These are some of the most haunted places to visit in B.C. this summer

Looking to add a little chill to your summer travels?

From haunted hotels to ghost towns and eerie city blocks, haunted places in B.C. offer the perfect blend of history and mystery, just in time for peak road trip season.

“B.C. is one of the most haunted provinces in Canada,” Ian Gibbs, author of Victoria’s Most Haunted and Vancouver’s Most Haunted.

“There’s history everywhere here. And ghosts are just [people’s] history.”

Lydia Williams, the host of Ghostly Vancouver Tours, agrees.

Her nightly walks through Gastown, the West End, Downtown, and New Westminster are filled with first-hand accounts from guests, guides, and even concierges.

So what are the most haunted places in B.C. that will add some spook to your summer adventures? These are the favourites, from eerie basements to elegant ballrooms:

Waterfront Station (Vancouver)

If you want to stick close to the city, you don’t have to go far to get spooked.

“At Waterfront Station, we talk about the painting in the basement and the strange activity associated with it,” Williams told Daily Hive.

“People react strongly to this particular story. It’s eerie, and it’s so peculiar.”

Williams says her Gastown tour remains her most popular, packed with atmospheric alleyways and stories passed down through concierges, bartenders, and even guests.

“It’s the most historic and ghost-filled,” she says. “Guests love the combination of grit, charm, and mystery.”

She’s constantly updating her tours with new stories. “The best ones often come from people who say, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, but this one thing happened…’ Those are gold.”

This summer, she’s also planning something new:

“We’re launching a mini ghost hunt in the West End,” Williams says. “Details are still under wraps, but we’ll announce it soon on our social media and website.”

She’s also experienced unexplained moments herself.

“Absolutely, and more than once,” she says. “We have felt our hair or clothing being tugged, doors refusing to open, EMF readers reacting greatly and suddenly to unseen forces.”

During the pandemic, she had one of her most emotional encounters while sitting in front of the Angel of Victory statue near the station’s entrance.

“I was feeling a little blue, and I saw a white feather hovering above my head for several seconds,” she recalls. “When I looked back up, it was gone.”

The Empress Hotel

If you’re headed to Vancouver Island this summer, one particular hotel might give you more than just a luxurious stay.

Overlooking Victoria’s Inner Harbour, the Fairmont Empress is one of Canada’s most iconic hotels, and, according to Ian Gibbs, one of its most haunted.

“When I started researching the hotel, the stories just kept coming,” says Gibbs.

“It was like a clown car of ghosts. I had stories for every night of the week, and then people just kept coming forward with more.”

Built in 1908 as part of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s luxury hotel network, the Empress has long been associated with elegance, opulence, and eerie occurrences.

Gibbs says that before its most recent renovations, staff were eager to share tales of ghostly sightings. Guests and employees have reported a variety of unexplained phenomena over the years, from disembodied footsteps echoing down empty hallways to apparitions appearing and vanishing in guest rooms.

One of the most well-known spirits is believed to be that of Francis Rattenbury, the hotel’s original architect. Described as a tall, slim man with a moustache and cane, his figure is said to appear wandering the lower lobby and staircases.

Another frequently cited spirit is Lizzie McGrath, a chambermaid who allegedly fell to her death in the early 1900s. She’s been spotted on the sixth floor, quietly dusting furniture or holding a rosary in her hands.

Then there’s the mystery woman in pajamas, who knocks on doors in the night. When concerned guests follow her down the hall to help, she disappears just before reaching the elevator.

Although Gibbs notes that the Empress’s current management has distanced the hotel from its ghostly reputation (perhaps to maintain its upscale appeal), he believes the hauntings haven’t stopped.

“Some places embrace it, others shy away,” he says. “It all depends on who’s managing the property and what kind of guests they want to attract.”

Still, for many travellers, the possibility of an overnight brush with the paranormal is part of the draw.

A stay at the Empress offers more than just harbour views and high tea; it may come with a ghost story of your own.

108 Mile House (Cariboo)

One lesser-known site that Gibbs believes deserves more attention is the heritage site at 108 Mile House.

During a visit, he and his partner, who is First Nations, had drastically different experiences in the same building, a barn once used to raise Clydesdale horses.

“I saw a figure block the window light, and I heard footsteps upstairs,” he recalls.

“But the guide told me no one else was inside.”

Meanwhile, his partner felt welcomed and safe.

“When we spoke to the site’s executive director, we learned the man who built the barn only employed and trusted First Nations workers,” he says.

“The ghost was friendly to him, but not to me.”

