"It's up to you to believe it or not," said Aman Johal, as he raised his glass-sided lantern.

Johal, an interpreter at the Fort Langley National Historic Site, led a preview of this year's Grave Tales tour through the village and its cemeteries.

Along the way, he told tales of fur trade rivalries, ghostly girls seen peering out of windows, gruesome frontier surgery, and lost loves.

The tour takes visitors from the Fort itself down Glover Road, one of the earliest thoroughfares in the community.

One side of the road was largely owned by the Mavis family, and the site of Alexander Mavis's original home - and his grave - are among the first visits on the tour.

Johal spins the story of how Mavis decided, at age 80, to fix some shingles on his roof, fell, and hit his head. The injury led to increasing rages and bouts of amnesia that ultimately turned into a bloody attack.

Several graves in the pioneer cemetery on Glover Road are toured, including the final resting place of a Hudson's Bay Company man who ran into a nasty accident with some blasting powder in the Haida Gwaii islands.

The accident didn't kill him. but it did lead to a distinctly painful surgical procedure for the trader.

Across the street from the cemetery is the home of Benjamin Marr, Fort Langley's first resident doctor. Long after the Marr family left the place, it gained a reputation as one of the most haunted buildings in B.C., said Johal.

A girl in white has been seen running down the stairs and peering mournfully out the back windows.

While much of the tour is taken up with stories of spooky happenings, Johal also deals with a lot of very real B.C. history, from the rivalry between the chief factor of Fort Langley and Governor James Douglas, to the burial customs of local First Nations people, to the role of Hawaiian traders in the early settlement.

For instance, Glover Road was originally called Smugglers Trail, after gold miners from the United States used it as a route to get to the Fraser River while avoiding a blockade at the mouth of the river.

The name was changed later to make it more respectable.

Johal also brings up the fact that many of the Fort's early pioneers have unmarked graves. The grave sites are roughly known, but the wooden markers from the early 1850s have rotted away.

Tour tickets are $15.10 and can be purchased online at www.vtixonline.com or by calling 604-513-4777. Annual pass holders at the Fort save 20 per cent when booking by phone.

Tours run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 6-28, at 7, 8, and 9 p.m.

A special French version of the tour will be offered Oct. 18 at 7 p.m.

Tours are designed for ages 17 and up. One youth tour will be offered on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m., suitable for teens.

Visitors are encouraged to bring their own lanterns, to add to the ambience of the walk.

mclaxton@langleyadvance.com