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Haunted Fort Gary Hotel

(Fort Garry Hotel - reported to be haunted by apparitions and spirits)

We visited a hotel fit for a queen and king and those that bump in a night.

Famous people who were patrons of the hotel include Nelson Eddy, Harry Belafonte, Charles Laughton, Lawrence Olivier, Liberace, Arthur Fiedler, Louis Armstrong, Gordie Howe, Lester Pearson, as well as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who stayed during their 1939 visit to Canada.

The construction of the hotel, situated on 222 Broadway Ave. Winnipeg, Manitoba started in September 1911 and finished December 1913 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. It is located one block from the railway's Union Station, and was the tallest structure in the city when it was completed. Presently it is run as an independent hotel.

Room 202 and the rest of the majestic Fort Garry Hotel are reported to be haunted. It may sound like a Hollywood movie but these reports are not new, the reports stem back sever decades.

There are many stories of the hotel and the dark room of 202. One story consists of a bride and her unfortunate honeymoon.

A bride haunts the room. Her husband died in room 202, said Sherraine Christopherson, director of Sales and Marketing for Fort Garry Hotel. "I had one experience a few years ago that made me believe. I had a young eight year-old boy stay with me from the US from make a Wish Foundation. His wish was to see the polar bears. He was in the bedroom and he took some pictures outside the door and took some pictures in the bedroom. About a month later or more I spoke to his parents. His mother was telling me some of the pictures on the film that they took didn't come out. The ones that didn't come out were the three taken in the bedroom and two outside the door", said Christopherson.

Out of the 36 pictures only those five didn't come out "so it made you think, you know what I mean."

What happened to the film is very common when apparitions appear on film. Spirits are not a big fan of their picture being taken.

As I said previously, there are many reports of the hotel being haunted and room 202 is just one of them. There is just so much I can fit in this column so I can only briefly describe the rest. In the main dining room a phantom guest can be seen. On the second floor of the hotel strange lights and noises can be seen and heard. Deep within the bowels of the hotel's basement a hole in the foundation emanates eerie sounds and figures, throughout the hotel, simply disappear into thin air.

The hotel's website is a treasure chest of information including these statistics. The hotel height is 192 feet, or 14 stories; in 1913 the cost of the hotel was $1.5 million CDN today $25 million CDN; 2.8 million bricks; 3,000 tons of steel; 4,900 cubic yards of concrete; 70,000 square yards of plaster and six to seven miles of plumbing pipe.

Things that go bump in Canadian night simply doesn't haunt only majestic buildings, they haunt anything and everything.