Haunted Maritime Museum, Victoria B.C.

“You sure know when the building accepts you.”

                                                      ---Museum Heritage Guide

The Maritime Museum of
British Columbia.

This museum is located on Vancouver Island in Victoria’s historic Bastion Square. It is an impressive 1862 building which was this cities courthouse, jail and, gallows for many years.

A famous ghost that resides in this museum is Mathew Begbie  *, known in Canada as the “hanging judge.”

Judge Matthew Begbie

Staff and visitors while on the third floor where the courthouse was once located, have seen his ghost. His tall figure dressed in black robes is seen walking across the area where the court bench is located.

Voices, footsteps, and the distinct sweet smell of a pipe are all experienced in this room as well.

The judges’ ghost appears to wander for his shadowy, bearded apparition is also seen standing at a window near the museum’s entrance as well as gliding down the main staircase.

The museum staff and guides report many other ghosts reside in this building. Some are believed to be criminals that were executed on the gallows.

In a small alcove off, the Shipbuilders Room, on the first floor, is where visitors, either individually or in groups, report feelings of being choked. Others report feeling a heavy weight as if something is standing on their shoulders.

These reports do not surprise the staff for many of them have had the same experience of being suffocated in this area—it is in this alcove where the gallows stood.

On the second floor, directly below where the courthouse once stood, are ship models and exhibits about the Canadian Coast Guard, and lighthouses.

The staff feels that several of these exhibits and artifacts have ghostly activity attached to them.

It is in these galleries that disembodied voices are heard and objects are moved without reason. Apparitions are also seen roaming about in this area.

The reconstructed courthouse
at the museum.

In a small, nonpublic room that holds special collections, staff always feel, an overwhelming sense of despair and grief.

This room is where in the past, prisoners were held while they awaited their verdicts.

Despite all this ongoing paranormal activity the museum’s staff never gets the impression these ghosts are a threat.

 *  Matthew Bigbie was B.Cs first chief justice. He served on the bench until his death in 1894. Streets, schools, and mountains in B.C. all bear his name. But Bigbe is a controversial figure because of his role in the hanging of six chiefs during the Tsilhqot’in war. More can be read here.

Victoria's Haunted Speakeasy

This is a 1^st person account from a long-time employee at one of the oldest hotels in Victoria B.C., Canada.

The Speakeasy

No one was in the hotel’s basement in the early morning hours. 

Every day as a part of my job in security I checked all the public rooms in a 100 plus year old hotel. I would start on the 3^rd floor and work my way downstairs to the hotel’s basement.

This room had been used as a speakeasy 80 years before. It was long abandoned and gathering dust in the years I did my rounds.

There were still remnants of this 1920s era visible. The mosaic Romanesque tiles originally placed with care, the tall stately wooden columns that lined the large ballroom floor, the dark wood that paneled the walls, and the large stone fireplace with its prominent hearth that once warmed the room all remained.

Feelings of Anger

As soon as I would hop on the old creaky elevator that took me down to the basement feelings of trepidation would surface. This was one part of my job I did not enjoy.

Few people ventured down to this room, except to retrieve supplies that were stored or random maintenance men who were called in to repair something.

I normally entered the old creaky elevator around 6:00 a.m. when the hotel was still quiet. The elevator would make its way slowly down always stopping with a thud. This is when it would happen.

In the few moments before I slid the door open I would hear the distinct sounds normally associated with a rowdy party. The first time this happened I thought the loud chatter and laughter must be guests who had stayed up all night. But when I opened the elevator door no one was in the basement.

I heard these jubilate sounds every morning moments before I exited the elevator. Once I opened the door these conversations ended in mid-sentence-- I sensed that I was an unwelcome intruder.

Typical speakeasy 1920s

I felt many eyes turn in my direction. Even though there was no physical evidence of what I heard and sensed the resentment at my presence became more pronounced as the days passed.

One unseen partygoer seemed more hostile than the rest. I felt this was a man who stood near the elevator as I entered the room. I sensed he followed me around the room. I often heard female voices before I slid the door open telling him that I meant no harm.

I became determined to catch sight of these ghosts before they disappeared. I would hold my breath as the elevator stopped then I would jerk the door open rapidly trying to take them by surprise but this never worked even though I still felt their presence.

Sometimes they even surrounded me. I picked up a wide range of emotions in the room--these included everything from anger to curiosity.

One Sighting

In the year before this hotel was torn down to make way for a modern parking structure and a new glass building I had two more unusual experiences.

One morning as I a stood in hotel’s main nightclub I looked up to see a yellow shimmering object pass in front of me about 30 feet away. I was amazed as this form took shape. It was a young woman wearing a yellow t-shirt with black corduroy pants.

Below her knees her legs were transparent, I could see the wall through them. This figure became aware of my presence and locked eyes with me. She then smiled kindly and continued to move through the room. As she approached the wall she disappeared.

Six months later, down in the old speakeasy I was describing to another worker what I had seen upstairs. He and several employees recently had sensed a strong unseen presence as they moved an old ice machine into the room.

At the exact moment I described what she looked like a fuse blew with a loud bang. I feel strongly that this was the same female ghost letting me know she heard our conversation. 

