National Park After Dark - Room 873: Hauntings of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

In the 1800's settlers realized that with the beauty of Banff money and tourism provided a huge opportunity. They decided to build a beautiful hotel in the heart of Banff National Park. What they weren't expecting when it was built, were all the spirits that would never leave - and the mystery that lives in room 873. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: Get 10% off their your first month at betterhelp.com/NPADWicked Clothes: Get 10% off of any purchase when you use our discount code NPAD at check out or go to our link www.wickedclothes.com/NPAD For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Traveling is an adventure. It is a way to get out into the world and explore. At time to experience things you never would in your hometown. It is a time where you can be free from all the stress of the real world. There are so many options to be explored. From tropical islands to desert valleys, there's snow peak mountains, there's an endless opportunity for adventure. Part of this adventure is where you decide to stay. When you sit down to book that trip, or even if it's a last-minute decision on a spur of the moment excursion, you have to decide where you will be staying. That might mean a

hotel or a resort or camping in the mountains to wake up to a beautiful sunrise. Maybe you've chosen a treetop bungalow in the jungle. Whatever it is, it will be part of your adventure. But when you click that reserve now button, what do you really know about the place you have just decided to sleep at? Besides the photos you have seen, what do you really know about this place? Do you know its history? Do you know who owns it? Do you know how many people have stayed in that same place? Do you know who has died there?

Or even worse, who has been murdered there? Picture the last place you traveled to and stayed at. What did you really know about where you were? Today we are going to be taking you to a hotel that is full of history and legend. Get ready to adventure into one of the most. most beautiful places in all of Canada. Banff National Park. For this adventure, we are going to be staying at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Grab your bags and meet us at the concierge's desk because we are about to check in and learn about the people who never checked out. Welcome to National Park After Dark. That was the best intro you've ever done. Thank you. Literally. It really is. Wow. Oh my God. I am so...

Okay. When you said BAMP for some reason, I thought we were doing a survival story. I had no idea we're doing haunted hotel or whatever the hell we're doing. And I am like so fucking excited. Well, I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. This is National Park After Dark. Welcome. It's Monday. Sorry. I am just like so thrown off. I'm just really thrown off. Cassie usually.

spills the beans on what she's doing. And I really truly think that you said you were doing a survival story on purpose to throw me off. And now I'm just so excited. I didn't know I was getting a ghost story today and now I'm pumped. I could have sworn I told you, but maybe I didn't. And I'm really proud of myself if I didn't because that's rare. Well, for those of you who are new, welcome. This is a podcast where we swap stories about really scary and terrible things that have happened in national parks that somehow make us appreciate them even more than we did before. And encourage you all to go visit them. Our stories have actually inspired our own adventures and we are going to be going somewhere very soon. Yeah, we just decided yesterday. Cassie was like,

hey, I have some time off of work, do you? And I was like, yep, I'm going to make that happen. Let's go. And I woke up yesterday not having a trip booked and went to bed last night going on a mini vacation. And it'll be the first time that we've seen each other in a year. I can't even believe it's been a year. And last time we saw each other, we were in a national park too because we went to Olympic National Park. So we're re-meeting up. We're reconvening in another national park. Yeah.

All right. Well, let's get into your story because I'm super anxious. So good. So good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom rack stores now and up to 60% off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame, and Free People. Join the Nordi Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more.

Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you last season. looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. So in my intro, I let you all know that we are going to

