Victoria's Most Haunted

by Ian Gibbs

  I was able to speak to a number of the servers at what is now the Guild. They have had a startlingly high number of experiences in the building. One woman, Laura, told me she often hears someone walking around in the back staircase. Laura knows it is a male presence, and she often hears him ascending and descending the stairs when she is the only one in the restaurant. One of her most upsetting moments back there was when she walked into the stairway and happened to look up. She saw a man hanging from the landing, as if he had committed suicide. She backed out of the stairwell, and now avoids it as best she can. While she still hears the footsteps, she has never seen the hanged man again.

  Another server, Julia, had a unique experience. One night she was waiting for a group to leave and actually fell asleep in the upper room they use for private parties. Unbeknownst to her, when she awoke it was three am. Not only had the group left, but the restaurant was shut and locked down. No one else was in the building. It appeared the other staff had forgotten she was up there. As she struggled to wake up, she could hear voices downstairs, all male. “Oh no,” she thought, “they’re still here?” Julia figured she had better get down stairs or they might never leave. She reached the top of the stairs and realized that all of the lights were out. When she walked down the stairs, she knew then that it was much later than she had thought and the restaurant was in fact empty. The voices continued, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to be distinct. Julia began walking toward the back of the restaurant where she heard the voices, but just before she reached the back, the voices stopped. By this time—it felt to her like hours had passed rather than minutes—she knew something strange was going on, so she got out of there as quickly as possible. At other times she has felt extremely uncomfortable in the basement storeroom, an experience she shares with the other servers.

  The last server with whom I spoke shared a few of the same experiences. But along with the fear of the storeroom, the sounds of someone climbing up and down the stairs, and customers complaining to her about feeling watched or uncomfortable downstairs where the washrooms are, Carrie had her own unusual experience in the building. One night after the restaurant closed, she was rolling cutlery into napkins for the next day. She was alone in the dining room area and became aware of a presence beside her, watching what she was doing with interest. Carrie didn’t look up, but saw in her peripheral vision that it was a man in a black blazer. She could see the stitching on the arms as he was standing quite near her. When she looked up, no one was there. There is no doubt in her mind about what she saw. She believes that her place of employment not only serves great food, but it is also profoundly haunted.

  When I went there with Dawn Kirkham, founder of Beyond Belief Paranormal, we shared some appetizers and spoke of what we felt in the restaurant. Dawn picked up on a formally dressed male who was leaning in and very interested in our conversation. She also picked up on a female presence who was dressed as if she worked in a shop in the early 1900s. I looked up at the wall beside our table and there was a picture of the building. It had been home to a retail establishment at one time, so it was nice to see some confirmation. Neither of the presences were particularly intrusive, but they were both there and fascinated with what was going on. Dawn and I agreed that the Guild is definitely home to more than one spirit.

  THE KEG

  THIS RESTAURANT IS housed in one of the oldest buildings in Victoria. It was built right beside the front gate of the old Fort Victoria. One interesting thing about the Keg chain of restaurants is that no matter what city they are in, they always seem to pick haunted old buildings for their locations.

  The restaurant at the corner of Wharf and Fort Streets certainly had some ghostly issues before undergoing renovations in the early 2000s—shadow people in the kitchen, perfectly set tables being messed up, and unexplained noises in an otherwise empty restaurant were pretty standard experiences for the staff at the Keg—but once the renovations started, it riled up whatever entities were in there.

  Renovations or major changes to any building seem to lead to increased activity in the spirit world. No one is sure why, but it may be because spirits dislike change of any kind. Perhaps it’s because they don’t understand what’s going on.

  A friend of mine once started some major renovations on her house. She was aware that she shared her home with some spirits, but they generally got along. As the renovations progressed, the entities became more and more agitated and began doing things that were disruptive and even a bit dangerous, such as turning the stove up to maximum when she was cooking dinner, hiding car keys, slamming doors in the middle of the night, and scaring the cat and dog. Soon they were messing with the contractors’ tools and causing so many disturbances that the contractors refused to stay in the building. For the first (and so far the last) time, she addressed the ghosts and said out loud: “Look, I know you’re not happy with the work that’s going on here, but this house needs to be changed to suit the family. If you keep up with this foolishness, we will have to sell it and then who knows who you will get in here. So, let’s agree that you will stop all of this activity, we will finish the renovations as quickly as possible, and then we can all go back to normal.” She then left the house and went to the store. When she came back, she said the house felt calmer and she was much more relaxed. The renovations continued on without a problem and things settled into the normal routines with the occasional bump and thump every once in a while.

