Victoria, doesn't need a special holiday to celebrate ghosts. Paranormal acitivities abound in the capital city. Ghosts and spirits have been seen at Old Town, Bastion Square, Helmcken Alley, Helmcken House, Point Ellice House and other spots.
Share  Guided walking/bus tours, take place every night during the summer (mid-June to mid-September) and on weekends throughout the year. During October, several guided tours are run every evening with extra tours the week before Halloween. These tours are historically accurate and have been organized by John Adams, a long-time historian, who has been leading ghost tours in Victoria since 1970.
Visit his website: Ghost Walks

Well Known Haunts

  1. Beacon Hill Park near downtown Victoria is a place of history, beauty and ghosts. The "Screaming Doppleganger" as featured in the Creepy Canada TV series appears on an outcropping of rocks near the corner of Douglas and Superior streets. She is the ghost of a woman whose murdered body was found nearby and is seen standing atop the rock at sunrise.
  2. Rogers Chocolates at 913 Government Street in Old Town is a National Historic Site. It is also Victoria's oldest, most famous and most haunted chocolate shop. Look for the ghosts of Charles and Leah Rogers, the founders, who often slept in the kitchen of their old store and who reputedly never left. Recently a child's handprint has repeatedly apperaed on a mirror high above a door.
  3. Old Morris Tobacconists, 1116 Government Street, is a heritage building that contains its original polished wood cabinets, and leaded glass entrance dome. The ghost of a former employee who died suddenly in the upstairs workshop haunts it. Footsteps and the sound of cupboard doors opening and closing are often heard when no one is upstairs.
  4. Point Ellice House, reputedly haunted by the ghosts of the O'Reilly family, is open to the public for tours and garden teas, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, daily during the summer. Ghost tours are not provided, but visitors often experience their own supernatural encounters.
  5. Bastion Square and Helmcken Alley in the heart of Victoria's Old Town is the most haunted part of Victoria. Almost every building around the historic square has a ghost or two. The Maritime Museum of British Columbia, located in the old Supreme Court building, is said to be the most haunted of them all due to the fact is was the site of the city's jail and first gallows and many of the men who were hanged still lie buried beneath its foundations. The Maritime Museum is open throughout the year. Helmcken Alley leads away from Bastion Square and has the reputation for being just as haunted. The sounds of muffled footsteps with dragging chains, produced by ghostly members from the nearby jail, are one of the stories featured in the Creepy Canada TV series.
  6. Market Square and Chinatown have many stories of ghosts and the supernatural. Their secret tunnels are probably only myths, but their hauntings are very real. Feel the paranormal energy in Fan Tan Alley as you walk past its abandoned opium dens and gambling halls, but feel safe under the Gate of Harmonious Interest, which is decorated with symbols to scare away evil spirits.
  7. Ross Bay Cemetery has the distinction of being the most spectacular Victorian cemetery in British Columbia. Winding and weaving tree lined carriageways give rise to magnificent tombstones with their poignant epitaphs. Distant views to the Olympic Mountains make it a very memorable place to visit during daylight hours every day of the year. The cemetery is noted for several resident ghosts, including David Fee (who was murdered on the steps of St. Andrews Cathedral on Christmas Eve 1890), Isabella Ross (the first woman in British Columbia to own land, whose farm stood where the cemetery is now) and a mysterious, elderly couple who are dressed in fancy Victorian attire and who are seen from time to time gliding along the western side of the cemetery. The Old Cemeteries Society conducts walking tours at Ross Bay Cemetery and many other cemeteries in Victoria on Sunday afternoons throughout the year.
  8. The Old Burying Ground is on the edge of downtown (on Quadra Street beside Christ Church Cathedral). It was used from 1855 to1873 and still contains 1,300 bodies. Now it is a city park called Pioneer Square and you may walk through it to enjoy the ancient tombstones by day or by night. If you go when it is dark, keep an eye out for the ghost of Adelaide Griffin who has haunted the place since her death in 1861 or for the less frequently seen ghost of Robert Johnson who slit his throat in a house across the street in the 1870s and has returned from time to time to reenact his grisly demise. The stories of the Old Burying Ground are featured in the Creepy Canada TV series.
  9. Doris Gravlin, the Golf Course Ghost, back in September 1936 was strangled by her husband Victor and dragged across the seventh fairway at the Victoria Golf Course, then hidden under a pile of logs on the beach. The Victoria Golf Course is famous for its beautiful seaside setting, its fine golf and for the ghost of Doris Gravlin who has made frequent appearances since her murder. Often seen beside the seventh fairway or in the vicinity of the beach, she takes on many forms: a gliding figure in white, twinkling lights, or a pulsating globe of light. Motorists who drive past the golf course when she crosses the street have been suddenly shocked especially if she their cars--sometimes by passing right through their windshields. A sudden, cold wind and a general sense of foreboding frequently accompany the appearance of Doris. The ghost of Doris Gravlin is one of the stories featured in the Creepy Canada TV series.
  10. British Columbia's Parliament Buildings are haunted by many ghosts, most notably Francis Mawson Rattenbury, the architect who designed them in the 1890s. His body rests uneasily in an unmarked grave in Bournemouth, England, where he was savagely bludgeoned to death by his wife's lover (who was his own chauffeur). It is believed Rattenbury returns to haunt his most famous edifice to seek the recognition he craves and which he does not receive where he is buried.
  11. Hatley Castle, location of Royal Roads University, was the home of James and Laura Dunsmuir during their lifetimes, and continues to be their home in death. Hatley Castle was built in 1908 for James Dunsmuir who was the Premier and Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and his wife Laura. In 1930, it was sold and the new owners began to see the ghosts. The spirit of James Jr who was killed in World War I is seen dressed in his military uniform and rising from the lake near the Japanese Gardens. When Hatley Castle was turned into a military academy, the ghost of Laura Dunsmuir started to appear. It is alleged that she would pull the cadets out of bed and there were sightings of tiny old woman. The ghost of Annabelle, a servant who jumped from a window after a love affair, can be seen near the window where she leapt to her death
  12. . Craigdarroch Castle Craigdarroch Castle was built in the 1890s for wealthy coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir and his wife Joan. Piano music in the ballroom and the smell of candles have been detected. The ghost of Joan Dunsmuir has been sighted in her bedroom. For some reason, only in winter, the apparition of a woman dressed in white has been seen in the ballroom window.
  13. Haunted Vortex on Shelbourne Street. A strange phenomenon has been reported over many years along a two-block stretch of Shelbourne Street (between Hillside Avenue and Pearl Street). Motorists, usually late at night when traffic is minimal, have sometimes discovered everything around them takes on the appearance of rural countryside with farms, fields and gravel roads, instead of a paved road flanked by sidewalks and modern buildings. The vortex ends abruptly beyond the two-block area.
  14. Corn Mazes and Halloween Activities in Victoria, BC Galey Farms (4150 Blenkinsop Road) in Victoria, BC, hosts an annual Pumpkinfest, complete with hayrides, a farm train and corn maze. The Farm also has a petting zoo and child-friendly haunted house.

    The Haliburton Community Organic Farm (741 Haliburton Road) will be hosting a Halloween pumpkin carving, craft and farm tour event on October 31.