Victoria's Most Haunted

by Ian Gibbs

  Linda, an instructor at Camosun, told me one of the most chilling stories I’ve heard about the Young Building. Linda had taught at the college for more than ten years and had spent a lot of time in the Young Building. A self-professed skeptic, Linda wasn’t in a hurry to talk about her experience, but she was also aware that it was undeniable and she had no explanation for what happened.

  Linda was working late one night and needed to print a document. Unfortunately for her, the printer on her floor was not working. She had to send the print job up to a printer on the third floor, which was situated in an alcove that led to four locked office doors. It was around nine pm and dark inside and out. If you have ever been in the Young Building, you know it’s quite a dark building at the best of times, but it was certainly darker that night as Linda climbed the stairs to the third floor. She walked through the doors to the third floor, turned left, and made her way to the printer.

  It was quiet up there. Linda knew she was the only one on that floor, if not in the whole building. When she got to the alcove, she noticed her document wasn’t completely done printing. She stood waiting, facing the printer with her back to the hallway. At that moment, she felt someone breathing on the back of her neck. At the time she had long hair, so someone would have to have been quite close for her to feel their breath on her neck. Linda turned on her heel to find she was still completely alone. As it was cold outside, no windows were open and the hallways were heated only with radiators; there was no other source of airflow. Linda gathered her papers and went straight back to her office, where she collected her things and left for the night—distinctly unsettled and less skeptical than she had been before.

  And then there was Alan, who was twenty-three when he took a job as security guard at Camosun—a job he kept for only one year. On the night he quit that job, he responded to a “triggered alarm” at the Young Building—something had set off the motion sensors. This happened quite often as the Young Building had a very high incidence of triggered alarms. Alan hated this part of the job. Just after three am, he went to the school and started his round on the third floor, making his way down to the basement without finding anyone else in the building. As he began to walk along the hallway of the basement area, he suddenly knew he wasn’t alone; he felt a very strong presence. “I’m not here to harm you. I just need to check the building,” he called out. At that moment, the basement lights began to turn off, one by one, starting at the far wall and coming toward him. It was a defining moment. Alan turned, walked out of the building, and vowed to never come back.

  There is also the story that a long-time custodian, Norm, told me. He was on the third floor one evening in the middle of the night, attempting to complete the long and arduous task of buffing the floors in the main hallway. As he went about his task, he didn’t notice anything usual. Norm was used to the eccentricities of the building, and wasn’t phased by much. That is, until all of the doors lining the hallway closed at the same time. He took that as a sign, and went to go find something else to do on another floor for the evening.

  Before I began collecting these stories, I wandered the building to see what I might sense. I expected the basement, where the morgue had been, to be the most unsettled, but it wasn’t. The third floor has the basement beat.

  From what I could tell, the spirits in the building, of which there are certainly more than a couple, are generally happy. They enjoy the vibe that is there during the day, and don’t mind having some young, fresh energy around them. As it is most likely that these are leftover spirits from the time when the building was a military hospital, this isn’t that surprising. Young soldiers make young ghosts. However, nighttime is when the college is truly their domain. While they will put up with people being around—custodians, instructors, security guards, and the like—there is a much higher chance the spirits will make themselves known after dark. A great example of this is the number of false hits this building gets on its security system; guards are continually summoned to find nothing amiss, but with an alarm to reset, nonetheless. The spirits that have remained in the Young Building are not looking for trouble, or even, from what I could tell, to move on to the next realm. They are simply carrying on with what they’ve always done. If I had to guess, I would say they’ll keep doing so for a while longer.

  ROSS BAY CEMETERY

  THE ROSS BAY Cemetery, the third graveyard to be built in the Victoria area, opened in 1873. It is on 27.5 acres adjacent to the ocean and was named after Isabella Ross, who donated the land for the cemetery. Isabella was a Métis woman, and the first independent female landowner in British Columbia. Isabella’s son was buried there in 1876. Her grave is across the path from his; she was buried in 1885.

  Graveyards are not generally full of spirits because most spirits choose to remain with their families or at the homes they lived in when they were alive. Ross Bay seems to be an exception. I have certainly felt energy when I have gone there. Once I started doing some research, I found I wasn’t the only one.

  One man, a former groundskeeper at the cemetery, had a long and involved conversation with another man, who said he was a former groundskeeper at the cemetery himself. They discussed technical aspects of grounds keeping. The former employee seemed quite knowledgeable and even gave the current groundskeeper some excellent tips on maintenance that hadn’t occurred to him. It wasn’t until a few days later when the groundskeeper mentioned his conversation to a colleague that he learned that the man had died on the job several years earlier.

  A lady in black has been seen in the cemetery, lingering over a child’s grave. People see her walking around, but when they look back, she’s gone. The cemetery is flat, and the only thing obstructing views are the trees, but they are not big enough to allow a person to disappear. The lady in black is not the only person to have been seen wandering around before vanishing; this is a fairly common occurrence at the Ross Bay Cemetery.