Banff National Park. I myself has actually been there. I went there a couple years ago, and I can tell you firsthand experience, it's amazing. You went in the winter, right? Yeah, I went in the winter. It was such a lovely winter wonderland. You know, it was what you picture for Christmas time or whatever, just snowflakes falling, huge mountains around you. I obviously didn't get to see the turquoise waters or anything like that, which I think. is a big reason why a lot of people want to go. It was still so beautiful and I actually went there on a snowboarding trip. So the snow was perfect. Everything was great. The weather was great. I mean, it was 32 degrees the whole time we were there. It wasn't really cold. And the food is so

good there. I actually, I went to a pizza place there. It's called the Bear Street Tavern. They do something weird that I now do that I don't think anyone in the U.S. does, but they put honey on their pizza. It has changed my pizza experience in life. And now I'm here in the U.S. and I order pizza and then I'm like, can I get a side of honey? And people look at me like I have 10 heads, but it's so good. Well, this diner is it downtown because I remember seeing your pictures a couple of years ago. And it was like this winter wonderland, beautiful downtown. Is that where this hotel is? The hotel that we're going to is a walk away. from downtown. Okay, so it's very close. Let's go. I'm going to take you guys there. I actually

didn't go there when I visit, but I did see it and I'm excited to tell you about it. So before we go into the hotel and everything about that, I want to talk to you all about the park itself. Banff National Park, if you don't know about it already, it is located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains on Alberta's western border with British Columbia. And it's actually, so it borders it so closely that when I was snowboarding at one of the ski resorts, I actually wrote a lift past a sign that said, welcome to British Columbia. So it's literally right there on the border. Oh, okay. So the park was established as a national park in 1885, which makes it Canada's oldest national park, and it was actually the third park to ever be established as a national

Park in the entire world. There are about 4 million people who travel to Banff every single year, and it is open year-round. The park itself is 2,564 square miles, or 6,641 square kilometers. It is filled with two main Rocky Mountain ranges, which reach over 11,000 feet. There are glaciers there, ice fields, alpine landscapes, and forests. The park has three different, equal. regions, which include the Montane, subalpine, and the Alpine. Only about 3% of the park is in the Montane zone, which is located at lower elevations, and include forests filled with willow trees, aspens, and spruce trees. About 53% of the park is located in the subalpine zone and is filled with open meadows, thick brush, forests, and in some places is covered in glaciers.

BAMF is widely known for its turquoise glacier water lakes like Lake Louise and Lake Moraine. If you Google BAMF National Park, that's probably the first photo you're going to see. Inside the park, there's over 1,000 glaciers, and a hundred of them are visible from Icefields Parkway. And Icefields Parkway is this two-lane scenic highway that stretches from Bampf National Park to Jasper National Park, which is neighboring not too far from there. Banff is also filled with wildlife. They have black bears, grizzly bears, cougars, lynx, wolverines, and wolves. There are five to six wolf packs that live inside of the park and they have resided there since the 1980s. Today, for our story, it's going to take place inside the very first hotel ever built inside the park and it has been hosting visitors for over a hundred years. The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is the oldest hotel.

inside of the park and it has had celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth stay there. It has been since named a World Heritage Site, and while there have been millions of people who have checked into the hotel since it's since it's opened, there are a few who have never checked out. Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel may be the oldest hotel inside of the park, but it is also one of the most haunted places in all of Canada. I know exactly why you didn't go. here when you visited Banff. You actively avoided it. I actually didn't know. And now that I'm learning, I feel like I've kind of become a history nerd with our podcast now. Like, if I had known this, I would have done my trip differently because this hotel's really cool. I'm assuming it's very

expensive. Once I tell you the description, you'll kind of understand why. But the hotel allows visitors to just come in and walk around. You don't have to be staying there to view this hotel and walk around its corridors and everything. So if I had known, I would have not just seen this hotel from a distance, I would have actually come in and gone inside. Well, there's always second chances. So I'll remember this. So next time I send you a link to a haunted hotel instead of sending me back a sad face emoji, it'll be a excited emoji, right? I didn't say I wanted to stay there. I said I wanted to walk in the doors. That is it. I don't want to be there at night. You're still getting a sad face if you try to make me stay at a haunted hotel. So I want to go into a little bit of history

