HAUNTED CANADA 🍁 Ghosts, Hauntings, and True Crimes
Episode 14 - Three more Gh👻st Stories from across Canada 👨🚒 The Haunted Capital Theatre, Moncton, NB 🫎 Haunted Caribou Hotel, Carcross, Yukon 👰 Banff Spring Hotel. Banff, AB
Episode 14
3 more Ghost Stores from across Canada
1. The Haunted Capital Theatre. Moncton, NB theatre 🎭
2. Haunted Caribou Hotel. Carcross, Yukon🫎
3. Banff Spring Hotel. Banff, AB 👰
Episode 14
3 more Ghost Stores from across Canada
1. The Haunted Capital Theatre. Moncton, NB theatre 🎭
2. Haunted Caribou Hotel. Carcross, Yukon🫎
3. Banff Spring Hotel. Banff, AB 👰
Welcome to Haunted Canada. Hi everyone, my name is Nadine and welcome to episode 14 of Haunted Canada. Before we get started, I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who is supporting this podcast. I truly do appreciate it. If you want to continue to support the creation of this podcast, please follow us, share this podcast with a friend and in the show notes there's also a link to show your support On this episode.
Speaker 1:We're going to venture across Canada for three more spooky ghost stories. First, we're going to start in Moncton, new Brunswick, and delve into the historic and haunted Capitol Theatre. Then we're going to venture to car-cross Northwest Territories to talk about the haunted Caribou Hotel that includes the ghost of a parrot. And then we're going to finish off in the historic and extremely haunted Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, alberta. In the heart of Moncton, new Brunswick, stands a historic structure shrouded in a veil of mystery and intrigue, known as the Capitol Theatre. Its imposing figure casts a long shadow over those who dare to pass by it, whispering tales of a bygone era and ghostly visitors that linger within its walls than its walls. The Capitol Theatre was built in 1911 from the ashes of its predecessor, the Dominion, and next to its sister venue, the Empress, in a time when vaudeville shows reigned supreme. Yet amidst all the glitz and the glamour of these performances of the past, a dark shadow was cast upon the Capitol in 1926 when the theatre caught fire. The fire originally began at the attached theatre, the Empress, but soon spread quickly to the Capitol Theatre.
Speaker 1:When the fire began, the local fire department was called and the volunteer firefighters did a valiant job trying to put out the flames to save the historic structure. The local fire department was made up mainly of volunteers from the community, and one of those volunteers was a man by the name of Alexander Sandy Henderson. Lindsay Sandy, as he was known by, lived in the area with his wife Emily and their son John. Sandy worked for the Canadian National Railway as an advertising agent, while also serving as a volunteer fireman as a salvage corp member of the Moncton Fire Department. When the fire broke out on the evening of March 1926, sandy bravely went to the theater to try to salvage some of the important items from the flames. Yet as Sandy was making his way into the burning section of the Capitol Theater, he was beneath the stage and as the flames grew higher, the heat and the choking smoke became more and more intense, with a piece of the wall and the roof of the stage collapsing, falling on top of Sandy, knocking him unconscious, and sadly he died just a few hours later in the hospital. To this day, he is still the only Moncton firefighter to have lost his life while on active duty. Hanging inside the Capitol Theatre today is a black and white picture of Sandy on the wall with a memorial plaque opposite the ticket booth recognizing him for his bravery during the fire of 1926.
Speaker 1:To this day, many believe that it is Sandy's kind and friendly presence that has remained behind at the Capitol Theater, still wandering throughout the building watching over everyone. Staff who work at the theater and actors will often see the presence of a tall man in a historic old fireman's uniform walking throughout the theater. On many occasions actors will think that it's a fellow actor in a costume until they take a second glance and Sandy has then vanished. Other actors who are on stage rehearsing for performances have said that when they look out in the audience that they will often see a man in an old style fireman's uniform sitting in the middle row, just smiling and watching the rehearsal, while on other occasions, when actors are standing in the wings waiting to walk onto the stage, they'll suddenly feel a cold presence all around them. Many believe that it is Sandy, making his friendly presence known throughout the Capitol Theatre still to this day. The Capitol Theatre was eventually reopened just seven months after the fire and was redesigned as a movie theatre, referred to back in the day as a cinema showing silent era films and black and white movies, and it has evolved over the decades into a historic and magical theater that it is today.