  The good people running the Keg unfortunately were granted no such respite. As renovations on the restaurant continued, the spirit activity ramped up. More shadow figures were seen, and not just in the kitchen anymore; they were also seen in the restaurant dining room. Things in the kitchen came off the shelves; the pots hanging on racks clanked together when there was nothing to move them. In one case, a full wine glass shattered spontaneously at a table. (The servers moved the startled couple to a new table without admitting anything unusual had happened.) Glasses would move around on their own, and set tables weren’t just messed up: cutlery and napkins from place settings were found under the tables that they were supposed to be on. One of the most upsetting things for the customers was getting locked in the bathrooms when there wasn’t even a way to lock the bathroom door. The door would just stick closed. No amount of hauling on it would move the door until whatever was holding it closed decided to let go.

  Once the renovation was over, things seemed to settle down again—well, as settled as they get. They still see shadow people passing through the kitchen, which was built directly in the original gateway of the old fort. The shadow people don’t seem interested in what’s going on around them; they’re just spirits going about their day.

  No one in the service industry seems too bothered about the ghosts that haunt Victoria’s restaurants. Most of them have at least one story to tell, but it’s generally understood that we share the buildings we use today with those who came before us. It’s so common downtown that it isn’t that big of a deal, but it is great news if you’re into ghosts.

  FAN TAN ALLEY

  THE RICH STORY of Fan Tan Alley is about gambling, prostitution, drugs, and eluding the police. It is also about love, hate, betrayal, and murder. The only thing it’s missing is rock ‘n’ roll. Fan Tan Alley is officially the narrowest street in Canada. It was designated as a heritage property by the City of Victoria in 2001. It is a significant part of Victoria’s Chinatown—one of the oldest Chinatowns in Canada. Victoria’s Chinatown was born out of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858. Thousands of Chinese immigrants came to British Columbia expecting to strike it rich. But like many other gold rush hopefuls, most did not, and many Chinese immigrants ended up in Victoria.

  The original purpose of Fan Tan Alley, which runs between Fisgard Street and Pandora Avenue, was pretty straightforward. Gambling-den owners were looking for an answer to the question of how to grant access to gambling, opium, and prostitutes, but provide limited entrance to law enforcement. Their solution was an all
ey so narrow that only one or perhaps two people could enter it at a time. As you walk down the alley, you see doorways on either side, which in those days led to passages that cut through the buildings to grant you access to any vice you were looking for. These passages had multiple doors and turn-offs. The alley itself had wooden gates at either end and gatekeepers decided who was allowed in and who wasn’t. At the first hint of trouble, individual gambling dens could be secured; patrons and staff could be hidden away or hustled out alternative exits through the buildings quickly and effectively.

  Now, the illicit gambling dens are all gone from Fan Tan Alley, but there is still a resident from that time making his presence known. He is not a spirit that sits still. He runs fast and without regard for anyone in his way. The spirit of Chung is still running for his life.

  This story begins in May 1889. Chung was a seventeen-year-old boy who spent a great deal of time in Chinatown. He worked as a servant in a hotel, where he had a small room, a few blocks away from Fan Tan Alley. On one of his trips through Chinatown, he happened upon a young woman named Yau (Yow).

  Yau was not just any young woman. She was the most beautiful woman in all of Chinatown. Her owner, and yes, I mean owner, Yip Tang, had purchased her in San Francisco. He paid a huge sum of money for her. Anyone who met her would have agreed that it was a bargain price, no matter the sum. Yau was brought to Victoria for one purpose: to be a human advertisement for Yip Tang’s brothel. Yau’s job was to sit in the lower window of the brothel, also referred to as a sing-song girl house, and try to tempt men in. She would converse flirtatiously with and sing to the men she saw on the street. Yau was not only stunningly beautiful, she was also the best singer, the greatest conversationalist, and she spoke several languages fluently. In essence, Yau’s job was to get attention. Once she had their attention, she would invite the men who she had enchanted into the house to meet her sisters. As a sing-song girl, she had it pretty good: she didn’t have to entertain gentlemen one-on-one on a regular basis; she was the window dressing to sell the goods inside. Yau was clothed in beautiful gowns and fed the finest meals, and she genuinely enjoyed talking to people and performing her songs for admiring audiences.

  Unfortunately for the shy and gentle Chung, no one had filled him in on how sing-song girls or brothels were supposed to work. When Yau began to talk to him, flirt with him, and pay more attention to him than any other woman ever had, he fell deeply, madly, and truly in love with her. He believed she must feel the same way about him because of the attention she lavished on him.

  What happens when there’s a teenage boy and a pretty girl? Usually a great big glass of stupid. Unfortunately for Chung, stupid is exactly what he became when it came to Yau.

  Chung came up with a rather ridiculous plan. As he passed Yau’s window, she greeted him with a smile and a flirtatious wink as usual, but rather than bask in her beauty and make small talk, he revealed his passion. Chung stood in front of the window and boldly declared his love for Yau. He asserted he knew she felt the same way about him. Then he approached the window and asked her to marry him. He promised they would leave Victoria, go to Vancouver, and make a new life together. Yau did the best she could to explain that it would never be possible: Yip Tang would never let her go. She had to decline his offer. Surely Yau would have dealt with this sort of situation before, and surely this same explanation had been sufficient, with no one getting their feelings hurt. This time, however, it did not work. Yau had gravely miscalculated Chung’s feelings for her and the passion he was sure they shared.

