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The Ghost by the Fire

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On our last night in Banff I feel asleep to the crackling of the fire and the chatter of my little men. The fresh mountain air and the warmth of the fire has a calming effect – always lulling me into a deep relaxing slumber.

It was later in the night I felt a cool breeze against my back and I slowly awoke with a feeling that there was another presence in the room.

My eyes slowly began to open, my vision was blurry, and that is when I saw him!

It was a grey outline of tall man with a page-boy cap, smoking in his pipe, relaxing in a chair, and staring directly at us.

My heart gave a heavy thud, I rolled over to tap my husband on the back, and I exclaimed, “Honey! There is someone in our room! There is a man in our room!”

My husband rolled over, “What?”

“A man in our room!”

My husband sat upright and looked, “What are you talking about?”

“The man!”

“There is no man! Go back to sleep!”

“He looked like a prospector! A settler?”

“It was a dream! Go Back to sleep!”

It was with that my husband gruffly rolled back onto his side of the bed cranky by the sudden stir from his sleep. I peered at the chair and it was empty! I shut my eyes and opened them again. The chair to my dismay and delight was still empty!

As I closed my eyes attempting to lull myself back to sleep I heard  the train whistle blow through the cold  mountains.  It was with that I knew our late night visitor was indeed a  lost soul stopping in to warm up by the fire before catching the last train to his final destination.

Have you ever felt an unusual presence at an inn or a hotel? Did anything go bump in the night?

Categories: Banff ghosts paranormal activity Tunnel Mountain

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Darcie

Darcie Cameron is a RYT 200 who believes Yoga is a gift that is accessible to everyone with proper modifications, a patient smile and just taking the time to breathe. One of the greatest presents you will ever unwrap is when you connect your mind, body and spirit in perfect sync with your own breath. Connect with Darcie on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/darciecameronlovesyoga

87 replies ›

    2. I sleep beside a spider.
      It keeps me company.
      Protects me from intruders
      (Six legg’d variety).

      Most people don’t like spiders.
      That’s very plain to see.
      They scream, then try to kill them,
      Squash them aggressively.
      If they’d been born a spider,
      They’d call Humanity
      “That violent predator
      “(Two legg’d variety)”.

      Poor spiders are too different.
      They’re not like you and me.
      Is that sufficient reason
      To kill consistently?
      We must be kind to spiders,
      Respect them all. You see,
      They’re part of Earth’s creation
      (Eight legg’d variety).

      I wrote this poem, which I called “Too Different”, for an English class in France. I had been invited to the school by the teacher and this was my gift to the children. I read it to the class and the teacher photocopied it. I have rewritten it here from memory, so I hope that I haven’t made too many mistakes. My apologies to Belle for invading her space.

      Reply

      2. LOL! You definitely not invading any space! I love this poem! However, if a spider doesn’t scurry out of my vicinity then it is game over. I have two things I despise, fear, and shriek – spiders and snakes.

      3. I’m definitely with Belle about snakes. Not my thing at all. And now that I’m back in Australia, I’m wary of spiders again. French spiders are not venimous for humans, so I was able to relax around them. I don’t like them walking on me but I talk to them when I meet them and respect them, even if we don’t get too friendly. We tend to meet only by accident, and I try not to destroy their silk webs. Live and let live is the object of the exercise. If it keeps still and doesn’t run around, we get along fine.

      4. I don’t know if I could handle all of the creepy crawlies in Australia! There seems to be a lot of things that can eat and poison you! If I came across a wolf spider I think my heart would stop…

  2. No, I have never felt an unusual presence at an inn or a hotel, but I do believe in them. I know that at times, when I have been at a crossroads, or super stressed, I have asked my dad for signs of what to do. And I have gotten them. Most people think I am crazy, and maybe I am, but I believe that he helped me….

    Reply

  6. A year ago, my daughter was staring at nothing in the hall. And was smiling and laughing. My wife turned around, and couldn’t see anything. She then asked her: Do you see something? To which our daughter replied: Yes. Is it a man, she asked? Yes, said our daughter. I’m not sure where I stand on ghosts, souls, and stuff, but it creeped the living daylight out of me.

    Reply

  8. I have never felt the presence of anything in a hotel, motel or inn!!! But recently I’ve had dreams or something where I wake up screaming at night because I feel two men standing over me on my side of the bed!!! Not pleasant. And like Hilary I often look skyward and have conversation with my grandma.

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  9. Usually I do not bring this subject up for fear of ridicule, but my youngest son and I have a pretty strong 6th sense. He sees what he calls spirits and has since he was 3. He can describe my father to a t and he died before my son was born. The last time he visited I asked him about the presence here in my home. I have not seen it so my son said he had the opportunity to ask what she was waiting for here. She said when the house was finished she would ggo. she just wanted to watch for a while.
    I do get annoyed at times because wanders the house and moves things. Apparently she really likes my bath stuff. I find it in the strangest places.

