OCCULT AND PARANORMAL GASTOWN

Is Gastown Haunted?

Is Gastown really a GHOST town? It makes sense that one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods would be inhabited by ghosts.

There have been rumours of the occult and paranormal having a presence in Gastown since at least the 1990s if not earlier. Back then, there were rumours of underground passages that could be accessed by a hole in the dirt floor of an abandoned building near Maple Tree Square, known as “the pit” or “the hole”. People could be seen entering the building and hanging around outside – some appeared to be homeless, some punks, and many goths. The location rivalled only the old Sugar Refinery out on Powell Street as the most likely place to find actual vampires in Vancouver BC.

The train car inside the old Spaghetti Factory has a ghostly conductor and Waterfront Station also has its ghost stories however the most haunted area in all of downtown, the very epicentre of paranormal activity, may be the basement below the Springer Van Bramer Block, built in 1888 over a site that must have been devastated by Vancouver’s Great Fire of 1886. Vancouver Mysteries’ owner Tanya Bennett has heard first hand tales of the hauntings in the basement, which once was the bottom floor and store room of Salmagundi West a curio shop and antique store – stories of haunted photographs, hauntings of the former owner’s partner (husband?) and more.

Vancouver Mysteries also invited our friends from Haunted History BC to investigate paranormal activity in the Dominion Building before relocating the office (not related to any hauntings, just a location closer to game start/end points). Children were picked up on a recording and there was substantial movement recorded on the devices they brought. The ghosts knew the names of the staff and seemed to like us (phew).

More recently the Arcana Food and Spirits has opened its doors at 238 Abbott Street – a paranormal-themed restaurant with Ritual Steak Tartare and Salem Sliders on the menu. Other than Arcana Food and Spirits, there is not much for customers looking to spend their gold on the occult in Gastown. Recommended shopping areas: Dragonspace (Granville Island) has an occult section (and conveniently, there is a also a broom store nearby).

Ghost Hunt in Gastown

Vancouver Mysteries game Ghost Patrol takes paranormal investigators to Gastown in the 1910s and other areas of downtown Vancouver in the 1930s and 1970s as teams of 2 to 6 people explore three ghost stories. The story begins with a terrible train accident and a ghost known only as The Coat. While Vancouver Mysteries experiences include interesting information about Vancouver city, our characters are all fictional out of respect for the families and loved ones of the real ghosts in the city. Our games are meant to be fun – we do not dig into true crime or grisly or graphic history. If you are looking for factual storytelling along those lines we recommend Haunted History BC for paranormal, Forbidden Vancouver for historical walking tours and Eve Lazarus for true crime.