QUALICUM BEACH, B.C.

Note: this article is from 2014. The former inn has since been integrated into condominiums.

Even in broad daylight there is something definitively eerie about the decrepit structure that once housed the Qualicum Heritage Inn. Perhaps it’s the permeating silence that surrounds the place. Maybe it’s the many windows of now vacant guest rooms, gazing down like eyes. Then again, maybe it has to do with the litany of stories surrounding the old inn, stories I’m now inclined to not take so lightly.

History

Located in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, the former inn sits just off the Old Island Highway, a ghost in itself, with its weathered dormers and boarded windows peeking out at passing drivers from behind swaths of coastal fir and cedar.

Originally built in 1937, the former inn originally served as an all boys private school. As was common place in those days, the young students both lived and attended classes at the school, which was then known as the Qualicum School for Boys, and later, Qualicum College.

In the 1970’s the great Tudor style structure ended its service as a school and became the Qualicum College Inn and soon after, the Qualicum Heritage Inn. It was during this period that both guests and staff begun reporting varrying accounts of supernatural phenomenon taking place at the inn.

Ghostly happenings

Up to three different apparitions have been spotted over the years, including that of a young boy believed to be a former student, affectionately named “Buddy” by staff. The stories from the building’s time as an inn are many, but two particularly good sources for the many alleged accounts are Shanon Sinn’s The Haunting of Vancouver Island and Robert C. Belyk’s Ghosts: True Tales of Eerie Encounters. Spirit lights, known as orbs, have been captured on film by guests, while staff frequently reported hearing the voices of children while working in areas of the hotel they knew they were alone in. Upon investigation, all sounds would cease. There were even accounts of a portrait that once hung in the hotel’s lobby of a former headmaster from the building’s time as an institution, with eyes that followed staff around the around the room, as relayed in a segment on the inn on Canadian paranormal show “Creepy Canada” in 2002. So unnerved it made them, the picture was taken down.

In 2008 the inn closed its doors for good and has since sat empty as preparations have been in the works to convert the property into the Qualicum College Heights, a seaside condominium complex. The last six years have only accentuated the structure’s already eerie vibes with its boarded windows and weather-beaten exterior.

Author’s personal account

In the summer of 2013 my brother and I were headed down the Old Island Highway. While passing the former inn outside Qualicum Beach, we decided to stop for a closer look. Of course I’d heard the stories of the place and since our ferry wasn’t for a couple hours, we figured why not pull over and take a look? Before resuming our drive we decided to snap a couple pictures.

“Maybe we’ll get a picture of a ghost,” I joked, as we headed off south again.

It was only while examining the pictures on the ferry back we realized just how accurate our joking had been, for staring back before us from one of the third floor windows in the south wing, was the otherworldly face of a man–a man who didn’t look entirely pleased to see us.

There was no way anyone could’ve been inside the building we rationalized as we stared.

Now, I know we humans have a way of making shapes into faces–a phenomena known as pareidolia. And, indeed, that’s all it is, well, it’s a pretty damn good arrangement of light and shadow!

I’ll leave you, valued reader, to judge.