    Reply

  10. One other instance concerns my mother. when my babies were little and mama would babysit I would call to check in and ask if the kids were being good and she always said jokenly why no, I had to spank them with a feather! a feather was always a little joke between us. Now when I am sick, worried about something or just need her, I will find feathers..

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  11. The house I live in was the family home of my best friends. Her daughter rarely comes over because she feels her mothers presence so strongly and it makes her sad with memories, but this house was built in 1970 and according to the family she loved it and rarely left it and more so in herlast years. I feel her presence but do not see her. It is really quiet neat to have her around actully. I kind of feel protected.

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  12. That is so interesting….I was drawn into the picture you posted. Perhaps it was a stranger. If he ever returns to you, I would follow him and see how he drinks his tea.

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  14. That’s awesome. I have a huge interest in ghosts and the paranormal, having seen one myself, and had the opportunity last summer to take part in a real-life paranormal investigation. It was one of the highlights of my life, that’s for sure!

    Reply

    1. I remember reading about that 😉 I don’t think there would be any way I could keep calm under a paranormal investigation! I would be the first to get offed because I would run screaming from the group.

      Reply

      1. Some people I have told this story to. They say it’s about time we call for a house blessing, you know, to drive them bad souls away.

  16. Wow, Beth! Exciting! I used to work in a haunted mansion, and one of my jobs was to lock it up for the night- so you can imagine we have plenty of colourful stories about the goings on there. To see for yourself is quite an experience.

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  17. Oh, gawd. It doesn’t take much at all to creep me out, and the stories about the Banff Springs Hotel being haunted make up all of the reasons I haven’t stayed there. I’m one of those people who’s been seeing dead people in the shadows since childhood…. *shudders* Maybe I need to do one of those phobia facing ghost tours and get this out of my system! 😛

    Reply

    1. I would love to stay there but it is not in our budget and if I saw a headless bride I would drop on the spot. We stayed at The Douglas Fir and it was the last place I would expect to see something. But tunnel Mountain does have a lot of history…

      The oddest thing was the fire alarm went off at the same time two nights in a row. And there was nothing wrong…

      Reply

  18. Oh that can sure give you the willies!
    And don’t you kind of want it to happen again so you can better judge if it was really happening or just some dream state?
    I’ve never had something like that happen, but there have been two occasions when I’ve been walking in wooded areas that I was familiar with and I all of a sudden got a huge feeling of fear so I turned around and split. I always recognized that it could have been my imagination, and I’m thankful it doesn’t happen more often because those two times really stood out as a time to do something differently.

    Reply

    1. I hate that feeling when you are walking in the woods and you have a feeling something is watching you. It always gives me the creeps!

      That’s the thing was it just a dream? Or was it real? Our subconscious works in mysterious ways…

      Reply

  20. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me. Kind of freaky, darling. But very intriguing to think about the why and how of it. Given the chance will you go back to this hotel again?

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    1. We have always stayed there and never had anything strange occur before…So, yes I would probably would stay there again. Maybe I’ll set up a camera and see if I can catch a ghost in action 😉 That way I know my mind isn’t playing tricks on me!

      Reply

  21. Yes, this one B&B is known to have a female ghost. She likes to flicker the lights and I have experienced her presence and heard her footsteps. Just a hair creepy, especially when you get that feeling of being watched.

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  22. I’m sure it scared and startled you, but how fascinating. Can you sketch what he looked like? You know I do believe that things happen that we have no explanation for, and that I lived in a haunted house in the 90s. Prior to that, I thought paranormal stuff was all a bunch of hooey. Now I keep an open mind, even though some people think that means I’m crazy. Oh well, I’ve been called worse. 🙂

    Reply

    1. I could see him plain as day – he looked like an old black and white photo. He was tall with curly locks, page boy cap, a jacket, vest, pocket watch, slacks, and a pair of old boots. He looked like he stepped out of the past with a mischievous grin and a twinkle in his eyes. It’s the only way I can explain him. I just wonder if it was a dream or not?

      I have had a few run in’s https://belleofthecarnival.com/2011/08/11/a-mothers-unrest/

      So when someone mentions the word ghosts – I never question it. I think there are things in life that go unexplained…Does that make me superstitious? yes! But I blame that on my Mother and aunts 😉

      Also in my Mothers house which was restored – I had a visit from the previous owner. I discovered from acquaintance that she was waked at home and her casket was in my bedroom…Shivers!

      Reply

  23. As God is my witness, I used to hear my (quite dead by then) grandmother call my name whenever I was getting ready to do something “naughty” during my teen years.

    And would you believe, still, I don’t believe in ghosts.

