Hostel Apparitions.
You can’t mistake the Jail Hostel (dorm-style bunks $32, private cells $77) in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, for any ordinary accommodations. If the stocks outside weren’t indication enough of its former incarnation as the Carleton County Gaol, the steel bars on guest room doors would be a dead give-away. The 145-year-old building operated as a maximum and minimum security institution until it was closed because of inhumane conditions in 1972. A year later, it was wholly refurbished for hostellers. However, former inmates continue to make their presence felt.
According to Glen Shackleton, owner of Haunted Walks, “many believe prisoners who died by way of execution, suicide, disease, and exposure (some of whom were buried in the courtyard), still haunt the building today.” Among them is Patrick James Whelan, a political assassin hanged onsite in 1869, who continues to appear in his death row cell obsessively reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Fellow phantoms manifest themselves through disembodied sounds, slamming doors, flickering lights, and levitating objects.
These original inhabitants might no longer recognize the facility’s chapel or debtor’s prison (transformed into a lounge and dining room respectively), yet the spot retains much of its character and guests typically bed down in cells lit by a single overhead bulb. Lodgings, as a result, can be rather unnerving. That’s the point. But if you’re not willing to sacrifice amenities for ambience, you can always book into the unabashedly upscale Château Laurier (doubles from $249). It is rumored to be haunted by Charles Melville Hays, who commissioned the hotel but died on the Titanic days before it opened in 1912.
Shackleton offers separate hour-long historical tours of both the hostel (where you’ll see Canada’s last working gallows) and the Château Laurier. For the full spectrum of city specters, sign on for his Original Haunted Walk, which also includes stops at top tourist attractions such as the Bytown Museum. The ninety-minute, lantern-lit tour is loaded with lurid lore and goose bump-inducing details. Walks cost between $10 and $14.50 depending on the route you choose.