on this hotel and for that we need to go all the way back to the 1800s. On July 1st, 1867, Canada had reached an agreement across the British North American colonies to unite all of Canada as one country. So Canada was kind of separated by all these different colonies because British people had come over and set up in different spots and it wasn't a collective country at that point. So they decided to unite all of Canada as one country. And as part of Canada's confederation, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were promised a railroad system that would create a way for them to travel easily to the central provinces of the country. So if you look at a map, you can see Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are all the way on the east coast. And they were basically saying it's really hard to travel to the middle of the

country because Canada's enormous. We need to have a way to get there if we're going to join you as a country. And then Manitoba joined the Confederation in 1870 and they joined under the strict agreement that this railway system that they were going to build would link the entire country together from the east coast to the west coast. So Manitoba came in and was kind of like, okay, if we're going to make this one country, we need to have access to the whole country. And at this time, actually, in history, the western parts of Canada were relatively unpopulated. So a big part of this idea for the railway system was that they were going to create more

living areas on the western side. The Pacific Railway was founded in 1881 and they started construction. They engineered this extremely fast and they ended up completing it on November 7, 1885. So they finished this railway six years earlier than they had originally scheduled. Shortly after building this railway, they realized that they needed it to be profitable. They needed reasons to want to actually travel to the other side of the country. And they decided with Canada's beautiful, vast, mountainous landscapes, they wanted to bring tourism to the country. So they went on to build 10 different hotels along the railway.

Originally known as the Banff Springs Hotel, located in Banff, Alberta, Canada. It was first opened in 1888 and was one of the first open hotels along the railway. It was a large wooden building, which stood five stories tall. It hosted 280 guests, and it was nestled right inside the Canadian in Rocky Mountains, surrounded by beautiful views. This hotel became popular very fast, but in the year 1926, the hotel experienced a devastating fire that destroyed the entire building. That kind of reminds me, it's not a hotel, but did you hear in the news over the last week that one of the historic fire towers and Lassen Volcanic was destroyed by a fire?

No, I didn't. One of the wildfires going on? I believe so. Don't quote me on that, but I did see, like I saw a lot of side-by-side comparisons of the historic fire tower being built. And then now there's just like the stone foundation left, which is really sad. But they posted a couple things on their page about honoring its history and stuff. And like just older buildings are just so at risk all the time. Yeah, especially if it's totally made out of wood, right?

Out west in fire season. I mean. Yeah. Or a lightning strike, just things like that. know. That actually brings me to what they decided to do with the building. With all the tourism that they had been originally getting from this hotel, they decided that they needed to rebuild it. But this time, they were going to build it even bigger and more beautiful. They wanted a building full of luxury. And they decided that they would reconstruct this building into an enormous

castle. Okay, is it the same now? Can I look it up? I need a visual. It's the same. Yeah, you can look it up and see what it looks like. Okay, go on. I just need a visual for this story. So the architect for this building was actually Scottish, which was probably a big reason why they decided to remake a, it's almost like a European castle that they were going for. So it was completed with thick walls made purely of stone and would have huge towers. Building this hotel was relatively quick, and by the 1830s, it was completely. up and running again. But this time, the hotel was known around the world instead of just being

a popular hotel in the area. And it got a nickname Castle of the Rockies. I can see why. I just looked it up. It's so nice. It does. It looks like this European castle was just like plopped down in the middle of the forest there. Well, when I said earlier that Queen Elizabeth stayed there, It's like she's not going to be staying in any dinky hotel. She's coming to a castle to. Yeah. So the current hotel is made up of two main buildings and a main entry area and also an 11-story tower. It has 757 guest rooms, and that's not including the suites that they have.

It also has several different banquet halls, several lounge areas, a golf course, a terrace garden, and a lot of other. outdoor event locations, so they're really popular to hold events there. So now that we know a little bit about the hotel and its history, we're going to talk a little bit more about the paranormal side. This hotel has been the home of many different hauntings over the years with guests reporting, small things like furniture being moved, strange energy in certain rooms. Guests have even reported feeling someone touching them and even being pushed off of their bed. There are three, Three stories of hauntings there, however, that have seemed to grab the most attention in which have had the most incidents. And those stories are the ones that we are going to talk about today.

