The Ghosts of Victoria Festival

The Ghosts of Victoria Festival is an annual event featuring spooky activities throughout the city. The events are separately conducted by many groups at different locations.

The Ghosts of Victoria Festival

Information on this page updated frequently.

Victoria is British Columbia’s most haunted place. Ghosts and goblins abound in the capital city – and not just at Halloween. If you want a “spirited” visit to Victoria at any time of the year, there are many attractions to see. As Halloween approaches, the Ghosts of Victoria Festival provides even more ghostly activities. The Ghosts of Victoria Festival is held over the last two weeks of October each year, with many activities to choose from. Information about the festival on this website will be updated frequently, so please refresh this page every time you open it.

Plans for the Ghosts of Victoria Festival 2008 are still in the planning stages, but here are some of the highlights from October 2007:

Ghostly Walks
Ghostly Walks explore the haunted alleys and courtyards of downtown Victoria. These popular 90-minute walks take place all year. During the Ghosts of Victoria Festival extra tours are offered.
Click here or call (250) 384-6698 for more details.

Ghost Bus-tours
Ghost Bus-tours are conducted by the Old Cemeteries Society. They are 2-hour coach trips through Victoria’s most haunted neighbourhoods. 2007 was the 15th annual year for these popular tours.

Ross Bay Cemetery
Ross Bay Cemetery is open daily during daylight hours. It is a beautiful oceanside Victorian cemetery where phantoms roam. Isabella Ross, once owner of the land, sits forlornly looking out to sea; David Fee, murdered one Christmas Eve, appears as white mist. History tours by the Old Cemeteries Society take place every Sunday at 2:00 pm.
The Annual Ghost Tour at Ross Bay Cemetery takes place on the Sunday prior to Halloween from 1:00 - 3:00 pm. Call (250) 598-8870.

Haunted Horsedrawn Trolley Tours
The Trolley Tours take you down the dark streets of the James Bay neighbourhood to hear about the scary events in one of the most haunted residential areas on the west coast. Call (250) 383-2207.

The Maritime Museum of British Columbia
The Maritime Museum dominates Bastion Square in the heart of Old Town. Once the site of public hangings, the museum is open daily, and the ghost of Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, the “hanging judge,” is often seen. Ghost tours are conducted during the Ghosts of Victoria Festival. Call (250) 385-4222, ext. 106.

St. Ann's Academy
St. Ann's Academy is a former convent school. During the Ghosts of Victoria Festival a special program called Voices from the Past explores the life, death and unexplained phenomena in the 148-year-old historic site. Call (250) 953-8828 for information and reservations.

Craigdarroch Castle
Craigdaroch Castle is open daily for visitors to see the splendour of its restored rooms, but does not offer ghost tours. Every year at Halloween it hosts a spooky play. Call (250) 592-5323 or check www.craigdarrochcastle.com for more details.

Nightmares Entertainment
This is a new spooky attraction downstairs at the corner of Government Street and Trounce Alley, open year-round, but with extended hours at Halloween. The "Hot Seat" is an electric chair experience and "Madame Isabella's" is a thrilling psychic encounter with a famous long-dead medium. No reservations needed. Call (250) 388-4024 for more information.

The Royal London Wax Museum
The Wax Museum is open daily. Sure to create terror at any time is the infamous Chamber of Horrors with its macabre scenes of death masks, the Algerian hook, famous villains and scenes from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum. Call (250) 388-4461.

CarnEvil at Galey Farms.
Do you scare eaily? Then CarnEvil may just scare you to death! An annual event in October. Click here or call (250) 477-5713 for details.

Exploring for ghosts on your own

Hatley Castle at 2005 Sooke Road, west of Victoria, is haunted by the ghosts of the Dunsmuir family who once owned it. Ghost tours are not specifically offered, but guided tours through the castle and restored gardens are offered on a regular basis, Call (250) 391-2666 for information.

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.

Old Morris Tobacconists, 1116 Government Street, is a heritage building that contains its original polished wood cabinets, onyx pillars and leaded glass entrance dome. It is haunted by the ghost of a former employee who died suddenly in the upstairs workshop. His footsteps and the sound of cupboard doors opening and closing are often heard when no one is upstairs.

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. Reservations for tea recommended. 380-6506.

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 built on the site of the city's first gallows and many of the men who were hanged still lie buried beneath its foundations. Visit the Maritime Museum daily 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 is one of the stories from Helmcken Alley that is featured in the Creepy Canada TV series.

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.

Ross Bay Cemetery has the distinction of being the most spectacular Victorian cemetery in British Columbia. Its winding, tree-lined carriageways, magnificent tombstones with their poignant epitaphs and the distant views to the Olympic Mountains make it a memorable place to visit. Visitors are welcome 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.

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.

Doris Gravlin, the Golf Course Ghost, back in September 1936 was strangled by her husband Victor and dragged across the seventh fareway 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. She sometimes plays havoc with motorists who drive past the golf course when she crosses the street and even enters their cars--sometimes by passing right through their windshields. A sudden, cold wind and a general sense of foreboding frequently accompany the appearnce of Doris. The ghost of Doris Gravlin is one of the stories featured in the Creepy Canada TV series.

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.

Haunted restaurants, pubs and accommodation. Victoria has many haunted places to eat, drink and stay. Click here to check listings on our links page.

For more details about the Ghosts of Victoria Festival and haunted places and activities, from the light-hearted to the serious, call Tourism Victoria at (250) 953-2033, visit its website www.tourismvictoria.com or stop by the Visitor Information Centre beside the Inner Harbour downtown.