I’m not going to lie: I requested to write this article months ago, as I’m the self-proclaimed all-things-spooky expert around Nexus HQ. When my editor gave me the go-ahead to ghost hunt, I was ecstatic and began forming my boo-squad. I needed a group of people who all differed in ghost-related opinions, so I invited my boyfriend (a skeptic), our friend (a believer), and, of course, myself (an agnostic).
After preparing my group, I needed to pick the locations we’d investigate. I decided not to research the areas too heavily beforehand to ensure my eyes wouldn’t play tricks on me by fulfilling a ghost story found on Google. Instead, I selected three spots mentioned in The Haunting of Vancouver Island by Shannon Sinn—which covers reportedly haunted locations on, you guessed it, Vancouver Island. With little to no backstory, we waited for the sun to go down and set off into the heart of downtown Victoria.
Fan Tan Alley
Our first stop of the night was Fan Tan Alley. While I had shopped there a few times under the security blanket of the sun, I had never ventured there at night. Honestly, I hadn’t heard of Fan Tan Alley being haunted before. However, I assume everything downtown is supposedly haunted, as ghost-hunting groups litter Victoria’s nooks and crannies every October.
Victoria’s Chinatown is the oldest in Canada and comes equipped with a dark past full of racial tension and abuse. To set the scene, in the 1800s, many Chinese immigrants began coming to Canada, hoping to find work and wealth. To dissuade Chinese immigrants from entering Canada in 1885, the government started charging Chinese immigrants a $50 entry fee (equivalent to $1,582 today). Meanwhile, slave traders brought women into ports like Victoria to sell them into a lonely life of prostitution.
The alley is supposedly haunted by Ah Heung, who brutally murdered Yow Kum in 1889. Kum was forced into prostitution and was sold to a brothel on Fisgard Street, which Heung would frequent. One day, Heung visited Kum at the brothel for the last time when he used an 18-inch knife to nearly behead her before fleeing the scene. He was later caught but ended his life before receiving his death sentence.
Supposedly, sightings of an Asian man covered in blood wielding a knife have been spotted in the alleyway, as well as reports of people being shoved and the sound of ghostly footsteps. It’s suspected that Heung used Fan Tan Alley as a route to flee the murder scene.
When we approached the alley entrance, I wasn’t overcome with a feeling of foreboding. Instead, I was met with a wall of tourists and selfie sticks, which elicited a different kind of foreboding—would I make it through the alley without getting my eyeball poked out of my head? After waiting for a couple to finish their photo shoot, we made our way through.
Admittedly, my uneasiness grew as people slowly dissipated and the night grew colder. Store windows displayed empty-faced mannequins staring blankly at us as we strolled along the thin cobblestone walkway. We looked through the windows into the dark stores with bated breath; was something lurking in the shadows?
To conjure up some ghostly action, I said aloud, “Are there any ghosties here with us?” Immediately after, a loud bang came from above us, and we shot our heads toward the sky. Nothing was there, just some windows and a slight breeze. Is it possible that the sound emanated from someone closing a window? Maybe, but we couldn’t see any lights on or movement from above. My guess is that someone, or something, didn’t like me referring to them as a “ghostie.”
Bastion Square
I couldn’t help but already know some of the backstory surrounding Bastion Square as I’ve been told my whole life that hangings took place in its midst. But I didn’t realize everything surrounding Bastion Square is supposedly haunted. We focused our attention on Helmcken Alley, which used to be a part of a jail in the 1800s. Legend has it that a jail guard beat a prisoner to death in the alleyway; people now report hearing chains rattling, and some even say they’ve seen a man in shackles following them.
We entered Bastion Square and noticed just how alive it was; flocks of drunk 20-somethings meandered from bar to bar. Echoes of laughter and voices filled the night while music poured out of Darcy’s into the square.
As we approached the empty, dark alley, my friend glanced in and announced that she “didn’t like the looks of it,” to which I agreed. It was too dark to see down, illuminated only by a dim orange lamp at the end. The alleyway looked straight from a horror movie, undoubtedly hiding a serial killer in its darkness who would jump out and end our lives in one fell swoop.
To further my horror-movie experience, a drunk man sat on some concrete stairs and whistled creepily while watching us disappear into the mouth of the alley. All sound from the neighbouring bars and drunks ceased, and my heart started palpitating. Why was it so quiet? We were then met with the pungent aroma of human excrement. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the prize, hoping the smell would ease (it didn’t).
I’ll admit, I was scared. Something felt off. Maybe it was the silence or maybe it was the human feces, but I felt something ominous creeping under my skin. I stopped us in our tracks and demanded we snap some pictures just in case something appeared on camera that wouldn’t be visible to the human eye. (I’ve watched a few ghost-hunting shows, clearly.)
We snapped a picture of our three shadows stretching through the alley toward the entrance. We noticed upon further inspection that something resembling a face was visible on a pillar between me and my boyfriend; it almost looked like it was smiling. Yikes. I don’t know if that necessarily fits the bill of our supposed prisoner ghost; I’d expect him to appear slightly more menacing instead of looking like a McCain Smiles potato fry.
We wrapped up our alley adventures for the evening after that. I was thankful to re-enter society, which seemed to welcome us back as the music, the whistling man, and the drunk youths returned to their former ebullience upon our exit.
Ross Bay Cemetery
The last excursion of the night was Ross Bay Cemetery, which I was the most apprehensive about. Growing up, I had heard rumours about the sinister happenings there, especially after dark. However, these stories of witchcraft and underground societies are probably without credence, attempting to keep kids from disrespectfully stomping through the cemetery and its sunken graves.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any reports of people experiencing a similar phenomenon at the cemetery like at the previous spots we’d visited; instead, online sources list the names of the suspected ghosts haunting the grounds. David Fee, Isabella Ross, and an unidentified elderly couple allegedly haunt the cemetery. Supposedly, Fee was killed outside of St. Andrews Cathedral, and Ross was the first woman to own land in BC, which doesn’t exactly connect the dots as to why they continue to roam this earthly plane.
We began a very disorienting walk through the pitch-black night. Our only light source came from the mist-diffused light of the moon, which occasionally peaked through the clouds, offering us hopeful guidance. Aesthetically, the cemetery was the scariest of all three locations; stone angels watched us weave through the winding pathway, and grave markers danced behind trees, playing tricks on our eyes.
Simultaneously, the wind whipped through the tops of the tall trees, making falling leaves hitting the ground sound like footsteps coming from all around us.
At one point, I was stopped in my tracks by a prominent shadowy figure sulking out of a patch of foliage, and I froze in fear. This was it: I was going to die. My eyes adjusted, only to meet another pair of larger eyes belonging to an adult buck with intense horns. I knew better than to linger, so we quickly changed our route.
At one point in our cemetery adventure, my friend and I linked arms through a particularly scary portion. I suddenly felt my arm nearly yanked out of my socket, and I turned around to meet her terrified face. “I saw something,” she whispered, eyes wide with bewilderment. She said something white and translucent darted across the path behind us. I would generally search for an explanation, but the way she tugged my arm and the fear present on her face was enough for us to exit the cemetery promptly.
We got home at roughly 1 am, and while I can’t say I was transformed into a total believer, I saw and heard some things that night that I can’t quite explain. Maybe the dark side of Victoria’s past still lingers in the city’s shadows, alleyways, and cemeteries.