I love how you just say, you know, like little things, like being pushed off bed and, you know, just cute stuff. Like what that is so scary. It is cute stuff compared to the other stuff going on in this hotel. Okay. I will just say before you get going. Like my biggest fear, as far as like haunting goes, and I think it's probably because it's been kind of a common theme you see in a lot of paranormal shows and movies and things like that. But when you're just sitting in bed and you get a creepy feeling and then all of a sudden

you see an indentation like near your legs or like you feel the weight of something sit next to you and the bed shift, but no one's there. Or like that sheet lifts up or like off your bike, but like just like the subtle thing like that of like, did I really feel that? Did I really see that? And then you really look at it and you're like, oh shit. Yeah. Not that I know. I mean, I feel like I'm saying I've experienced it, but I haven't.

But it just seems like the little things like that that make you second guess yourself at first. And then the realization that sets in of like, wow, this really is happening. that is the most terrifying for me. Yeah, I think paranormal and ghost stories are really, really interesting. I, however, am terrified of real life experiencing that. So I don't have any interest in it at all. But I like to hear about it and I like to know about it. But if it ever happened to me, I would be absolutely terrified.

I love how you're like, I have no interest whatsoever. I'm just going to research about it and tell everyone about it. But just I don't want it to happen to me. Like, but ghosts, please leave me alone. I just don't scare me. I'm scared really easily. Okay, well, try and scare me. Okay. So probably one of the most popular hauntings inside of this hotel and the earliest haunting that is dated back to this is a bride that had her wedding there. So these hauntings date back all the way to the 1930s. A woman had her wedding at the hotel. something which is really common today.

People have their weddings there all the time. The story of hers goes that she was walking down a grand staircase to her own wedding reception, and her husband was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, and then something awful happened. The stairs were illuminated by the light of candles that lined the railing, and as she was walking down, her veil touched one of these candles and caught on fire. In a panic, she started flailing. She tried to put it out, but in doing so, she tripped over her dress.

She then tumbled down the stairs, broke her neck, and immediately died. Right in front of her new husband. Right in front of her new husband. And I imagine probably wedding guests as well. Yeah, I'm envisioning like a grand entrance into your reception right after your ceremony, introducing yourself as a what was it called? A wife? A wife.

What are those things? people are called after they have weddings. Clearly, I don't want to get married. Are we keeping that in? It's embarrassing. Anyways, introducing yourself as a wife for the first time. That's so traumatizing to everyone involved. Like, what the hell does the husband do?

I can't even imagine what was going on in that room when that happened. And it is said that her spirit has haunted the hotel ever since. So shortly after this incident occurred, guests who had no knowledge of her death started reporting these strange instances. So guests started reporting seeing a bride gracefully walking down the stairs in her beautiful white gown, and then she would disappear into thin air at the end. Some other guests reported seeing the bride on the staircase and that she was standing there and that she's on fire. In this, she looks very upset and then suddenly vanishes, leaving this deep coldness in the air when she does. And then people also began to see the bride in one of the ballrooms that they have. Inside the Cascade ballroom, guests still report seeing her to this day, walking along the corridors

in her dress and dancing in that banquet. And they said that it seems like she's waiting for her husband to come dance with her. Okay, so that one is really sad. but I would much rather see that than that second one. Her on fire on the staircase. Yeah, I'll pass, hard pass on that. That would be really scary. The first one is probably the most pleasant

because she's just walking down and gracefully disappearing. Second one, we're not even talking about that. That's crazy. I don't want to see that. And the third one is sad, you know? And this is a really famous story, actually. And you can, if you're ever at the hotel, you can go right up to the hotel staff

and ask them about it and they'll tell you their own experiences. When I was researching it, it said a lot of people who actually work at the hotel will have experiences if they've worked there for a long time. They almost all have a story to tell with her. So she's a very prominent inside the hotel. And she's so prominent that they've actually made little coins that you can buy that have her face on it. And she's in a bridal veil.

