Haunted Canada 9 Read online

  The man checked out, wishing he could leave his memories behind like a forgotten piece of luggage. Unsurprisingly, this proved as difficult to do as falling asleep in a haunted hotel room, and he carries those memories with him to this day.

  BESSIE’S MISSING BODY

  Carcross, Yukon

  Archie Lang, manager of the Caribou Hotel, felt like someone was watching him. It was the middle of the night and he had been asleep in one of the upper floor guest rooms when he had been awoken suddenly — not by a sound or a touch, but by a sickening feeling in the gut.

  As he opened his eyes, he discovered he truly wasn’t alone. There was a woman in the doorway staring back at him. When she saw that Archie had spotted her, she sped to the foot of his bed.

  Archie sat up in shock and couldn’t figure out why Agnes Johns, the hotel’s chambermaid, had snuck into his room in the dead of night.

  “Agnes?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Agnes didn’t answer. Agnes didn’t move. Agnes, Archie quickly realized, wasn’t actually Agnes. The woman in his room was someone else. Someone he didn’t know.

  Archie bolted out of bed. This seemed to startle the woman, and she turned and raced out of the room. Desperate to know who she was and what she was doing, Archie chased her to the top of the stairs. She raced down, her feet not making a sound on the old, creaky steps. He reached the bottom in a flash, but the woman had disappeared.

  Confused and a little uneasy, Archie went back to bed. The next morning, as he was preparing the restaurant for the day, his friend Johnny entered the hotel. Archie told him about the mysterious woman who had visited him in the night, describing what she looked like and how oddly she had acted.

  After a moment of silence, Johnny said with certainty, “You just described Mrs. Gideon.”

  The macabre reality of Johnny’s statement took a minute to sink in. Bessie Gideon was one of the previous owners of the hotel. She had died nearly forty years earlier, in 1933.

  After the Klondike Gold Rush exploded in 1896, many prospectors travelling from Alaska into Yukon stopped to rest in the town of Caribou Crossing before continuing on to Dawson City. Caribou Crossing was a key hub for mail delivery and telegraph communications, and from 1898 served as a station for the White Pass and Yukon Railway. The town’s name was shortened to Carcross so that it wouldn’t be confused with similarly named towns in western Canada and Alaska. One of the oldest remaining structures in Yukon, the Caribou Hotel was built in Bennett, British Columbia, in 1898. As Carcross grew, Bennett became a ghost town. In 1901 the original owner, W. H. Anderson, floated the hotel up Lake Bennett to Carcross and renamed it the Anderson Hotel.

  Two years later, Anderson sold the hotel to “Dawson” Charlie, one of the first two men to discover gold near Dawson City, for a reported $9,000. Charlie remodelled the hotel and changed the name back. He fell from a bridge and died in 1908. And that’s when Bessie Gideon entered the picture, a picture she has refused to leave.

  She and her husband Edwin leased the hotel from Charlie’s estate, unaware that tragedy was just around the corner. A fire broke out in 1909 and destroyed the hotel. Faced with the choice to cut their losses and move on or rebuild, the Gideons chose the latter option. The new hotel opened in 1910.

  Bessie died in the hotel just days before Halloween in 1933, which was coincidentally eight years to the day after her husband had died. She was buried beside him in the Carcross Cemetery … or so everyone thought. But a 1998 cemetery survey was unable to locate her grave, leading people to wonder what became of Bessie’s body. And if she wasn’t buried with her husband as per her wish, did that explain why her spirit has been so restless and troublesome?

  During World War II, when the U.S. Army had temporarily taken over the hotel, Bessie repeatedly turned on an old army cooking stove late at night. More recently, Bessie has been known to knock on people’s doors and disappear. Her footsteps have been heard creaking across the upper floors at all hours. She has turned on lights even when the electricity was completely shut off for renovations. Multiple people have even reported that she has added bubbles to their baths.

  Bessie is often seen staring out of the second and third floor windows of the hotel, watching people pass by on the street. Those who see her ghost sometimes also see a second ghost perched on her shoulder: Polly, Bessie’s beloved parrot.

