Haunted Hotels and Inns Canada: The Prairies

 

Alberta

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

This 129 years old hotel is rich with history, and ghosts. It is a national historic site and has been a shining example of Canadian Hospitality since its inception. The general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, William Cornelius Van Horne, considered constructing a Grand Hotel in the Canadian Rockies when members of his railway staff stumbled upon several mineral springs in 1883.

He immediately set to work to build the hotel, which would one day become one of the world’s most luxurious. He drew up blueprints of the beautiful hotel which would sit on the Bow and Spray rivers. He hired architect Bruce Price to lead the design team who relied on the Chateauesque-style architecture. Construction started in 1886, and as soon as they named it the Banff Springs Hotel, it became one of the top three mountain resorts in North America.

From, 1900 to the 1920s, several adjustments were made to update the hotel. This included the addition of the hotel’s 11-story tower, which was designed by architect Walter Painter. Something significantly compromised much of this work when an accident afflicted the hotel in 1926.

Thankfully, an engineer from the Canadian Pacific Railway, named John W. Orrock, had restored the hotel back to its former glory. He unified the appearance of the hotel, giving it the current facade that it has today. The hotel continued on throughout the Great Depression in the 1930s, and its stature never diminished. It hosted countless luminaries from throughout the world, including King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, when they did the Canadian Royal Tour in 1939.

The hotel shut down in 1942, brought on by World War II, and it did not reopen until the war ended in 1945. However, it took most of the 1950s and 1960s t reclaim its former status of being one of the greatest resorts in the North Americas. Significant changes to the hotel provided it with new life. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the hotel remained open year-round. Offering gets plenty of new winter activities. A decade later, more renovations and expansions took place, providing guests with cutting-edge accommodations.

In the 1990s, the hotel was restored and nicknamed “Castle in the Rockies”. Another expansion followed that included the Banff Hotel Conference Center. In 2011, Canadian Pacific Limited merged with the Fairmont Hotel and Resorts. They then renamed the hotel the Fairmont Banff Springs with over 100 years of hospitality. This popular hotel is thriving.

In fact, it’s thriving so much that several guests have checked in and never exactly checked out.

The Ghosts

• The Bride - She is the most popular ghost in the hotel and dates back to the 1920s. The story has it. She was walking down the marble staircase in her gown when she slipped and fell. Some versions say she tripped on her hem, others say that her dress caught the flame of a candle. Whichever it was, she fell and died on the stairs. Hotel staff and guests alike have claimed they have seen the veiled bride drifting up and down the staircase or dancing in the ballroom.

• Sam the Bellman - Stories of Sam McCauley was head bellman during the sixties and seventies have circulated since his passing in 1975. Sam is a helpful spirit and most of the stories surrounding Sam involve him lending a helping hand to current staff and guests. One story involves two elderly women, calling the bell desk when their key would not work. The bellman was busy and didn’t answer the call for fifteen minutes. Upon arrival, he discovered the door was already unlocked. One woman explained that an older bellman in a plaid jacket—and matched Sam’s description—had helped them. Other stories claim Sam has been seen haunting his old office—now a guest room on the mezzanine floor. As well as reports of seeing apparitions and feeling cold spots on the sixth, seventh, and ninth floors.

• Haunted Rooms – Though staff has not mentioned specific room numbers, they claim several rooms are haunted in the hotel. Guests have reported having their pillows yanked out from under them and even being pushed off the bed. Another room that appears to be numberless has a dark past. Apparently, an entire family was murdered in this room, and guests have reported being woke by screaming only to find bloody handprints on the mirror. It depends on who tells the story, but these hand prints either disappeared before staff showed up or they wouldn’t come off at all.

The Fairmont Hotel Macdonald

This large historic luxury hotel is in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada along 100 Street NW just south of Jasper Avenue. It is in the Eastern End of downtown Edmonton and overlooks the North Saskatchewan River. Ross & MacFarlane designed it and contains eleven floors. They named it after Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

The hotel, which is another Railway Hotel, opened in July 1915. The Chateauesque-style hotel is one of Canada’s grand hotels. It has undergone several renovations over the years and had an expansion added in 1953, but in 1983, the expansion wing was demolished. They sold the hotel to Canadian Pacific Hotels and closed in 1988 for restoration and reopened in 1991.