Oh. So it's kind of almost like a little tourist attraction. people are expecting her. Not that everyone sees her or anything like that, but she's a known presence inside the hotel. And that will bring me into the second haunting, which is also a really popular one inside of this hotel, and that is of Sam the Bellman. Sam the Bellman was an old employee of the hotel. His name was Sam McCauley, and he was a Scottish man who worked at the hotel for years as a Bellman in the 1900s. So it was his job to greet guests and help guests as they arrived with their luggage,

and he would often bring their luggage to their rooms, or he would bring them down to their cars and pack it up for them. He loved his job. He loved working at the hotel. He loved being in Banff, and he ended up working there until his retirement in 1967. Before he retired, he told his fellow co-workers that he would be back, and when he died, he would hang out at the hotel forever.

Sam died in 1975, and that is when reports of a new ghost there started to emerge. There have been many guests who have reported seeing Sam, the friendly bellman. Sam has been known to help guests with their luggage as they check out. There have actually been many similar reports of the same story of seeing Sam. A guest will call down to the front desk for help with their luggage as they're checking out. And almost immediately, after they hang up, someone will knock on their door. They open the door.

An older man described as dressed in an outdated uniform and very friendly will answer, and he'll ask, can I help you with your luggage? He'll grab their luggage and bring it downstairs as they're getting ready. And shortly after another bellman will arrive. And this is the one that the hotel staff sent up. Guests are then obviously confused at that point. And they'll tell this new bellman, oh, someone already came, your bellman already came and took my luggage. They'll say, no, I'm here. I'm here. they told me to come up here. But the craziest part about this is that when they would go downstairs, their luggage would be down there waiting for them.

Okay, are there not cameras in this hotel now? Like, what is? There's just ghost luggage going around in the elevators and stuff. Can you see ghosts on camera? No, but you'd see the luggage. That's true. I mean, I don't imagine that they have cameras in the hallways. I mean, it's a huge luxury hotel.

If you had cameras hanging around, I think people would be uncomfortable. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, trust me, I want to believe. I'm not trying to poke holes in this story. I believe Sam is there. Another, a hole I'll fill up for you is that there are photos of Sam and they will show the guests a photo of Sam and ask if this was the person that helped them with their luggage. And they recognize him and say that it was him at their door.

Okay, see, there we go. Sam's just doing his thing. he kept his promise, he's back. Yeah. Imagine loving your job so much. Just imagine for a second. That you love your job so much that after you die, you want to come back to it. I can't relate to that at all.

I mean, working in a castle in the middle of Banff National Park, I can imagine that you would love your job that much. So I can understand where that sentiment is coming from. but yeah, can't relate on a personal level. No, and I'll post some photos of Sam too, and he's just, he's a cute little old man, you know, like he probably just love the guests and talking to people, and now he comes and hangs out. And sometimes there's also been occurrences where he'll come if you are struggling to get into your door while you have your luggage, he'll show up behind you and he'll say, hi, can I help you? and then when you turn around, he's gone.

Or guests will go to tip him and they'll go to look in their wallet or their purse or something and they look up and he's gone. Okay, so question, would you be scared if you came across Sam in that way? Sam is my dream ghost. He's helping me with my luggage. He's not doing anything scary. I don't even know he's a ghost until he's gone and someone shows me a photo later. That is my dream ghost right there. I would love to meet Sam.

Yeah, it's not as abrupt. It's not a scary situation. You're just like, oh, wow, was that what just happened? And then you think about it and you're like, oh, okay, that was pretty spooky. All right, okay. So now we know what to do. Those are the first two hauntings that I want to talk about today. But the last haunting we're going to talk about is much more sinister, mysterious, and chilling to the bone.

