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 2013
is now being planned
an annual event during October in Victoria, British Columbia

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.

Here's a list of what took place during
the Ghosts of Victoria Festival 2012.
Activities during the Ghosts of Victoria Festival in October 2013
will be similar.
Watch below for more details as they become available.

Ghostly Walks
The "Original" Ghost Bus-tours
Haunted Trolley Tours
Ross Bay Cemetery Ghost Tour
"Voices from the Past" at St. Ann's Academy
Spooky play at Craigdarroch Castle
Maritime Museum Ghost Tours
Pumpkin Art in Oak Bay
"Festival of Fear" at Galey Farms

Detailed descriptions of Ghosts of Victoria Festival 2012 Activities

Ghostly Walks is Victoria’s classic ghost tour which explores the haunted alleys and courtyards of Victoria’s Old Town. Call 250-384-6698 or check www.discoverthepast.com for details.

The Original Ghost Bus-tours are two-hour coach tours past Victoria’s most haunted places, with ghost expert John Adams. The Old Cemeteries Society has run these very popular tours for eighteen years, with a different route and new ghost stories each year. Private Ghost Bus Tours (minimum 20 people) may be booked at any time. Call 250.384.6698 to arrange.

Ross Bay Cemetery is a beautiful ocean-side 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. The Old Cemeteries Society hosts tours each Sunday at 2pm. The Annual Ghost Tour in 2013 will be 1 to 3pm Sunday October 27. No reservations needed. Call 250-598-8870.

The Maritime Museum is the favourite haunt of Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, the “hanging judge.” Dominating Bastion Square, many consider it Victoria’s most haunted place. The museum is open throughout the year. Ghost Tours are offered during the Ghosts of Victoria Festival. Call 250-385-4222, ext. 112 for details.

Paranormal Investigations are not ghost tours, but real ghost hunts conducted by a team of mediums. These are late night events (10:00 pm to 3:00 am) and are held mostly in the dark. Numbers are limited. Check out www.beyondbeliefparanormalevents.com for ticket information and more details.

St. Ann ’s Academy’s is a former convent school. The grounds (open daily) feature a walled orchard, woodland walk and beautiful Novitiate Garden. The restored chapel is open throughout the year. In October Voices from the Past explores life, death and unexplained phenomena at this 153-year-old historic site. Call 250-953-8828.

Craigdarroch Castle is open daily 10:00 am to 4:30 pm. It does not offer ghost tours, but has been the location for many spooky movies and plays. On selected evenings in October each year it hosts a spooky play. Call 250-592-5323 for information.

Pumpkin Art on the Avenue is a display of over 500 carved pumpkins including displays of the Royal Family, The Wizard of Oz, the Beatles and more. It is in shop windows and on the grounds of the Oak Bay Municipal Hall and along Oak Bay Avenue. Check www.visitoakbayvillage.ca for details.

Haunted Horse-drawn Trolley Tours venture down dark streets in the most haunted neighbourhood on the West Coast. Victoria Carriage Tours offers tours all year, but have a special ghost tour at the end of October. Call 250- 383-2207 for information.

Festival of Fear at Galey Farms. Mid-October through October 31. This popular spooky attraction includes the Corn Maze of Horror, Crazy Train, Madame Isabella’s and Carnevil. Check www.galeyfarms.net or call 250.47.5713 for details

Exploring for ghosts on your own

Beacon Hill Park near downtown Victoria is a place of history, beauty and many 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.

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 appeared on a mirror high above a door.

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. 250.380.6506.

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 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 of the chain gang from the nearby jail, 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.
Note: A city bylaw prohibits entry to Ross Bay Cemetery after dusk. Daylight visits are welcome, but please do not go there at night. Vandalism has been a major concern in the past and the bylaw helps reduce vandalism.

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 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. 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 appearance 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.

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. Ghost tours are not specifically offered, but guided tours of the castle and gardens are held on a seasonal basis. Call 250.391.2666 for information.

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.

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 (in Victoria) or toll-free 1-800-953-2022, visit its website www.tourismvictoria.com or stop by the Visitor Information Centre beside the Inner Harbour downtown.