The Ghost of Doris Gravlin

One of Canada’ oldest golf courses is located on the Pacific Coast near Victoria, British Columbia. I visited Victoria last year and the view out to sea from the Victoria Golf Course is spectacular. 

This course is placed amidst one of Victoria’s wealthiest areas--Oak Bay. But this golf course is not famous for its beauty or wealth. Instead, it has been renowned for over seventy years as Victoria’s most haunted spot.

I first visited this course at night, and it was very dark despite being close to many of Victoria’s grand Victorian homes. As I walked toward the ocean, all I heard was a strange wind and the pounding of the waves as they hit the nearby coastline. 

I did not encounter the ghost whose story I am about to tell but just soaking up Victoria’s charm was well worth my trip.

Doris Gravlin was a private nurse and was married to Victor Gravlin who wrote sports news for the Colonist newspaper in Victoria. The couple had a seven-year-old son Walter who went by the nickname, Robin. * 

Despite the fact, these two loved each other their marriage was not a happy one. When Victor lost his job at the newspaper in 1934, due to illness most likely connected to alcoholism, Doris separated from him.

The young couple, Doris was thirty and Victor was in his mid-thirties tried several times to get back together but nothing ever seemed to work out for them. 

In September of 1936, Victor arranged to meet with his wife at the Victoria Golf Course after work. The pair liked to walk to the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, a favorite spot to eat from this location. His parents stated afterward that he was hoping for a reconciliation.

Newspaper clipping about the
the disappearance of the couple.

What happened next will never be known. Both were seen alive for the last time early that evening. Victor was seen leaving his home and the elderly lady who Doris cared for, bid goodbye to her early, so she could be on time. 

Two days later the couple’s respective parents reported them missing. On Sunday a caddy discovered Doris’ beaten and strangled body on the beach. A large club like piece of driftwood lay near her body.

Victor Gravlin had disappeared. A search team was organized which included a local boy scout troop. A month later, Victor was found. A fisherman discovered his body floating offshore near the golf course tangled in some kelp. Doris’ shoes, which were not on her body when she was found, were in Victor’s pocket. 

The case was recorded as a murder-suicide and then closed.

Within a few short months people began to report a strange sight on the Victoria Golf Course. Here is one account told by Charles Lillard and Robin Skelton about an  early sighting:

“A fisherman fishing off the rocky shore of Gonzalez Point, the section of the Victoria Golf Links containing both the seventh green and ninth tee, was one of the first Victorian’s to see Doris Gravlin after her death…

The fisherman was unable to say what made him turn around and look up at the bank and the green. But he did, and a
woman was staring out toward the kelp beds. She paid him no attention whatsoever, even though she was only a few feet away. He could not immediately understand why she was there.

The light was fading fast, and all the fisherman noted, besides the gloomy look on her face, was what he later described ‘as an old-fashioned brown suit.’ The suit stuck in his mind because Oak Beach was, then and now, one of Victoria’s most beautiful suburbs, and hardly a place where a young woman ignored fashion.

He continued casting. She said nothing. He said nothing, and ‘then she suddenly hurried down as if she was going to meet someone, and on the way she vanished.’ The fisherman stated, “I saw her kind of melt away.”

Over the years there have been many more sightings of Doris. She appears year-round on the course, but she seems to prefer the month of March. It is said she appears in the late afternoon more “human-like” but dressed in old- fashioned clothes walking around the course. 

She is known to leave footprints in the bunkers. But when she is seen at night, she takes on a more ethereal appearance. After dark, she is seen most often on the green closest to the ocean.

It is a rite of passage for the young people in Victoria to go to this golf course at night to search for Doris’ ghost. 

One legend associated with her haunting, states that if you ring the brass bell located between the sixth and seventh holes three times, it will summon her ghost. No one knows why she is connected to this bell, but it is speculated that Victor might have rung it the night they disappeared.

Witnesses sometimes have described her as wearing a long flowing white gown with her arms outstretched. Several people, including a group of university students in the 1960s, saw her rush toward them and then simply disappear. 

She is known to move very fast at times. One witness, a man, reported that she appeared directly in front of him, frightened he turned around, but she was facing him once more. He turned several more times, but she always blocked his way, then she just disappeared.

One group who encountered her ghost stated it was a very calm windless day on the course but within moments they felt a powerful breeze lift their clothes and take off their hats. Feeling an eerie presence, this group picked up their pace. 

One member that was behind the rest felt someone’s clammy hand take hers. Scared, she realized the rest of the group was in front of her. The hand that held hers slowly loosened its grip and disappeared. She did not see who was attached to this hand.

The Victoria Golf Course has a road that runs alongside. Doris’ ghost has been seen walking right through cars, which has caused quite a stir. 

Some state that there is a second ghost that appears at Victoria Golf Course. It is said Victor’s mother, who never accepted that her son was the murderer, can be seen wandering the course looking for the real culprit.

* Robin’s grandparents raised him. He went to school in England and then stayed to join the British Army. He did not know about his parent’s tragic end until a reporter called him in 1994, for a comment about his mother’s ghost.