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Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L. Every year after, The Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. On the 8th Florida Hotel in room 873 has reports of the most. terrifying incidents inside the hotel. The legend goes, although there is debate whether or not this story is true, that while a husband and wife were visiting with their daughter, one night

the husband murdered them both, and right after he committed suicide. After the bodies were removed, the hotel staff went in to clean up the room, which was, as you can imagine, an absolutely horrifying sight. One thing that they noted was that the daughter, had left a bloody handprint on the bathroom mirror. Once it was all cleaned up, the hotel decided that they would rent it out again and they made it available for people to book. As soon as guests began staying there, they started experiencing paranormal, horrifying events. They would report being woken up in the middle of the night because of these huge, horrifying, fearful cries and screams that sounded like a child and a woman. If guests did manage to fall back asleep,

many of them reported having extremely realistic dreams of a man strangling them. Guests who have stayed in this room reported that in the morning there would be a bloody handprint of a child on the mirror and they would call housekeeping to come and clean it off. And they would, and right after they would clean it off, it would reappear. Yep, don't like that. Do not like that. These hauntings were happening so frequently that the hotel ended up having to close down room 873 entirely. Oh, so is it like storage now or something?

Well, that's what makes this story so mysterious. Because if you go up to the eighth floor of the Banff Springs Hotel, you won't find room 873 there. Instead, you're just going to find a wall. while every other floor in the building has a 73 on the floor, like 773, 673, 573, etc. on each floor, there isn't one on the 8th floor at all. And it's rumored that the hotel closed it off, removed the door, and painted over the wall.

But if you ask the hotel and the hotel staff themselves, they'll say it's not true and they'll say it's all a hoax. but a long time ago they did report closing down the room, but now they're saying that the room never existed and that it's all a hoax. So there are some people that are pretty skeptical, and for several reasons. So people who have gone to the hotel to ask about the haunting in the room, they report that the hotel staff says a line that almost seems really rehearsed and is denying it, and they will use, they will all use the same.

same word, hoax. So it's almost like they have a script that they have to follow that says, no, 873 never existed, there is no hauntings, there's no murder, anything like that. And it's funny because the other two stories, the hotel wholeheartedly tells because people like it. But this one, they're like a murder screaming woman and child and blood on the mirror isn't as tourist-friendly as the other one. So people are skeptical about them reporting that it's not real. Well, I can see why for sure. It's more of a deterrent. It would deter me. It'll deter me, too. I mean, I'm a fan of the paranormal, but I'm not about that. Okay, wait, and you might, I might be jumping the gun a little bit here, but isn't there kind of a way to

get to the root of if this room existed or not? Well, it's funny because there's a couple things that people have noticed on that floor. So if you go up to the eighth floor and you walk down the hallway to where room 873 should be and where the door of the room should be, there's a light on the ceiling. And it's the same light that is above every door of every hotel room on the floor. But where 873 is, there's no door. Okay. Also another thing that people have noticed that has made them skeptical is that they will

knock on the wall of the eighth floor and it sounds like the thick plaster sound as you knock. But when they get to the area where the door should be, it's a really hollow sound. Like there's an open area of where the door used to be like leading into a room. There have been some reports that 873 has never existed because room 875 was extended years ago to be a larger room. when I was looking through some photos, I was able to find a photo of the layout of the eighth floor plan. So you know, whenever you check into a hotel, they have a little picture in your room that shows you where all the fire exits are and where all the rooms are and the numbers. Yeah.

Well, there's a photo of the eighth floor plan, and it does show that 875 being a larger room than all the other ones. But I couldn't find anywhere where it showed the measurements of that room that would show that it actually extended that far. Also, you wouldn't post on there an empty room if you were the hotel and people are already skeptical. It wouldn't be like this blank wall space, you know, so there haven't been any that I could read any confirmation of how large the room actually is if it would have extended into 873. Another strange account that the host tell staff really can explain is that outside of that wall where the door of that room would have been. Guests have very frequently reported seeing a mother and child standing there and waiting.