  Polly came to the Caribou Hotel in 1918, when Captain James Alexander asked Bessie to look after his pet while he and his wife sailed south for the winter. Bessie agreed, but Captain Alexander didn’t return. The Princess Sophia, the ship he had sailed on, ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef. There were no survivors. Polly remained in the hotel and long outlived Bessie, dying in 1972 at the ripe old age of 126. During his life he became famous for singing opera, drinking whiskey, biting people’s fingers and shocking guests by squawking bad words at inappropriate times. Although Bessie’s grave can’t be found in the Carcross Cemetery, Polly’s grave is situated there in a place of honour with a beautiful bronze marker. An elaborate funeral, with dignitaries attending from Whitehorse and beyond, followed the parrot’s death.

  In 2015 Canada Post unveiled a special stamp that portrays Bessie looming large above her beloved hotel — dressed in her finest clothes, her hair beautifully styled atop her skull. In September of that year, shortly after the stamp’s unveiling, owner Anne Morgan welcomed Bessie’s great-grandniece, Janette, to visit. The hotel was under renovation, but Anne offered to give Janette a private tour. She wanted to show Janette the owner’s suite on the second floor, the room that had been occupied by Bessie long ago, but a board screwed to the wall blocked the unfinished staircase. Anne went to retrieve an electric drill so that they could go upstairs.

  The ghost of Bessie Gideon with the Caribou Hotel on a 2015 postage stamp

  From the next room, Anne heard Janette call loudly up the stairs. She was calling Bessie’s spirit, explaining who she was and how they were related.

  For a moment, silence, and then — Bang! Bang!

  Bessie had knocked twice on the wall, loud as a drum, on the second floor.

  Anne took a moment to compose herself and then returned to Janette. Bessie’s distant relative was shaking and pale. The tour ended then and there, but Bessie’s haunting of the hotel hasn’t, and it likely never will.

  THE ASP

  Ottawa, Ontario

  The fourth floor attic of Lisgar Collegiate Institute, Ottawa’s oldest secondary school, is legendary among the student body. Kids regularly dare each other to sneak up to it. Few have the guts. Those who do are sometimes locked in the attic by their friends. And what they see up there is often too terrifying to talk about.

  There was a janitor in the early 1940s who had a fearsome reputation. Students nicknamed him The Asp, after the highly venomous snake that was the symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt and used as a method of execution in ancient times. Step out of line, leave behind a mess, or do something you shouldn’t have done, and The Asp would nearly always catch you in the act. He had the uncanny ability to turn a corner or appear out of the shadows at precisely the worst moments, and he wasn’t shy to speak his mind and chastise students. But he was still a valued member of the janitorial team, and was known to be a hard worker who took pride in fixing problems quickly and skillfully. That didn’t endear him to the students, however, who resented him for ruining their fun more times than not. To the students, The Asp was anti-social, old and cranky. He probably wasn’t too happy the fateful day he was sent out onto the roof to clear a buildup of snow and ice.

  Earlier that day, Lisgar’s head girl had been walking outside alone. As she passed beneath the round attic window, a slab of heavy ice broke free from the roof and struck her, killing her instantly. Reeling from the shock of the tragedy, school officials sent all of the janitors out to clear the remaining snow off the roof.

  The Asp stepped onto the roof through a door at one end of the attic. He didn’t make it much farther than that.
The roof was steeply sloped and slick with ice. He lost his footing, slipped, and fell to his death below, landing very close to the same spot where the girl had died earlier.

  The first reports of hauntings soon followed, unsurprising given the tragic and gruesome nature of the back-to-back deaths. Students looked up to catch a glimpse of the girl in the fourth floor window, staring at the world below. It was believed that she was keeping a watchful eye in an attempt to protect others from the same fate. But despite her good intentions, the sight of the young ghost looking down at people from the attic was chilling.