Speaker 1:Besides Sandy's spirit that is still present in the historical theater, a more delicate and elusive apparition lingers the ghost of a young girl, her laughter still echoing throughout the empty corridors. Legend speaks of the young girl's untimely demise on the stairs of the old Capitol Theater. Apparently, back in the 1970s, a young girl was running down the old staircase to the concession stand to get some popcorn when, sadly, in her excitement, she tripped and fell down the staircase, breaking her neck and dying instantly. The staff and the visitors at the theater today will often speak of hearing the sounds of a young child laughing and whispering, while others will get the feeling of a phantom breeze that dances all around them in the stairwell, a chilling reminder of the girl's restless spirit, while other staff report witnessing a young girl standing behind the ticket counter, which used to be the former concession stand. Staff say that as they begin to walk closer to the girl behind the ticket counter, that she begins to laugh and then just disappears right in front of them. On other occasions, employees and visitors of the theater will often see that young girl in a white dress just skipping in the hallways. Everyone who has worked at the theater over the last hundred years still believe that it is the spirit of the young girl who so tragically died after falling down the stairs and that it is her spirit that has remained behind at the Capitol Theatre as a haunting reminder of the lives cut short and the stories left untold. While the Capitol Theatre stands as a beacon of culture and history in the beautiful city of Moncton, new Brunswick, it is well known that within its walls it echoes with the whispers of the past and the ghostly presence of those who still call it home to this day.
Speaker 1:In Carcross, northwest Territories, originally known as Caribou Crossing, is a small, unincorporated town only about 80 kilometers from the city of Whitehorse, on the South Klondike Highway. The historic Caribou Hotel, which looks out over the shores of Bennett Lake and Nars Lake stands as a legendary hotel shrouded in mystery and darkness, with ghostly sightings from one of the original owners going back to the early 1900s and a foul-mouthed whiskey-drinking parrot named Polly. The Caribou is a beautiful hotel, steeped in history, dating back to the Klondike Gold Rush era, and is cloaked in a veil of secrets and whispers that have long been talked about among the locals at Carcross. For many years, the hotel doors have remained shut, sealed from the outside world, until the arrival of some new owners seeking to resurrect its chilling legacy. The new owners, anne Morgan and Jamie Toole, were drawn to the hotel and took on the daunting task of breathing life back into the Caribou Hotel, once grand structure to its former glory, transforming it into a boutique hotel that would house a restaurant and a bar, while also welcoming and working amongst the many ghosts of the past. Miss Morgan is quoted in an article as saying Originally, the hotel was erected in the remote town of Bennett, british Columbia, in 1898, amidst the frenzy of the Klondike Gold Rush, and the Caribou Hotel bore witness to the many turbulent events and the souls that traveled throughout the creaky hallways.
Speaker 1:After the hotel was destroyed by a fire in 1909, it was then rebuilt by Edwin and Bessie Gideon, who had the hotel ferried across the icy waters of Lake Bennett to Carcross, with the three-story hotel changing hand countless times over the years, with each proprietor leaving behind a lingering imprint of its own haunted facade while having their own airy experiences with the many ghostly residents. When the hotel was being constructed in 1909, the man who was building the hotel was a tradesman by the name of WH Simpson. While Mr Simpson was good at construction and building hotels during that time period it would mainly consist of Mr Simpson with his own hammer nailing together the structure of the hotel, and the sound of the constant hammering would echo throughout the community from dawn to dusk. And while the hotel was rebuilt over 100 plus years ago, it is believed that Mr Simpson's spirit has remained behind at the Caribou Hotel, still working and hammering nails into the structure. The current owners have said that when they're in the building in the daytime or at night, that they can often hear the sounds of hammering coming from all over the hotel. People will check in all the rooms on all the floors to see where the hammering is coming from, but nobody can ever find it. The current owners believe that it is, of course, wh Simpson, still working on the hotel that he helped reconstruct over a hundred years ago.