  Troy Reid—the same Troy Reid who saw a First Nations construction worker’s spirit at the Empress—had an experience in the graveyard he won’t soon forget. One night he was walking through the cemetery when he came to a mausoleum that wasn’t actually there. The graveyard is officially closed at night to deter vandalism, so perhaps the spirits become more protective after dark. Troy certainly felt this. At the same time he was seeing the phantom mausoleum, he was also overcome by a female spirit that stopped him in his tracks; it was so powerful he couldn’t breathe. Troy was eventually able to tear himself away, and got out of the cemetery as fast as he could.

  Ross Bay Cemetery became the final home for many of British Columbia’s most elite and influential citizens. There are a number of mausoleums in the graveyard that reflect the wealth and stature of those within. The Dunsmuir mausoleum has a substantial energy, as does the McKenzie mausoleum.

  The energy near the Dunsmuir mausoleum is significant and understandable. Robert Dunsmuir was one of the wealthiest men in British Columbia because he struck it rich in the coal industry. Robert and his family were the power people of British Columbia for many years, and they were used to having people do what they asked. They also left their mark on the city: Robert left behind Craigdarroch Castle, and his son built Hatley Castle. People looking to do ghost investigations at the mausoleum have found that their cameras will malfunction when they attempt to take pictures there. Blank screens and shadowed pictures are all that come out, but once you move away from the mausoleum, everything returns to normal. The Dunsmuirs were a pretty stubborn bunch, so I’m not surprised they seem to still be trying to control things from beyond the grave.

  The McKenzie family established their final resting place so the whole family could be together, but one son, who chose to gamble and drink his life away, was disinherited and, when he died, was refused entry into the family crypt. It seems he hasn’t stopped trying to get in. On stormy nights, people would see a shadowy figure slip into the mausoleum itself. This sight became so well known that the family, fearing someone was living
in the mausoleum, had an iron gate installed on the crypt to keep anyone out. However the darkened figure is still seen seeking shelter inside the mausoleum today.

  Dawn Kirkham had a rather startling experience at the cemetery. While never having gone to the cemetery to do an investigation, she was there one afternoon helping out on a cemetery tour, which was a fundraiser for the upkeep and restoration of the cemetery. She says she was accosted by two spirits. One was the spirit of the son of a famous Victoria spiritualist named James, who had died in the war. Though he was killed in Europe, his spirit returned to the only grave marker he ever knew: the one in Ross Bay Cemetery.

  The other spirit was a bit more disturbing. It was an older woman who was clearly insane. This woman was wearing a dirty white nightgown; she had long nails, filthy hands and feet, and wild grey hair. The woman kept yelling in Dawn’s face. She alternated between high-pitched laughing and sobbing. It’s interesting to note that at this point in the tour, the group was very close to where Isabella Ross’s house had been. After her death, her house had been used as an insane asylum. The woman, thankfully, did not follow Dawn around, but stayed where she was so Dawn was able to move away from her.

  Andrew Merpaw, a local ghost hunter, also had some interesting things happen to him in the cemetery. One time he was attempting to do a paranormal investigation, when he saw some glowing orbs in a monkey puzzle tree. He also started to hear church bells. While this was puzzling enough, crows then began to circle overhead. Andrew looked around, and realized that he was standing next to the grave of David Fee, a man who was murdered on Christmas Eve when he was leaving the cathedral after mass. David has also been reported as showing up as a white mist to startled walkers and visitors to the cemetery.

  Other things to look for in the cemetery include the ghost of Isabella Ross, looking out to sea with a sad, downcast look on her face. Something else seems to linger near the largest angel in the graveyard. An older couple, dressed in full Victorian finery, are said to glide through the western part of the graveyard from time to time.

  No matter where you go in this graveyard, there is a chance you will encounter something, be it fascinating and peaceful, or disturbing and anxiety inducing.

  OUTSIDE OF TOWN

  HOTEL ON LOCHSIDE DRIVE

  WHAT HAPPENS IF a family loses a child and his spirit remains, but the family leaves? Loneliness. Overwhelming loneliness and a really terrible night’s sleep.

  This is not the first hotel I’ve stayed in that was haunted, but it is probably one of the saddest.

  In 2009, my wife, Margaret, received a two-night stay at a local hotel chain’s first attempt at running a boutique-style hotel. The hotel was in a large, gracious home on Lochside Drive, which had been built in the mid-1980s. As our son was quite young at the time, Margaret decided she’d take the first night alone, and I would join her for the second. An uninterrupted bath and a solid night’s sleep were too strong an allure to be ignored.

  Margaret will tell you that she doesn’t have much time for ghosts—and the poor woman is married to me. However, I dispute this to some extent based on my observations of her. Margaret is actually very sensitive to what’s going on around her, even if she doesn’t link it to the paranormal. I respect this; we all have boundaries, and she will patiently listen to me tell her the latest ghost story I’ve come across with a smile and a nod, so really, it works. Margaret has been with me for more than one experience of the ghostly kind, so she knows it’s not all made up, but she is not keen to talk about it.

