AsamiYamazaki said:
You'll have to let me know the stops on the self-guided ghost tour - a friend lived in Vancouver for 5 years so would be great to compare notes!
I got a little sidetracked...like six months sidetracked...but I'm working on this one. I think I want to do some organization and try to track more information on some of the sites. However, after some determined trawling through the internet, here are the edited highlights:
- Gastown in general, where every other building seems to be haunted, and one of the articles I read mused might be the most haunted piece of real estate in Canada. Sadly a lot of the haunted places seem to be upper floors inaccessible to the public. The Irish Heathers pub used to have a haunted restroom, but moved across the street. The Lamplighters Pub has a spirit that plays with the glasses in the bar. The Old Spaghetti Factory has one of the more famous ghosts in the city, apparently attached to the trolley car in the dinner room, and possibly also a 'red man' who haunts the ladies restroom.
- Waterfront Station. It's such a major transit hub it seems odd to find it haunted, but apparently the security guards have reported all sorts of spiritual shenanigans after hours, including several ghostly old ladies, a dancing 1920s flapper and, in one of the creepier poltergeist type stories, desks moving to block the doorway of a room once a security guard was inside. (He apparently vaulted over the desks to escape.)
- Hotel Vancouver. This is probably Vancouver's most famous ghost, a 'lady in red' who haunts the 14th floor. Sometimes the elevator stops on that floor and the doors fly open to reveal the lady gliding down the hall. The hotel has dummy elevator doors on the 1st and 14th floor that are bolted shut, but have been seen to fly open, generally in concert with a sighting of the lady. (I wonder if they'd get mad at you if you rode the elevator up and down all day, waiting for a sighting of the ghost?)
- Orpheum and Vogue Theatres. Not sure if you can get into these theatres unles you're seeing a performance, but both of these old vaudeville theatres are reportedly haunted, the Orpheum by the ghost of an acrobat killed by accident during an act, and the Vogue by a man in a white tuxedo. The Centre for Performing Arts is much newer than either of these, but it has a lot of strange stories dating to its long bankruptcy closure, including ghostly children and a body flying past the window.
- Beatty Street Drill Hall. Phantom footsteps, flying books, unplugged phones, and a ghost seen in the officers mess. As a military building, likely not accessible to the public, but the regimental museum inside is open to the public once a week.
- Hycroft Mansion. Reportedly haunted by its first owner, General McRae, as well as his wife, three WWI soldiers, a nurse, and a crying man that is heard but not seen. Oddly enough, the ghosts seem to hate film crews and become more active when filming is down on the property, especially if they're filming science fiction or horror (the ghosts seemed to especially hate The X-Files). On the other hand, they calm down during parties or receptions. The mansion is now owned by the University Women's Club and is only open to the public on special occasions.
That's the basic list. I've deliberately left off any residences, any buildings that the public can't access at all and any locations I couldn't pinpoint. Then there are some others I'd like to include, but aren't sure enough about. I dug up a couple more haunted restaurants, but only found one source on them so far, so I'm not sure whether the accounts are truth or publicity. I found a reference to the Art Gallery being haunted, but no detail, and although more than one source refers to Bloody Alley in Gastown being haunted, the most detail I've found so far is that it feels bad.
I've also left off any hauntings that are so archetypal I have difficulty believing they're not just urban legends. For instance, there's supposed to be a ghostly hitchhiker on West 16th near UBC, but I'm rather suspicious of ghostly hitchhikers. There's also a story about a ghostly brakeman on the train tracks near Waterfront...decapitated, carrying a lantern, looking for his head... sound familiar? Oddly enough, there's a story from Water Street that runs roughly parallel to that section of tracks about the ghost of a decapitated Asian miner, carrying a lantern, looking for his head...
