gaelic, the evening of October 31 is “Oidhche Shamhna,” the night before Samhain, the traditional start of winter in the Celtic year. Samhain marked a threshold when the world of the living and the “Sìth”—the otherworld—drew close. That sense of a threshold still shapes the mood today: fog over the fields, wind in the spruces, early darkness, and the soft crackle of leaves—as if the world paused for breath.

Historically, Samhain included hearth and protection rites. Fire played a central role: communal bonfires were kindled, old flames were extinguished and rekindled from the new—symbolically restarting the winter half of the year. House blessings, small offerings to the “good neighbors” (fairies), and gathering for stories, songs, and dances helped people cross consciously into the darker season.

A key motif was dressing up—“guising.” Children and youths went from house to house in disguise, reciting rhymes or songs and receiving small gifts. Disguise served not only for entertainment but also as protection—if you’re not recognized, mischievous spirits can’t “catch” you as easily.

The famous pumpkin lantern is a North American development; in Ireland and Scotland, hollowed-out turnips with candles were used first. As Gaelic communities emigrated to the New World, the customs adapted. Pumpkins were plentiful, larger, and easier to carve—the shift from turnip to pumpkin was practical and visually appealing. Games like apple bobbing, lots and fortune-telling for the “story season,” and simple harvest/love oracles were part of it as well. In many places, Samhain practices later blended with Christian traditions around All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day into what we now call Halloween.

Why does this background feel so alive on Cape Breton? The island has been a major center of Gaelic language and culture in North America for centuries. Music, step-dance, storytelling, and a strong culture of local associations have kept seasonal thresholds like Samhain from becoming mere “spook nights”; they remain cultural anchor points. In rural communities where houses are far apart, door-to-door has naturally shifted into central gatherings in schools, community halls, or libraries—the core is the same: people meet, talk, laugh, show costumes, and keep the old idea alive of stepping together across the threshold into the darker season.

Here, Samhain isn’t dust from history but a quiet foundation beneath the modern haunting season—you notice it in the ease with which fire baskets, lanterns, music, and shared food fill the evenings. When we drive past lovingly decorated porches today, we’re not just seeing plastic spiders and gravestones but a long line of storytelling traditions that traveled with people—from the Gaelic Atlantic arc, along settler routes, to Cape Breton’s wind-open hills. That our haunting season plays out more in central meeting places than on tightly built streets isn’t a “deviation” but an adaptation—in the spirit of an old threshold time that always took the here-and-now seriously and turned what exists into something communal.