Before the hotel was there, the area was known as a squatters’ camp. Known as the Gallican Hotel, when Ukrainian-speaking migrants settled there.

The Ghosts

• The Horse – In 1914, when the hotel was still under construction. The workers were pouring the foundation when one of the workhorses dropped dead from exhaustion. Now the phantom horse is said to be heard galloping through the halls on the eighth floor, and sometimes in the basement. The horse is heard but never seen by anyone.

• The Boatman – One guest in the hotel executive suite, has claimed to see the ghost of a man sitting in a wing chair and smoking a pipe. Someone rumored this boatman to be a sailor from the North Saskatchewan River. This was the major route for fur trading and steamboats passed the hotel often in 1913.

• Phantom Phone Calls – The night managers report that sometimes in the dead of the night, they will receive a call from a room on the sixth floor. When they head up to check things out, they find that the room is empty. Once some engineers were working on the sixth floor and discovered that room’s deadbolt was locked from the inside. When they broke into the room, they made a shocking discovery—the room was vacant.

• Phantom Music – In the staff-only area, known often as the Royal Service or sometimes switchboard, a couple of workers who had been working late at night heard a radio playing vintage tunes from the 1950s. Neither of them knew the station, but upon investigation, they found that the radio was turned off. What they didn’t know at the time of the report was that in the 1950s, they broadcast CBC Radio from the top of the hotel as it was the highest point in the city.

Manitoba

Fort Garry Hotel

The hotel opened on December 11th, 1913, and was staffed with a circus magician named Alfred Banyon, otherwise known as The Great Zanzig in 1924. Alfred kept that position for about twenty-two years.

While Bellman Andy Kuhn joins the staff in 1934 and collects his first celebrity autograph in his thirty-two years. In November 1971, a fire damaged the building, requiring 50 firefighters to extinguish the fire. In 1987, Raymond Malenfant buys the hotel and conducts renovations, reopening a year later as a black tie soiree. In 2009, it rebranded the hotel, the Fort Garry Hotel. Richard Bel and Ida Albo have resurrected and rebuilt the hotel for a new generation of guests.

The Ghosts

• Room 202 – The hotel is infamous for its room 202. This is because a woman committed suicide in this room many years ago. She killed herself because her husband was in a car accident. She hung herself in the closet. Inside Room 202, staff has reported seeing blood dripping down the walls, and guests have reported seeing the apparition of a woman in a cloak hovering at the foot of the bed. In 2004, the feeling that someone or something got into bed with her awoke the Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain, twice. A young boy fascinated by Room 202, was granted a wish from “Make a Wish” to stay in Room 202. The boy eagerly took pictures of his trip, and most of his pictures turned out except the ones taken in and around room 202! The woman who haunts room 202, is also said to haunt the hotel lounge. We can often hear her crying in the corner.

• Robed Woman – Employees of the hotel often report seeing a robed woman roaming the halls of the hotel.

• Ghostly Figures – Many staff and guests have reported other ghostly figures. Some guests have reported these ghostly figures at the foot of their beds. Sometimes this figure is a man and other times it’s a woman in a ball gown.

• The Ghost of a Man – On one night in 1989, a hotel employee was working the night shift. He had been cleaning the kitchen, when he was finished he went up the back stairwell and 4AM and heard strange sounds from behind the locked dining room door. He investigated, and when he opened the door, he was astonished to find the figure of a man sitting at a table. By the time he ran and got another staff member and returned to the dining room, the figure had vanished.

Saskatchewan

Moosehead Inn

They constructed the Moosehead Inn in 1960, so it hadn’t had that long of a life. It was a fun place to go for dancing and socializing for teens. The Inn burnt down in 2021 and therefore closed.

The Ghosts

• Poltergeist Activity – Staff and guests have reported heavy doors swinging wide open and slamming shut, items from the bar being thrown, and sometimes vanishing altogether only to reappear in the same place they were left.

• Disembodied Footsteps – There are several reports of disembodied footsteps being heard throughout the building. As well as thunderous bangs coming from nowhere. The source of things bangs were never found, but they were so bad during renovations that the owners called the police thinking someone was in the building.