Duluth’s Haunted Ship plays on its lore in last gasps of tourist season — and Forbes likes it

The made-over William A. Irvin got a shoutout on a Top 7 list of “Scariest Haunted Houses.”

The Minnesota Star Tribune
October 28, 2024 at 2:30PM
573513073
The William A. Irvin provides one last big tourism push in Duluth for Halloween. (Provided by DECC) (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

DULUTH – In its last gasps of the tourist season, the William A. Irvin, a nearly century-old ore ship that looms over Canal Park, gets an ominous makeover that builds on its reputation as a place echoing with inexplicable bumps in the night.

This year, its jump scares and lore landed it on Forbes’ list of “7 of the World’s Scariest Haunted Houses” alongside a 160-room mansion in California filled with “occult oddities,” a house built on an old cemetery near Chicago, and a haunted theme park in New Zealand built on the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. The Haunted Ship, as the Irvin is known in October, is open just one more night — from 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Halloween.

“But this isn’t just a manufactured scare factory,” according to Forbes’ scare scouts, who reportedly visited the ship and had the VIP experience — which includes controlling the dialogue of a disembodied skull as visitors stream past. “In 1964, a sailor died on the ship during a boiler room accident, prompting the Duluth Paranormal Society to investigate the ship. Employees have reported seeing unexplained shadows, hearing phantom footsteps, and had objects thrown at them while doing maintenance work.”

The pilot house of the William A. Irvin is covered in cobwebs during October, a stop on the VIP tour of the seasonal Haunted Ship. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The tour twists through the ship’s nooks, crannies and areas specific to its life on the Great Lakes — like a few gruesome dining areas where bloodied limbs are scattered about. There are creepy clowns and Victorian-era beings who stare wordlessly. A sink runs with bloody-colored water and a skeleton sits in a muddied bathtub surrounded by its innards.

The VIP experience offers a chance to roam through the ship’s living quarters alongside an ethereal character in the role of Irvin’s second wife. She sashays through the space with tales from the past, then allows you entry into private spaces where a saw blade rests in a sink and a body meant for the morgue vibrates with electrical waves on a bed. It offers a chance to dip into the pilot house, where wheels and gears are draped in cobwebs, offset in the opposite direction by a fresh perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge.

The view from the Haunted Ship offers a new perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)

There are countless dark corners for jump scares, strobe lights and tight spaces with hidden exits. There is a place designed to trigger claustrophobia. And there are mind-bending questions: Is that a person in that chair or isn’t it? Who is making that growling-moaning sound? What is that smell?

The final question is answered at the exit of the ship, where there is a running tally of how many people haven’t been able to finish the tour (90 as of Friday night) and how many have wet their pants (35).

How many people have opted out of the Haunted Ship? (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

Christa Lawler

Duluth Reporter

Christa Lawler covers Duluth and surrounding areas for the Star Tribune. Sign up to receive the new North Report newsletter.

See More

More from Duluth

card image

The Crosby-Ironton junior guard ranked by ESPN as the 43rd-best recruit in the nation for the Class of 2026 decided to stay in Minnesota for college.