And they're standing there waiting, looking like they're waiting for someone to open the door for them. Oh. Wait, when did these murders allegedly occur? Sometime in the 1900s, the date wasn't clear either. It was sometime after the building burnt down. So sometime in the 1930s. Okay. My question is just like, I wonder if there's original blueprints around.

That would be very telling. I tried to look it up and I couldn't find any either, which I also thought was weird because it's like, oh, are you trying to hide something or is it really just not there? Right. Like, it's hard to say either way. Wow. And it's been this like legend that's been going on in the hotel for so long. It's like, is this misconstrued information?

Have people been emphasizing things? But at the same time, there's been recent accounting. of people seeing a woman and child outside the door. And also another thing is people have reported hearing things behind that wall in the middle of the night before. I wonder, oh my gosh, if anybody has ever been to this hotel, please write in and let us know because we have a few people write in about the Stanley and their experiences there. Imagine if someone was like, wow, I've stayed there and I had this experience.

That would be so cool. That would be really cool. I would love to hear that. If you have had any experiences, that would be awesome. Let us know. Because, I mean, these are the three main stories that go on inside the hotel that are mostly talked about. But there's little things, too, like I said at the beginning where people are feeling someone tugging at their shoulder or even being pushed off of a bed. So there's like all these weird small things going on.

And when I was reading through my research that I did see a couple of comments for. people said I've been here and I have walked into rooms and it's gone ice cold in the middle of summer and things like that. So I think there's definitely some hauntings going on in this hotel. Right. You don't need to see a bride lighting on fire to know that you've had a paranormal experience. You know, you'll know. Things won't feel right, sit right. You'll know. Wow. That's so cool. I'm so stoked you did a paranormal one because usually it's coming from me and I'm so glad to be on the receiving end of it. So thank you for doing that. Yeah. Well, I've been trying to find a reason to go to Banff National Park because I love it there so much and I just think it's such a beautiful,

magical place. And I wanted to kind of dive into the history of the park a little bit when I went there. So I thought that this was a good way to get into the park itself and also some of the history that lives there. Love it. Well, is that it for your story? That's everything I have today. If you end up going to Banff National Park and you decide to stay at this hotel or like I said earlier in this episode, you don't have to stay there to go in and explore and you can see these ballroom areas and walk along the stairs and all of that. You don't have to stay. there to go there. So if you do go there, let us know, send us pictures. Yes, we would really enjoy that. And I will say before we end this, I did want to shout out to Patreon members, you have spoken

and voted. And I have decided on our August bonus campfire story. And it will be a mysterious disappearance. I'm not going to give away the park yet, but a lot of people wanted that. So it's happening. We will be releasing it at the end of the month. It'll be a mysterious disappearance. And that's all I'm saying. But you have been heard. Yes. I can't wait to hear this one. I'm excited. I think that's it. Yeah. Okay. Well, on that note, it is, I'm really trying to make an effort to go to bed at a normal time. And it's right around nine o'clock. I have to work tomorrow. Be up at five. So I'm going to start winding down. If I have a stress dream, I know where it's coming from.

I was going to say, let me know what you dream about tonight because it's going to be messed up. I know. I know. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. We really appreciate you coming along for all of our stories. And we love sharing them with you. And knowing that you're listening, it's just so wild. Speaking of wild, crazy things.

But so thank you for being a part of our journey. and our adventure. If you want to keep up with us, you can do so in a couple of different ways. We have an Instagram and a Facebook, National Park After Dark. We have a Twitter at NPAD Podcast. And if you want to write us a listener story of your own, whether it's a haunting in a hotel or something that happened to you in a national park or national forest or out on a hike, we love hearing from you. And our email is NPADPodcast.gmail.com. And we all also have a listener form submission link on our website npaddpodcast.com. I think that's all our social media.

I like need to write it down. I'm like, all these 30 social media things, follow us, messages, talk to us. We like to hear from you guys. With that said,

I think we're both going to go to bed. We hope you all have a wonderful week. Happy Monday. We will see you next week. But in the meantime, enjoy the view, but watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye.

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