Fireship of Baie des Chaleurs

The Baie Chaleur Fireship, aka the Chaleur Phantom or the Phantom Ship, is an arc of light that occurs at Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada usually before a storm.

Because its cause is unknown, and because some witnesses claim to have seen an apparition of a three-mast galley ship, local legend says that the light is indeed a phantom ship. There are several stories that explain the phenomenon, ranging from the hauntings of a Portuguese captain to pirates cursed to sail the seas on a burning ship for eternity.

The Legends
In several eye witness reports from early settlers on Heron Island, notably from the Pettigrew family, the ship is most often seen on the north side of Heron Island, during the full moon. In a horrifying account, Mrs. Pettigrew was reported to be on her veranda at dusk during one summer evening in 1878, when a ghostly figure of a sailor appeared at the corner of her farm house, and asked her to help see to his burns. When she turned away from the figure to run inside, it apparently past by her and to her horror she realized it was legless. There have been many origin legends to explain these sightings.

Portuguese captain's revenge
In this version, a Portuguese captain arrived on the shores of Heron Island in Chaleur Bay in 1501. During his second trip to the region to capture more Mi'kmaq natives for slaves, he was tortured and killed by the locals who had bitter memories of his first visit. A year later his brother came looking for him and was also attacked by the locals; their ship caught fire and they jumped into the waters and swore to haunt the bay for 1,000 years.

The victims, both Mi'kmaq and Portuguese, are reported to have washed up on the shores of the island, and were buried in shallow graves at a low-lying part of the island.

Cursed Pirates
A woman from Restigouche tells a version in which a group of pirates killed a woman. With her dying words she cast a curse upon them that "For as long as the world is, may you burn on the bay."

Sailor's ghost
Sailors aboard a ship heading to sea in bad weather feared they would die and blamed their bad luck on one of their own whom they murdered. When the ship caught fire, it was told that it was the ghost's vengeance.