A Few Good Hauntings

I love a good haunted tale, I cannot deny it. Stories of apparitions wandering hallways, appearing in windows, and haunting old hotels always gives me a delightful chill! I would love to be a ghost hunter but unfortunately if a ghost did happen to present him/herself to me, I would do something ridiculous like run head first into a wall to knock myself out because of fear. 

This past week-end my sister and I got away to Banff, Alberta.  It just so happens that The Banff Springs Hotel  built in 1888 and later rebuilt  in 1926 after burning down has a "haunted" history.  I have visited Banff countless times for skiing or hiking the rocky mountains but have never been inside the incredible hotel.  I have read many books referencing the "hauntings" in The Banff Springs Hotel and was very eager to not only take in the breath taking architecture of the hotel but to walk the "haunted" hallways...in broad daylight of course. 

There are many staircases in the hotel and I am not sure if the staircase we walked down was the staircase haunted by an apparition of a bride that was said to have fallen down the staircase and break her neck the night of her wedding. Guests have reported seeing a woman dressed in her wedding gown wandering up and down a staircase or dancing in the ball room.  I did not see the "white bride" but I nearly took a tumble myself down the staircase...interesting.  The hotel is truly enchanting and pulls you into another time period with its dimly lit chandeliers and narrow little hallways that take you up to a single room.  It is in the hallways where many guests have received a helping hand from an elderly bellboy wearing a uniform from the 1960's. He was said to vanish if engaged in conversation or offered a tip.  We did not see the bellboy while walking the hallways but we did run into a couple on a similar hunt as us that we accidentally spooked coming up on a squeaky spiral staircase behind them. We sent them to where we had just been...."Room 873!" It is said a family that was murdered in the room, haunted it forcing the hotel to brick and board over the room to match the rest of the hallway because the little finger prints on the mirrors would never clean off. In between rooms 872 and 874 there is  an extended stretch of wall where we figured the room must have been and took a picture.We escaped encountering any of the ghosts from the "three haunts" of The Banff Springs Hotel. Though my IPOD did turn on while I was alone in the bathroom but I am not sure what message the ghosts were trying to send through Jennifer Lopez and Ja Rule. 

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