Part IV ­— SPIRITS OF THE WEST: The Banff Springs and Jasper Park Lodge

By Ted McIntyre

Kara Dobson is a walking encyclopedia of ghost stories, even if she is somewhat dubious of the possibility of non-corporeal beings wandering the hallways and fairways of her former haunt, the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta’s Athabasca River Valley.

“I will preface this by saying I’m not much a believer of the paranormal,” Dobson says, “although I have witnessed the handprints on the glass.”

Dobson, a former health club attendant at JPL, as it’s known by its acronym, is speaking of the resort’s Beauvert Ballroom, where children’s handprints have recurringly appeared on the outside of the windows, more than 20 feet off the ground.

“There is no way they should be there since they have to use a lift to clean those windows,” Dobson says. “Some claim you can hear children giggling in empty Beauvert rooms, but I don’t believe there are any records of sightings of these young imps.”

Jasper Park Lodge, long in the running as Canada’s best golf resort, was initially developed by the now-defunct Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1915. Its initial incarnation was that of a collection of large tents, which provided “temporary housing for guests interested in exploring the environs of the newly created Jasper National Park,” according to Historic Hotels Worldwide. “Yet, the (railway) went bankrupt only five years later, with most its assets absorbed by the Canadian National Railway. Its president, Sir Henry Thornton, decided to completely reconstruct ‘Tent City’ into a magnificent resort complex suitable for contemporary travellers. Construction began in earnest in 1921, which saw the development of eight log cabins on the grounds. Named as the Jasper Park Lodge, the work took nearly two years to complete.”

A STANLEY THOMPSON MASTERPIECE

As this low-rise resort took shape upon the shores of the glacial Lac Beauvert, with snowcapped peaks of the Rockies in the distance, so did its iconic golf course. Sculpted by Canada’s most legendary architect, Stanley Thompson, Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course opened in 1925, embracing the wild topography of its UNESCO World Heritage Site. As Fairmont Resorts notes, “it took 50 teams of horses and 200 men working together for a year in order to clear the land of boulders and debris to prepare it for what would become one of Canada’s premiere golf courses.”

Players are continually reminded that they are just visitors here, though; it’s the elk, wolves and bears that truly call these fairways home.

THE POINT CABIN MAID

But as dramatic as those natural encounters can be, it’s the supernatural ones that have long curdled the blood of guests and staff at the Lodge, most notably at Point Cabin. Since 1928 this luxurious, five-bedroom retreat has hosted celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum (other luminaries to grace the resort over the years have included Royal Family members King George VI and the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret). None of them, however, reported the ghost of the Point Cabin maid.

“While enjoying a luxury vacation with the family she cared for, a young maid tumbled down the stairs from the card room in the attic and broke her neck,” Dobson recounts. “Reports can’t agree whether it was the steep pitch alone to blame or that the girl’s arms were overladen. But she haunts the cabin to this day, causing lights to flicker, frigid winds to gust through the cabin and guests to stumble on that staircase.

“That place also always creeped me out when I worked there,” Dobson adds. “It’s not bad when it’s full of people, but when there are only one or two of you in the cabin, there’s a definite eerie vibe and a bit of a chill to it.”

A more detailed firsthand account comes from an anonymous staff member who submitted the following letter to Paranormal Studies & Inquiry Canada:

“I was an employee there in the housekeeping department. There were a few areas that I cleaned where my roommates and I felt the chills, as if someone was watching us. I despised doing the night service—not because I wanted to let loose after work but because I was creeped out. You would bend down to pick up a quarter off the ground and it always felt someone was checking out your behind. This was a popular experience we all felt in one particular room of the hotel, Point Cabin. As soon as I walk in there, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I feel nauseous. This one particular night a friend of mine did deliveries to the linen closet from the laundry department. He asked me to accompany him to the cabin, as he did not like going alone. He was quite older than me, so I was amused that he was not the big rugged guy I thought he was. We were dropping off linens to the linen closet inside the cabin. The light in the closet switched off and would not click back on and the door slammed shut. We went to get another light bulb and the light came back on and then the door opened. We thought it was friends playing a joke and immediately ran outside and checked the perimeter of the cabin, but no one was found.

“Whenever I went to the Point Cabin, I could always smell cigars coming from the card room,” the letter continues. “I would go up there and there was always no sign of anyone or old cigars. I’ve had the lights flicker and the radio playing by itself. You switch it off and it switches back on, when you know you have switched it off good and proper!

“The same gentleman I accompanied to Point Cabin (and I) were in the staff cabin, an old log cabin that was original to the property. We were sitting in his room watching TV before the staff’s Canada Day party and both saw an apparition walk in front of the TV and disappear through the wall. We looked at each other and said, ‘Did you see that? Okay, I think it’s time to go to the party now!’”

