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Ghostly Elevators & Freaky Basements: 3 Ghost Stories From The Bay On Granville

Hudson's Bay Granville

Photo: Mikofox Photography / Flickr

The Hudson’s Bay Company has played a huge role in shaping Canada as we know it today, the flagship store has been on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver since 1927, so it’s plausible that it has seen some ghosts.

With construction on the Bay starting in 1913, hundreds of people have been in and out of its doors. And some of those have included ghosts, its past employees can attest.

The Lady In Red

A far more common ghost story about a woman in red takes place at the Fairmont Hotel, a block away from the Bay. But an apparition of the same description was seen at the department store as well, by a custodian on the second floor.

The custodian said she had seen the woman in red floating in the middle of the aisle one morning, and immediately requested not to work on that floor anymore.

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Ghostly Elevators

People have reported that the elevators in the building operated on their own accord.

The buttons would light up and they would move up and down, stopping on a floor momentarily before continuing on again.

A security worker, Shanon Shin, said he asked the engineers in the building about it. They told him it was pretty much impossible for the elevators to move on their own, without someone pressing the buttons.

When Shin checked the security tapes however, he didn’t see anyone around when the elevators moved.

He did see them stop on the second floor often, however, where the apparent Lady in Red resided.

The Sub-Basement

While Shin was a security guard, he’d occasionally hear a motion alarm go off in the sub-basement, on its own. It was his duty to check it out, even though the cameras showed nothing there.

“The alarm was not set off in this way very often,” Shin wrote on his blog. “If it had been a malfunction, it would have occurred more often than it did.”

It was late at night when he went downstairs and walked into the old staff kitchen. An alarm clock sat near the sink and went off twice went he walked closer to it.

He then went into the hallway and walked toward a door with a stopper underneath it, but when he approached it, the door slammed in his face.

“Okay. I get it. I know you’re here!” said Shin to the empty room, once inside. He said there were no more incidents after that. But others have still felt a ghostly presence.

Shopping at the Hudson’s Bay on Granville will never be the same.

For more local Metro Vancouver news, stay tuned to 604 Now News

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