  The surviving janitors complained that the temperature dropped considerably when passing the attic door to the roof, even in the summer when the rest of the school was stiflingly hot. And as they went about their work in the attic, they felt like they were constantly being watched by someone who wasn’t physically there. Over time the janitors learned to avoid the fourth floor late at night, but even those who work on the third floor after the school has closed for the day hear weird, inexplicable sounds coming from the floor above.

  Another odd late-night phenomenon is the sight of balls of light — also known as ghost orbs — floating in the attic. This has been seen by people who live in the area as well as tourists taking part in Ottawa’s Haunted Walk; Lisgar Collegiate Institute is a key stop on the tour.

  In the 1970s the school underwent a large renovation, and an inspector made a startling discovery in the attic. Several electrical fires had started within the walls over the years, but somehow, defying any reasonable explanation, they had all gone out on their own. Whispers started to spread, wondering if The Asp — the janitor who was so dedicated to fixing problems when he wasn’t busting misbehaving students — had saved the school from burning down.

  And those students who were dared to explore the fourth floor only to be locked in by their friends? While many have been too scared to share what they saw, some have reported seeing a dark shadow walk beside them or a wispy figure drifting across the floor.

  Today the area in the courtyard beneath the sloped roof is fenced off during the winter to prevent anyone else from being injured, and the attic is only used for storage. Even if one of the two ghosts who haunt the floor don’t make an appearance, it’s a creepy place filled with old uniforms, discarded laboratory equipment and a human skeleton from the biology lab, all covered in thick strands of cobwebs and dust. And that’s exactly how the school spirits like it.

  Lisgar Collegiate Institute, built in 1874

  SPIRIT CLUB

  Montreal, Quebec

  A young woman had heard the rumours about the nightclub at 1234 Rue de la Montagne, and she needed to see for herself if they were true. Word on the street was that it used to be a mortuary, and that evil spirits dwelled in the basement, the main floor and the attic. Curious, she broke off from the friends she’d arrived with and asked a waiter if she could go up to the attic, just for a moment or two.

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “The attic is off limits.”

  His refusal did nothing but stoke the fires of her curiosity. Before she had been curious; now she was obsessed. As soon as he turned his back and could no longer see her, she snuck up the stairs into the attic.

  Moments later the patrons below heard a terrible scream that was loud enough to cut through the deep bass of the dance music. Since they were on the main level of the club, they didn’t see what happened next. But the bouncers outside at the front door saw it all.

  The woman went through the attic window and landed amid a shower of broken glass on the balcony. Screaming hysterically, she got to her feet and, without pause, threw herself off the balcony. Fortunately, one of the bouncers was able to catch her, possibly saving her life. She kicked and screamed and tried to break free, so he dragged her into the club to stop the scene from getting worse. He also didn’t want her to hurt anyone, including herself, more than she already had.

  Laura, a bartender who worked at the club in 2005, when the shocking incident occurred, was there when the woman was brought inside. The woman continued to scream at the top of her lungs non-stop for what felt like an eternity. Her words were gibberish and nonsensical, but what was very clear was that she had seen something truly terrifying, something that made her snap and nearly lose her mind. Finally the police and paramedics arrived. With a great deal of effort, they managed to get her onto a stretcher and wheel her to an ambulance, but she didn’t stop screaming for a second. Laura began to wonder if the poor woman had been possessed.

  1234 Rue de la Montagne in 1899

  The rumours the woman had heard were absolutely true; the nightclub used to be a mortuary and it is, by many accounts, haunted. Built in 1859 as a private residence that was first owned by David R. Wood, a wealthy businessman, and then by Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, a politician and father of Canadian Confederation, the grand building was converted in 1902 into the Joseph C. Wray & Bros. Funeral Home. It served this purpose until 1970 when the company moved to a new location, and 1234 Rue de la Montagne sat abandoned for eight years before being purchased and converted once more, this time into a high-end nightclub. It has changed management and names many times over the years, causing people to wonder if each owner has been scared off the premises by the spirits who refuse to leave after the bar closes.