THE STAIRCASE AND THE MOOSE’S NOOK

Even the clubhouse is not off limits to spiritual encounters, Dobson says. “It’s decidedly less famous, but some staff have claimed it’s also haunted—particularly the kitchens and the Tonquin and Spike rooms. Perhaps a poltergeist or just a spirit with a penchant for pranks, but set rooms will have objects moved ever so slightly out of place, and there have been strange noises coming out of the kitchen when it’s empty as well.

Another tale from JPL is eerily similar to that of the maid in Point Cabin, Dobson describes. “This one occurs in the main lodge—tales tell of an elderly man who fell down a staircase and died, and who haunts that same steep staircase to this day, bumping or pushing guests on the stairs, causing them to stumble. But, thankfully, not causing any irreparable harm yet.”

And then there’s the photo just outside of the Moose’s Nook restaurant. Although the restaurant is currently closed due to COVID-19, there’s reportedly still a photo hanging outside the entrance. Taken in the 1920s, it was meant to feature the empty dining room. While the photographer guaranteed he was alone in the room, when the photo was developed there was the blurred figure of an elderly woman seated at one of the tables.

“She’s the shiest of the Jasper Park Lodge’s resident ghosts,” suggests Dobson. “On more than one occasion she has troubled staff with an order, only for the staff member to find her vanished before the order reached the kitchen. She does not seem to trouble the patrons or staff during busy mealtimes, though—only appearing late in the evenings or on very quiet nights.”

And on at least one very early morning.

“It was 5 a.m. on March 10, 2000,” blogs a former employee, Carl Smith. “For anyone who is familiar with JPL, there is a restaurant just off the Great Hall called the Moose’s Nook. In this restaurant was a large server station that I used to get clean water for various cleaning projects. I was employed as a Public Area Houseperson at this time.

“On this particular morning I was at the server station which was located in an area where I could see the entire dining room, including all exits. I filled up my bucket with water and proceeded to leave the server station and something caught my eye. Near the back and to the left, sitting at a table, was an elderly lady. She had short greyish hair and was wearing a dark blouse and what looked like an old-style apron, with the straps made of a white frilly material. I could only see her from the chest up, as she was sitting with her arms on the table in a folded position. Her head was leaning forward as if she was praying.

“Now in a hotel the size of JPL, we would always get guests early in the morning looking for breakfast. As all the lights were on in the restaurant, I assumed she thought the restaurant was open for breakfast and looked as though she was waiting for someone to join her. Turning toward the lady, I said in a louder than normal voice, ‘Good morning, may I help you?’ Her head started to rise just as I took my eyes off her and focused on the chairs I was walking around so as not to fall down. Resuming my glance a split second later in her direction, I felt a cold rush of air run through me. The lady was gone. I immediately had goosebumps run up my spine. It was physically impossible for any human to leave through one of the three exit doors in the split second I had taken my eyes off her. I stood there for a few minutes just staring, as I was in disbelief of what just occurred.

“I left the Moose’s Nook and started walking toward the front desk. A security officer and the night auditor were standing outside the desk chatting and when they saw me—as they told me later, I was a pasty white. I told them of my experience and the security officer went with me back to the restaurant and I showed him where the lady was sitting. I immediately got goosebumps again as I approached the table. We saw that a chair was moved out and tipped over backward, as if someone got up in a hurry.”

Smith was later shown the famous 1920s photograph of the dining room. “As I stared at the photo, my jaw dropped,” he notes.

It was the same lady.

THE FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS

It’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive southeast along Highway 93 from JPL to another famed Canadian resort, the Fairmont Banff Springs. A regal, imposing structure at the convergence of the Bow and Spray Rivers, 90 minutes west of Calgary in the heart of Banff National Park, Canada’s picture-postcard ‘Castle in the Rockies’ has been luring visitors from around the globe since opening on June 1, 1888.

As with another grand railway hotel, The Algonquin Resort in New Brunswick, the original wooden version of the Banff Springs Hotel was destroyed by fire, the present structure taking its place in 1928—much of its stone exterior quarried from neighbouring Mount Rundle.

Some of its stunning views are manmade. For just as Stanley Thompson crafted 18 of world’s most glorious holes at Jasper, so too did the master architect work his magic at Banff Springs. Although the hotel’s original golf course dated back to 1911 and had been subsequently renovated by the esteemed Donald Ross, Thompson was hired to design “the final word in golf.” His dramatic first nine opened in 1928, with the second nine following a year later. The routing, which winds along the Bow River beneath the snowy peaks of Sulphur Mountain and Mount Rundle, is punctuated by an eternal photo-op of a hole—the par-3 4th, a.k.a. Devil’s Cauldron, where, from an elevated shelf, tee shots must fly a glacial lake to a well-bunked, bowl-shaped green below.

The nine-hole Geoffrey Cornish/Bill Robinson-designed Tunnel Mountain course was added in 1989. As with the original 18, bears and elk can be counted on as regular playing companions. Regardless of the layout, golfers tend to emerge from their jaw-dropping tour of the property in good spirits.