Barkerville Historic Town (Cariboo)

What was once the epicentre of the Cariboo Gold Rush is now a living museum, and one of the most paranormally active places in the province, according to ghost hunters and historians alike.

Founded in 1862, Barkerville Historic Town is home to over 125 preserved heritage buildings and is often described as “a gold mine of ghost stories.”

Paranormal investigators and overnight guests have reported doors slamming shut, shadowy figures moving across second-storey windows, and ghostly voices echoing through the empty saloon and schoolhouse.

One of the town’s most persistent stories is tied to the old barber shop, where the ghost of a Victorian barber allegedly appears in blood-soaked clothing before vanishing, a tale linked to a long-rumoured 19th-century murder.

Staff members have also shared chilling accounts of lights flickering on in locked buildings, unexplained footsteps in the dark, and temperature drops that arrive without warning.

Barkerville leans into its haunted reputation, especially in shoulder season, when the quiet enhances the spook factor.

Fisgard Lighthouse (Esquimalt)

A visit to Vancouver Island isn’t complete without a stop at Canada’s oldest West Coast lighthouse, and possibly one of its most haunted coastal sites.

The Fisgard Lighthouse, which opened in 1860, has stood sentinel through over 160 years of shipwrecks, storms, and isolation.

Though fully automated today, stories persist of a former keeper’s ghost still patrolling the tower, his light sometimes spotted glowing through fog when no one is inside.

Visitors have reported sudden cold drafts, the sound of boots on stairs, and even the feeling of being watched while walking the narrow causeway that links the lighthouse to Fort Rodd Hill.

Williams explains that, “lighthouses are liminal places… between land and sea, life and death. They hold stories.”

Sandon Ghost Town (Selkirk Mountains)

If your summer adventures take you through the Kootenays, a visit to Sandon is a must, and not just for the history buffs. It is also called “Valley of the Ghosts.”

Once a booming silver mining town with thousands of residents in the 1890s, Sandon is now almost completely abandoned.

What’s left is a collection of creaky wooden buildings, rusted railcars, and an eerie silence that hangs heavy in the valley.

Locals and curious travellers report the scent of pipe smoke drifting from the old jailhouse ruins, phantom footsteps crunching gravel, and strange lights flickering between buildings at night.

With its fast rise and dramatic fall (including devastating fires and floods), Sandon carries the kind of “unfinished business” that ghost storytellers love to tap into.

Even casual visitors say the town feels like it’s waiting for someone to return.

Why B.C. feels so haunted

Ghost stories in B.C. just hit different.

Sure, it’s the misty forests and old buildings. But it’s also something deeper, a kind of emotional energy that clings to the land, especially in places like Vancouver and the mountains around it.

 

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Across the province, Indigenous legends give many landscapes spiritual meaning.

The jagged Black Tusk, for example, is said to be scorched by the Thunderbird in Coast Salish stories.

The towering Stawamus Chief in Squamish is believed to be a stone longhouse, transformed by supernatural beings.

And in the Interior Plateau, there are stories of giants and spirit guardians hiding in the hills.

Then there’s B.C.’s history, full of gold rush towns, shipwrecks, lost mines, and mining disasters.

Places like Sandon, Anyox, and Barkerville were once full of life and now sit abandoned, crumbling back into the earth. Some say you can still feel the past hanging in the air.

Even modern-day Vancouver has that energy.

Built on unceded Indigenous land, the city’s oldest areas, like Gastown and the Downtown Eastside, are filled with stories of heartbreak, mystery, and ghost sightings.

Ghost tour hosts Gibbs and Williams both say it comes down to emotional connection.

“Ghost stories are how we preserve and pass on people’s lives,” says Gibbs. “They offer comfort, mystery, sometimes even humour.”

“There’s a real thrill in being scared,” Williams adds.

“Some guests want a creepy story, some want history, and some just want to spend a Friday night doing something different. And sometimes, something really does happen.”

Where to find ghosts in B.C. this summer

Want to experience it for yourself? These are some of the top haunted places in B.C., according to Williams and Gibbs:

• Waterfront Station, Vancouver
• Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Downtown Vancouver
• The Empress Hotel, Victoria
• Barkerville Historic Town, Cariboo
• 108 Mile House Heritage Site, Cariboo
• Gastown, Vancouver
• Sandon Ghost Town, Kootenays
• Fort Langley Historic Site, Langley
• Fisgard Lighthouse, Esquimalt
• West End and New Westminster ghost tours

So, which of these haunted places in B.C. will you brave this summer? Let us know in the comments below.

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