  Chung returned the next day and Yau greeted him as warmly as ever, thinking that their situation was plain to Chung. He approached the window and put a small vile of poison into her hand. Chung told Yau that all she needed to do was put it into Yip Tang’s food and he would die. Then they would be able to run off together and be married and happy. The thoughts that must have gone through poor Yau’s mind! At this point, her professional veneer cracked. She must have been a bit frightened by this young man who was willing to kill to be with her. She began shouting at him in the street: “No! Why would I ever go with you, a poor, penniless servant boy? Do you not see all I have here, the food I eat, the clothes I wear? Even if I were free to marry, I would still never choose you. Go away and never come back to my window again!” Yau closed the shutters and slammed the window shut.

  Chung was shocked and deeply humiliated. He had been shamed in the street. Soon everyone would know of his rejection and failure. It was more than he could bear so he cooked up a rather gruesome plan to regain his honour.

  Chung had a friend who worked in a fish processing plant. He convinced his young friend that although Yau had rejected him, all she really needed was a chance to talk to him away from Yip Tang to see how much she loved him. Then she would be willing to marry him. He told his friend that all he needed to do was distract Yau because she would not speak to Chung. When she was distracted, Chung and his friend would grab her, pull her out the window, and take her to one of the dock buildings so Chung could convince her to marry him. Obviously Chung’s friend must have been quite young and naive to agree to help Chung win over his lady. Kidnapping is never a good way to show the object of your affection you are serious about them. This was, even without what happened later on, a terrible plan.

  Chung stood around the corner of the brothel as his friend began to talk to Yau. She was as enchanting as ever and his friend made sure he stood off to the side so she couldn’t see Chung approaching. When Chung reached Yau, he grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her out of the window. But then, much to the shock of Yau and Chung’s friend, Chung pulled out a sharp curved fish knife. In one powerful motion, he cut off Yau’s head.

  As this happened, everyone in the alley froze in shock. The sound of Yau’s blood spattering thickly onto the sidewalk punctuated the silence, and Chung dropped Yau’s head with a sickening thump. Then he dropped the knife and began to run before anyone else could react.

  Chung reached the entrance to Fan Tan Alley as people began to pursue him. He ran as fast as he could, pushing, shoving, and running, anything he could do to get past anyone else in the alley. Chung kept running until he got to the hotel where he worked, and slipped into the basement. The other people who worked there saw him go into the basement, but didn’t give the action much thought; after all Chung belonged there. But it didn’t take long for posters to go up with Chung’s face on them. Yip Tang was offering a 150 dollar reward—equivalent to more than 3,500 dollars today—for Chung’s arrest. A witness at the hotel came forward and soon afterward the police arrived to search it. They looked through all of the rooms, in cupboards, under beds, everywhere. They had just about given up when they poked their lanterns into the room where the coal was stored in the hotel. They didn’t see anything and went to leave, but, on a hunch, one officer turned around at the last minute and his light caught the whites of Chung’s eyes, which he had opened thinking he was safe.

  Chung was quickly arrested and taken to jail; the outcome of his trial was not in question. There were dozens of witnesses who had seen him commit the horrific crime. When he was arrested, his clothes were still stiff and caked in Yau’s blood. Chung knew what his future held. He decided to speed up the process. He hanged himself in his dark prison cell using his own shirt and the pipe above his head.

  The jailers, not being familiar with and probably not even caring about Chinese burial customs, dug Chung a pauper’s grave and dumped his body in it. The proper way to send someone onto the next life in Chinese culture is with offerings of food, money, and large gongs to provide for the next life and ensure that the spirit knows it is supposed to move on. This would have been doubly important in the case of Chung as no one wanted the ghost of a murderer hanging around.

  It appears Chung was well aware of the missed burial rites as things soon became quite unmanageable both at the hotel where he had worked and in Fan Tan Alley. At the hotel, things became so bad that all of the Chinese workers ref
used to go in. They said they could feel Chung stepping on their heels, watching them, tugging their hair, and tormenting them. The hotel owner was beside himself so he gave them permission to do the rituals that should have accompanied Chung’s burial. Things did settle down some after that. As they learned, by leaving small offerings of food out for Chung on a regular basis, they were spared his fits of anger. When he was angry, people would come in to the kitchen to find food dumped out on the floor, knives spinning off work counters, and stoves either turned up to high or turned off altogether. These things have continued to happen in the kitchens of the restaurants that have been in the space since. Why should the new occupants believe that a century-old ghost would bother them? But once they come in and find the refrigerator door ajar, meals burning, nothing being where it was left, and that horrible feeling of someone being right behind them as they work, they quickly leave out some fruit and a small glass of beer to appease the spirit of Chung, who still thinks he works at the hotel. It does work; the mayhem generally subsides, but the presence never truly goes away.