The same, though, can’t always be said for the spirits themselves that occupy this resort.

THE BURNING BRIDE

“Nothing is more tragic than a young woman dying on what should be the happiest day of her life,” observes Dobson of the legend of the burning bride, who succumbed to a horrifying fall down the hotel’s curving marble staircase in 1932. “It’s unclear whether she simply lost her footing, or if she was startled by her dress catching fire by candles lining the grand staircase, but both accounts agree that the fall caused her untimely death.”

It wasn’t long after the tragedy that guests—including those completely unaware of the story—began seeing a woman in a white wedding dress descending the stairs, then disappearing. Even staff reported the image of a bride in her burning dress, leaving a chill in her wake as she vanished. Some have also heard sobbing from the bridal suite when it is empty.

“Today, you can find her walking the halls of the Springs, sometimes lending a helping hand if you risk meeting her fate on the staircase,” Dobson says. “Most often, however, she can be found dancing by her lonesome in the Bow Valley Grill, maybe waiting for the groom she never wed.”

The young bride’s haunting image—one that has been seen by hundreds of guests through the years—was captured forever six years ago, when the Canadian Mint unveiled a coin and stamp in her honour.

SAM NEVER RETIRED

On the more Casper side of Banff Springs’ spirits, as friendly ghosts go, is Sam McAuley.

“He was a bellman there,” Dobson shares. “He loved the place so much that no matter how many times he retired, he’d always return to his job not long afterward. He loved his job so much that he promised to haunt the hotel after his death!”

The affable Scotsman appears to have been true to his word. After being laid to rest in 1975, the stories started popping up—an older bellman clad in a plaid jacket, matching Sam’s description, assisting guests and seeing them to their rooms. As Zach Power, a tour guide with Victoria, B.C.’s Discover the Past Walking Tours, describes in his Ghost Stories of Canada podcast, the dearly departed McAuley once even carried guests’ luggage to their room.

When the couple realized they’d neglected to tip him, “they tried to remedy this by passing along some money in an envelope to the first bellman they saw the next morning,” Power says, “but discovered that not only was there no bellman who fit the description of the one who had helped them, but the uniform their kind helper had been wearing had not been in use at the hotel for several years.”

“To this day, if you are wandering the halls at night, or locked out of your room, you may be lucky enough to encounter the ever-helpful Sam,” Dobson smiles. “While his appearance is a bit inconsistent, he’s always described as an older man with snow-white hair, in an outdated uniform.”

Some swear they’ve seen McAuley’s apparition in a guest room on the mezzanine level (in the exact spot of his old office), while still others have noted feeling cold bursts of air in the wake of his apparition on floors six, seven and nine.

But not on the eighth. Apparently even some ghosts steer clear of the eighth floor.

THE MISSING ROOM

“The legend alleges that a man brought his wife and daughter to the Banff Springs for a vacation, only to brutally murder them one night in their sleep, before taking his own life,” says Dobson of the resort’s most terrifying, if unsubstantiated, legend. “The room was cleaned and reopened afterward, but nothing could stop the paranormal encounters that plagued it going forward.”

There are no newspaper accounts to confirm the alleged double-murder-suicide, but a string of chilling stories apparently followed. And while there had been previous arresting tales of guests being pushed off their beds or having pillows yanked from beneath their heads at the Banff Springs, according to Power, it paled in comparison to what those staying in Room 873 came to experience afterward.

“Those guests would often be woken up by horrible screaming coming from within the room. They would fly out of bed and turn on the lights to discover bloody handprints covering the mirrors,” Power says. “This would happen so frequently that the hotel gave up trying to put people in there. And to be extra-safe they removed the door and sealed off the room completely.”

That decision has subsequently led to countless visitors tapping along the wall between Rooms 875 and 871 in search of the notorious missing 873.

“Let me tell you in advance that, yes, there is indeed a hollow sound if you were to rap upon the wall near the light that hangs overtop a non-doorway,” Dobson admits.

Such repeated activity eventually required a polite, but direct, response from the hotel. “A sign hangs in the eighth-floor hallway advising patrons to please not knock on the wall as they seek to confirm the ‘missing room,’” Dobson notes. “But it has come to light that when the floor was renovated many years ago, room 875 was made into a suite, and extended into what was once 873. As such, the secondary entrance was sealed.

“But why management decided to do that for Room 873 and no other Room 73 in the hotel remains a mystery.”

 

Check out all five parts in this ghostly series:
Part I: Legends of the Abbey
Part II: The Algonquin Resort
Part III: War on the Shore: Niagara-on-the-Lake
Part IV: Spirits of the West: The Banff Springs and Jasper Park Lodge
Part V: Ghost Town, B.C.: Victoria and the Spirit of Doris Gravlin