Speaker 1:Legend also has it that one of the oldest ghosts roaming throughout the Caribou Hotel is that of Bessie Gideon, one of the original owners who met with a tragic end. It has been whispered that her tormented spirit still wanders the halls. Bessie Gideon's ghost is known as a restless spirit known to slam doors, knock on visitors' doors in the middle of the night and eerie manifestations of her ghostly apparition that sends sharers down the spines of any who dared across her path. Sadly, bessie Gideon died in the owner's suite on the third floor of the Caribou Hotel on October 27, 1933, just eight years to the day after her beloved husband Edwin had passed away, casting a long and dark shadow over the hotel. Former and current owners and guests have reported that when they're in the hotel just staying for a few nights, that they'll have many unexplained run-ins with Bessie's ghost. People have reported that when they're in their hotel room sleeping at night that they'll often hear knocks and tapping at the door, but when they open the door to check there's nobody in the hallway and as soon as they close the door the knocking starts again, while on other occasion Bessie Gideon has taken it upon herself to visit guests in their hotel rooms while they're sleeping in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1:One documented story that recounted such an event was told by a former manager, mr Lang, from the early 1970s. Mr Lang recounted in an interview that he had many of his own strange experiences while staying at the hotel in the owner's suite on the third floor, the same hotel room where Bessie died in 1933. Mr Lang recounted that while he was sleeping one evening he got an eerie feeling, a sense as if someone was just staring at him while he was sleeping. He said that when he opened his eyes he was startled to see a woman standing at the foot of his bed. Mr Lang, of course, was startled, yet the woman in front of him said nothing and just glared at him. Mr Lang said that he thought it was the maid of the Hotel, agnes, and asked the woman what are you doing in my room, agnes? The woman stood at the foot of Mr Lang's bed and said nothing but motioned for Mr Lang to follow her. Mr Lang got out of his bed and began to follow the woman into the hallway and down the staircase. He said that, since it was such an old hotel that every time you walked in the hallways or up and down the stairs people knew you were coming because everything would creak. Yet Mr Lang noticed immediately that he didn't hear the floor creaking as the woman was walking in front of him and he could hear the creaks beneath his own feet. And as he began to follow the woman down the staircase to the first floor, the woman just vanished.
Speaker 1:The next morning Mr Lang was having breakfast and recounted what had happened the night before with the woman in his room. Everyone at the hotel confirmed to him that he had just had a run-in with the hotel's ghost, bessie Gideon. But Bessie is not the only entity that haunts the hotel's creepy hallways. Bessie's beloved parrot, polly, that has been dead for many, many years, is still heard squawking within the hotel. Polly the parrot is legendary within the Caribou Hotel as a cantankerous parrot that was very mischievous, repeated foul language and enjoyed whiskey. Yet Polly the parrot's story is as interesting as it is strange.
Speaker 1:The Gideons ended up parrot-sitting the bird when the original owners, captain James Alexander and his wife, headed south for a warm winter vacation. Yet sadly the Alexanders would die en route when their ship, the SS Princess Sophia ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef near Juneau, alaska, on October 25, 1918, with everybody on board dying. So the parrot ended up living with the Gideons permanently and not only became a companion for Bessie but became somewhat of an attraction and a bit of a celebrity at the Caribou Hotel, as the parrot would often sing opera, bite fingers, swear and enjoy the occasional shot of whiskey. While Bessie didn't enjoy the foul language coming from the parrot, she did try to convert him by teaching him Bible hymns and songs, and the parrot was so talented that eventually it could sing Onward Christian Soldiers. Polly was so well loved and taken care of that he lived for over a hundred years and was passed down to each new owner. And when the parrot did eventually die at the Caribou Hotel in 1972, it was a sad day for everybody. Polly had a large funeral and he was buried at the local cemetery with a bronze plaque, but it is believed that it is his spirit that still roams throughout the Caribou Hotel, still to this day, as many people can often hear the birds squawking with random curse words in the hallway and the sounds of someone still singing Onward Christian Soldier, of someone still singing Onward Christian Soldier In a macabre tribute to Polly's memory, the current owners christened the hotel's saloon the Surly Bird, a tribute to the historic bird whose antics and swearing left a spooky mark on the Caribou Hotel.
Speaker 1:Even in death, polly's spirit still seemed to linger, a vengeful presence that added to the hotel's dark tapestry of legend and lore. And on many occasions, the ghostly apparition of Mrs Gideon and her bird Polly, perched on her shoulder, can often be seen standing on the third floor window of the owner's suite, the very room where Bessie Gideon died in 1933. It's believed, of course, that Bessie Gideon is still looking down at the patrons as they walk the haunted and historic streets of Carrcross. The haunted history of the Caribou Hotel has become so legendary and famous that it was actually made into a stamp for the Haunted Canada Stamp Series by Canada Post. To venture into the depths of the Caribou Hotel and explore its historic past, not only will you have the pleasure to walk into a building from the Klondike era, you may also have the opportunity to run into some spooky spirits that still reside inside the haunted Caribou Hotel.
Speaker 1:The Banff Springs Hotel, nestled in the Rocky Mountains, is believed to be one of the most famous and haunted hotels in all of Alberta. The Banff Hotel construction began in 1911, and today this luxurious and haunted hotel is in a National Historic Site nestled in a UNESCO World Setting. The historic Banff Springs Hotel has numerous ghost stories steeped in the hotel's history. Yet two of the most famous stories that we're going to venture into today includes the Ghost Bride and Sam the Bellman. And Sam the Bellman.