  I spoke with Margaret the morning after her first night in the hotel. When I asked how she had enjoyed her night of peaceful slumber, she responded that she hadn’t. She couldn’t put her finger on why she had such a restless night. “Was it noisy? Did other guests keep you awake?” I asked. Margaret said no. In fact, she was currently the only guest staying at the hotel and the manager/hostess slept in a different building. This restless night’s sleep was unusual for her, but we wrote it off as the result of being in a strange room. We even joked that by now she was probably used to never sleeping through the night, and this was probably why she hadn’t.

  I arrived at the hotel later that afternoon. I was looking forward to this mini-getaway and also to staying in a luxurious boutique hotel. I drove through the gates and down the long, beautifully landscaped paved driveway. The first thing I noticed was a guest cottage close to the driveway. (The house itself was farther back.) It was a single-storey building, long and low, that almost hugged the ridge on which it was built. The main house, now hotel, was a combination of pale stone and beige woodwork with a lot of rectangular windows. Past the house was a large well-manicured garden that sloped gently and invitingly to the ocean and a rocky beach.

  As I pulled up, Margaret and the manager came out to greet me. At first I thought, How fancy, then I realized we were literally the only three people there. Margaret was relieved to see me, and the young manager, Julia, was bright and energetic. She welcomed me in, asked if we wanted anything to drink, and then left us on our own. The interior of the house was unique. There was a large hall just in through the main door, branching left and right. On the right was the largest single room I’d ever seen in a house. It combined a kitchen, a sunken living room, and a dining room. The wall facing the ocean was entirely made of glass, and the view was spectacular. There were a few other rooms down the right-hand hallway, but they were bathrooms and storage rooms. Down the left hall were several doors angled away from the hall, which were the bedrooms. Margaret took me down to our room so I could dump my bag. Already I was feeling something quite strong.

  The farther we went down the hall, the more pronounced the feeling became. As soon as I had entered the house, my Spidey senses had gone off, but I couldn’t yet identify why. As we moved down the hall, it was like getting closer to a light bulb; the sensation intensified. When we got into the bedroom, I dropped my bag and said, “I’m really sorry, but I have got to see what else is in here.”

  “Oh,” my wife said casually, “there’s a swimming pool at the end of the hall, but that’s it.” I was impressed there was an indoor pool, but at the same time, a little voice was triumphantly saying, “Aha!” I knew that whatever it was—or I should say whoever it was—was going to be in the pool area. I asked Margaret if she had already been in the pool, which she had. Margaret is an excellent swimmer and really loves the water, but she admitted that she hadn’t stayed very long in the pool. She wasn’t sure why, but the pool made her uncomfortable. Huh, I thought, sounds like my kind of pool!

  As much as I wanted to get to the pool straightaway, as I exited the room and turned right, the feeling became even more pronounced and seemed to project down the hall. Odd. I began almost inching my way down the hall, stopping outside each of the other bedroom doors as I passed them. When I was within three doors of the pool entrance, I became overwhelmed by emotion. It seemed to be blasting out of the pool area and was incredibly powerful. It was a feeling of sadness, misery, and confusion. I was freaked out. I had never encountered anything like this before. Its sheer power and presence was terrifying, yet there was nothing scary about what was coming out of the pool area.

  I made my way slowly to the door to the pool and pulled it open. I walked halfway around the pool and almost felt like crying. There was a boy, around seven or eight years old, in the pool area. In fact, he never left. This child spent most of his time crying and pleading. I got some pictures and knew he had drowned, but I couldn’t figure out why he was still here and so upset. As a guest, wouldn’t he have moved on? I had certainly not heard anything about a child drowning at the hotel, and I was pretty sure that would have made the local news. I tried to communicate love and peace and comfort to him, but he was oblivious and just so sad. I didn’t even make it all the way around the pool before I turned and headed back to the room.

  Once in the room, I gave Margaret my usual detailed report with enough scope for her to really appreciate it. “There’s defini
tely something there,” I said. “Yeah, I figured,” she responded glumly. We spoke no more of it.

  That night we headed out for dinner with the joy that only new parents set free can feel. As we drove back to the hotel, we were both looking forward to a good night’s sleep in a fancy bed. As I turned up the darkened driveway, the sense of sadness began to settle over us. Somehow I did not believe a solid rest was going to be had in this place, no matter how beautiful and luxurious it was.

  Unfortunately, I was proven correct. Throughout the night, I was woken many times. The emotions were very strong and there was no reprieve. Margaret was woken many times, too.

  When morning finally came, we got up, showered, and headed to the kitchen, where breakfast was to be served as part of our room package. There were two other couples in the hotel now. One sat in the dining room, the other out on the deck. Margaret and I sat at the breakfast bar overlooking the stove where Julia was cooking breakfast.

  Here came the tricky part: How could I bring up the fact that something had happened in the pool area without freaking her out, or even worse, having her clam up? Once a hotel is old and established, many enjoy a resident ghost. But if a hotel is just starting up, it does not need that kind of stigma. I proceeded slowly, asking if she was the only staff here. There was a gardening team that came once a week, but otherwise Julia was the only staff, responsible for the front desk, cooking, cleaning, bartending, and hosting. I asked a bit about the house. Julia was very forthcoming, explaining it was one of three grand houses the owners of the local chain had bought to try out the concept of boutique accommodation.