It’s fairly well known that Calgary has many haunted places. Many know about The Dean House in Inglewood and The Prince House at Heritage Park, but did you know that a madam haunts old city hall? Or that restaurants Divino, Rouge, The James Joyce Pub and The Hose and Hound all offer different types of “spirits”? How about the monkeys and horses that haunt the old fire halls? Take a trip through history with the spooky stories of Calgary Ghost Tours.
Ghost tours have been popular around the world. It was in Boston that Calgary Ghost Tours founder Johanna Lane first came up with the idea.
“I had taken some wonderful tours there and thought I would love to take something here. So of course we had nothing. I asked someone and was told, we are in Calgary not Boston and don’t expect any tours about our city,” Lane recalled. “I thought, well, if I am interested, other people would be. It just happened that there was a big event for friends and they said, why not do it for them? So we tried it out on these poor people from out of town and they loved it, so we tried it out to see if people really wanted to do it or not, and they do.”
After a few months of research at the Glenbow Museum and the Central Library, Lane began running tours of Downtown and Inglewood in 2007. This year it has expanded to include the beltline/17th Avenue, Kensington, Union Cemetery, and Banff. As the oldest part of the city, Inglewood has more stories than can be told in the 90-minute tour.
“We haven’t quite figured out what we are going to do yet. We may do two separate tours of Inglewood just so we can fit in the rest of the stories. There is so much great history in Calgary to explore,” she gushed.
Lane is often asked if she has experienced any ghostly happenings on tour. “Not yet, but I really, really want to!” she replied. Instead, it is often the guests that get the experiences.
“I am usually walking backwards and talking too much so I don’t get to see much. We were going to the Dean House and we were on the sidewalk by the river. One of the women in front of me said ‘what about the woman in white?’ and I said ‘We are just going to wait for everyone to get here and hear the story’ and one of the other women said ‘No, the woman in white now!’ She pointed and four people gasped. By the time I turned around it was gone. They swear that they saw a woman pull back the curtain and then let it go.”
The tours have evolved as people have shared their own stories or had their own experiences, such as at the former Bank Nightclub building on 8th Avenue.
“It wasn’t initially on our tour. We were walking across to go to another location and as we walked we had a couple stop and were staring at the window. They said ‘There is somebody up there, we saw a young girl, she looked Native American and she moved from the middle window to the left hand window, to the right window, and we didn’t see her pass the middle.’ No one else had seen it on the tour because they were at the back. We decided to do more research into it to see if possibly there was something and we lucked out because it is hard to research murders and such without exact dates. When it had been a nightclub in the 1980’s, some girls lured a young Native girl down into the bathroom because she had looked at one girl’s boyfriend. They beat her and left her to die in the basement. Perhaps that is her still wandering around.”
In addition to the walking tours, Calgary Ghost Tours has lots of exciting things on tap including corporate events, private tours, and special events, all of which can be learned about on their website. They are also compiling stories for books.
”The first one is more about the historical buildings that we cover and the stories we have had. A second book will be more about people’s own experiences, not necessarily places on the tour, just haunted Calgary. If you have any of your own experiences, please do contact me!”
Taking a Calgary Ghost Tour is unlike anything else in Calgary. It’s an inexpensive evening out that is both educational and fun.
“I like to think of us as an evening’s entertainment. You can go out for dinner and then come see a show. Then you have a couple of hours of entertainment, and you aren’t sitting around, you are out walking and learning and having a great time. If we play our cards right and get a nice night you might just be spooked out.”
Calgary Ghost Tours
403-472-1989
www.calgaryghosttours.com