  The worst of the ghosts — at least in physical appearance — is a woman who has been seen in the bar area on the first floor. Late one night during renovations in the 1970s, construction workers saw a large ball of light — a ghost orb — float through the air toward them. They called the owner to complain, admitting they were too scared to continue working in the building at night, but he laughed it off and dismissed their concerns. A few other people had mentioned to him that the building was haunted, but he hadn’t seen anything himself and didn’t believe any of the stories he’d heard. All the same, his curiosity was piqued, so he visited the club late one night, partly to see how the renovations were progressing but mostly to prove that nothing unusual was going on.

  The door was locked and all of the workers had gone home by the time he arrived. The building was completely empty, or so he thought. There was a woman in a black dress standing by the bar with her back to him. He approached cautiously, not wanting to startle her and also a little concerned that she had gotten in. He took a seat at the bar beside her and opened his mouth to ask her if she needed any help, but she turned around before he uttered a word. When she faced him, he nearly fell to the floor.

  The woman in the black dress didn’t have a face. It looked like her skin had been removed. Horrified and revolted by the gruesome creatures standing before him, he turned and ran out of the building as fast as he could. And he never returned, opting to sell the club to someone else instead of seeing the renovations through to completion. It’s fitting that the name of the first club to open its doors was Club l’Esprit, which means Spirit Club in English.

  Monica Wizinski, who worked at the club when it was called World Beat Complex, once heard an odd sound on the main floor before it had opened to the public. When she entered the room alone to investigate, she saw a large ball of blue light floating in mid-air, just as the construction workers had seen years before. She watched it for a moment, completely mesmerized, before it shot toward her and entered her body through her outstretched hand. She described the feeling of the light passing through her as crazy and overwhelming, and as soon as it shot back out of her, she was certain that the light had been a ghost. Luckily the spirit didn’t do anything worse to her. Not everyone who has come into contact with one of the ghosts can say the same.

  One night a young patron was washing her hands in the downstairs bathroom when another woman approached her quickly from behind. The new woman was deathly pale and had large black circles under her eyes, but those weren’t the two physical characteristics that stood out the most. Instead, the young patron was most taken by — and terrified of — the thick red scars on her chest in a Y pattern and the fact that she wa
s transparent. She thought it looked like the ghost had had an autopsy performed on her body. Before she had another thought, however, the ghost grabbed her around the neck and squeezed. The patron struggled to break free but was unable to do so. As they struggled the ghost disappeared and reappeared a few times. But even when she couldn’t be seen she could still be felt, her invisible fingers maintaining their vise-like grip around the patron’s neck. Finally, just as the patron thought she might pass out, the ghost let her go and disappeared once and for all.

  During a taping of a French television show called Rencontres Paranormales in 2010, popular DJ and owner at the time MC Mario invited a team of paranormal investigators into the club. He had seen doors slam and heard the voice of a little girl singing, and wanted some answers. The team conducted a séance in the basement, sitting around a table with their palms flat on the surface. After asking a series of questions of the spirits, one finally answered by rocking the table. They quickly established that it was Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt’s first wife. She had spent a good deal of her afterlife annoyed by the loud music because it bothered one of her daughters, another spirit who had remained in the building after death. The group asked if Mrs. Galt would agree to leave the living in peace if MC Mario played a piece of music composed by Mozart at the beginning of each evening. The ghost agreed.

  MC Mario maintained his end of the deal, and no further paranormal activity was reported until he sold the building in 2013. Once the new club opened its doors and stopped MC Mario’s opening ritual, the hauntings returned.

  But what did the young woman who jumped out of the attic in 2005 see up there that caused her delirium? It’s a question that has plagued many people to this day, including others who have entered the attic alone, whether on purpose or by accident. One night not too long after the woman had been sped away in an ambulance, three staff members dared each other to go see the empty room for themselves. After waiting for a few tense minutes in silence, they spotted a shadow floating by the wall. They didn’t stick around to get a better look. They returned the way they had come — and who could blame them?