    Reply

  26. Yikes! Not in a hotel but at home I wake up a lot thinking that someone is leaning over the bed. It’s very creepy and feels real, but I guess it could be a dream. There’s lots of bed and breakfast type places around here that use their ghosts as a reason for people to visit – so come on out and find some more! 🙂

    Reply

  27. Okay, this would really creep me out! And I’m not talking about a mild case of the creeps. I would be doing the whole Scooby-Doo-jumping-on-my-husband’s-back-and-hiding-while-shivering-with-my-teeth-chattering thing!!!!

    Reply

  28. When I was living in France, I once awoke with a start and found a big, grey cloud partly “on” me. It immediately started to move away towards the ensuite bathroom, where it slowly disintegrated. It was without a precise form and had a greenish aura. I’m not sure if it was trying to get into me, or if it was coming out of me. Whether it was foreign to me or part of me. It was very scary. My heart was pounding. I had to turn on the bedside lamp and read for awhile to take my mind off it. I don’t know what it was. It looked like thoughts do. You know, those grey clouds that you sometimes see puffing out of people’s heads. Only it was much bigger and had that green aura, which thoughts don’t have. It might have been some sort of primitive spirit. Apart from that, to my knowledge, I have never seen a ghost, but have heard them several times, and felt their presence often. It is often very disturbing because I don’t know who they are and I don’t like uninvited strangers in my home.

    Reply

      1. The apartment in which I was living at the time was in what had been a hotel in former days. It was in a mediaeval town – we even had a mediaeval castle – so there were old stones involved and we know that walls retain memories which seem to generate the ghosts of people who have lived there in former times. However, my grey, green aura thingy had no form. It was just like a cloud with an aura. The ghosts that I have heard were all family members, so no problem there. It’s just the “presence” ones that raise the hairs on my neck!

      2. I think a presence could be more frightening because you don’t know its origins. Where did it come from? Is it friendly? What does it want? It would be all of those things that would be running through my head.

      3. Exactly! I had the “presence” thing with the family ghosts too, but I “knew” who they were. The others don’t let me know who they are, hence the questions. My house is not very old – only twenty years – but it used to be rented, so has had a lot of inhabitants.

      5. Somewhere amongst my piles of books, I have one about a man who has been seeing auras since birth. He used to talk to his mother about “the blue lady over there” or “red man” behind her, and she would look and see that their clothes didn’t correspond to either the “blue” or the “red”. She thought that there was something wrong with her son. It was eventually found that he saw auras and thought that every one else did too. He used this gift to help doctors with diagnostics, among other things. He drew up a list of colours with some of their variations, and the results of his evaluations of character and/or moods connected to each of them. There were many greens, and one of them was of course “jealousy” (yellowish green if I remember correctly) but some greens mean completely different things. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what “my” green means, and haven’t a clue where the book is at the moment. It wasn’t the “jealousy” one, anyway.

      7. I really can’t remember colour details (I must start looking for the book) but I do seem to remember that health is mainly a question of aura size rather than colour, although it becomes paler and/or greyish as well as smaller in serious illness. That is the general aura. However, there are local variations near the sick part, too. There are also male and female differences. The adult male aura is bigger around the head, I think, and that of the woman around the hips. Children have an aura that is equal width all around their bodies. This is just from memory. I haven’t read the book for many years and I don’t see auras personally. There is also more brilliance around “chakras”. I remember that the man who sees auras said that black was pure evil and white pure goodness (holiness?) but that both were extremely rare.

  30. Belle, I read this post and though, “My gosh, yes!” On more than one occasion I have felt myself to be in the company of someone in the room even though it’s empty. When I was little, I used to be terrified to sleep in my room at night because I always saw a man in the closet who wore a tall hat! And it’s not just me. My mother and sisters also have these “feelings”. I’ll chalk them up to us being an intuitive bunch! 🙂

    Reply

  31. Yes, more than a few times and I really hate it when I can feel these entities. It’s late at night and I think I will save that story for another time *quickly scans the room* :p

    Also, how was Banff? I am planning a trip and I would like to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind 🙂 Should I drop you an email?

    Reply

  32. They are everywhere! Some just more powerful than others, and more willing to be seen.
    I grew up in a house across the street from a cemetery. In fact, it was the old stone cutters house, and we think a stop on the underground railroad. So there is A LOT going on there. Nothing bad, though. You are just never alone.
    Once I saw my grandfather. Yeah, that was weird. I kept it to myself for a long time, but when I finally broke down and told my grandmother, she told me stories of how everyone else in the family had also seen him at different times.

    Reply

    1. I always wondered what it would be like to live across from the cemetery – it’s nice to know they are all resting in peace 🙂

      I love that you saw your Grandfather he must be taking the time to check in on all of the ones he loves precious to his heart. Your grandmother must feel his presence with her.

      Reply

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