Speaker 1:The story of the ghost bride dates back to the 1930s, when a young woman was having her opulent wedding in the Cascade Room at the very stylish and expensive Banff Springs Hotel. The beautiful bride spent the morning getting ready and eventually adorned her elegant white wedding dress and veil and walked towards the marble staircase that she would walk up, leading her to the Cascade Room where the wedding was going to take place. As the wedding music began to fill the air, the bride began to walk up the staircase. Each step of the marble staircase was adorned with a lit candle that would have created a warm and beautiful glow that would have flickered off the marble staircase and the wooden railing. As the bride began to take one step after another and began to walk up the stairs, tragedy struck when, near the top of the stairs, her long flowing veil caught one of the candles that was on the marble steps and within seconds her veil was fully engulfed in fire, quickly spreading to the rest of her white wedding dress. The bride was fully engulfed in flames and fell down the marble staircase. Within seconds, the bride that was supposed to be walking down the aisle to meet her groom was now at the bottom of the marble staircase of the Banff Springs Hotel, dead.
Speaker 1:That staircase today is known as the Ghost Bride Staircase, and sightings of the Ghost Bride have been seen on almost a daily basis. Employees and guests of the haunted hotel have seen the ghost bride walking slowly down the staircase wearing her white wedding gown veil covering her face and holding a bouquet of flowers. While other people have said that when they're walking towards the ghost bride's staircase that they'll often get the smell of smoke, and sometimes, when they see the ghost bride, it appears as if her dress is engulfed in flames, people are often startled when they see the bride, but before the apparition reaches that bottom step, she vanishes right in front of them. On other occasions, the ghostly apparition of the bride can be seen in the Cascade Ballroom, the very ballroom where the bride was supposed to be married so many years ago. People will often see the ghost bride twirling and dancing in the Cascade ballroom and throughout the hallways. Also, the ghost bride can be seen in the ladies room which is right next to the Cascade ballroom. Many visitors over the years have reported witnessing a bride inside the bathroom fixing her veil, and when they mention seeing the bride inside the bathroom, many of the staff are quick to let the visitors know that there's no wedding happening that day and that they indeed have run into the ghost bride. The story of the ghost bride is so infamous and famous that it was actually made into a stamp which was part of the Haunted Canada series of stamps put out by Canada Post.
Speaker 1:Another famous ghost story surrounding the Banff Springs Hotel is that of Sam the Bellman. Sam had worked at the Fairmount Hotel many years ago and when he retired he jokingly said that he would come back in the afterlife to take care of all the guests at the Banff Springs Hotel, and Sam was the man of his word. There have been many stories of guests reporting that an older bellman had walked them right to their hotel room through the winding hallways. Yet when they turn around to give the bellman a tip, he has vanished. But it is when the guests are on the verge of departing the hotel that Sam's airy yet helpful presence truly manifests.
Speaker 1:As weary guests wrestle with their luggage, a figure will often materialize at their side Sam the bellman, offering to assist with their luggage. Relieved guests will watch in awe as Sam the bellman gracefully takes her bags from them and says that their luggage will be at the front desk waiting for them. And when the guests head down to the front desk, their bags are there as promised. And when the guests head down to the front desk, their bags are always there as promised. Yet on many occasions the guests want to show their gratitude to the helpful bellman, sam, and ask the front desk person, where they can find him, to say thank you, with a chill running down the spine of the person at the front desk, knowing that the guest just had a run-in with Sam the ghost. The front desk will often tell people that there was no living bellman named Sam who works within the Ban Springs Hotel and that the devoted bellman of long ago who continues to fulfill his vow of service to the hotel he loved. To this day the legend of Sam endures a benevolent ghost roaming the corridors of the Bam Springs Hotel, eternally committed to ensuring the comfort and well-being of its guests. While these are just two of the most spookiest and well-known ghost stories, the Bam Springs Hotel is filled with numerous haunted and historic tales that keeps many guests and ghost hunters returning for more. The Bam Springs Hotel, with its rich tapestry of ghostly tales and haunted history, remains a timeless beacon of the supernatural, a place where the spirits of the past linger forever, haunting the storied corridors with their restless presence.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone, that is the end of episode 14 of Haunted Canada, and again I want to truly thank every single person for taking the time to listen to this podcast. I truly do appreciate it. If you are enjoying this podcast, please take the time to like, follow, tell a friend about it and leave a five-star written review, as that always does help To link to any of our social media. Or if you have any ghost stories that you would like for us to cover on this podcast, please email us through our website, hauntedcanadacom. Again, thank you to everybody for taking the time to listen to this podcast. I truly do appreciate it. Have a good night, everybody, and stay safe. Thank you.