I didn't realise I was staying in a haunted hotel until I arrived on holiday
A haunted hotel isn't my usual go-to so I was unnerved to discover I was staying with ghosts on a recent city break
There's a specific type of fear that only sets in when you're in bed, lying down alone and trying to sleep - hyper-aware of your surroundings and with ears tuned in to catch even the smallest movement.
You usually wouldn't expect to feel it while sleeping in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world.
I was lucky enough to stay at the Fairmont Château Laurier, Ottawa’s most iconic hotel and arguably its most photographed building after Parliament Hill itself. The room was lavish, the service impeccable, and I felt like I was getting the absolute dreamiest of stays. Then I joined a haunted walking tour of Ottawa with local company The Haunted Walk.
The group I was with were walking along listening to local tales, and taking in the tour guide's extensive knowledge of Ottawa's ghostly residents, including the famous buildings said to play host to the spirits. We did not, in fact, expect the tour to walk us straight back to our own front door.
The first stop had been suitably atmospheric and at a safe distance from any place we planned to visit on this trip, so imagine our horror - and excitement, for the braver members of our group - when we started walking towards our hotel.
The guide laid out the story: The Château Laurier was the vision of a railway executive named Charles Hays, who poured his ambitions into building Canada’s grandest hotel.
In April 1912, with the opening weeks away, Hays travelled to London to source furniture for the dining room. While there, a chance encounter with the chairman of the White Star Line landed him a passage home aboard the company’s newest ship, in which his furniture was safely stored for the trip back to North America. The ship was the Titanic.
Hays never made it back. He reportedly helped the women in his party into a lifeboat, stayed behind, convinced the ship was unsinkable, and went down with it.
His body was recovered days later, floating in the Atlantic, along with the furniture, and the hotel had to scramble to replace an entire dining room before its delayed opening that June - this time without the man who’d dreamed the whole place up.
Since then, stories of strange encounters inside the hotel have piled up. Some tell of staff who notice furniture rearranging itself overnight, others of guests describing unexplained noises and a presence in their rooms, which many believe is Hays, still wandering the hotel's halls he never lived to see finished.
Others tell of a child ghost near the old pool floor and one of the central staircases, and odd occurrences on the upper levels, once home to a radio station.
The guide suspensefully told us that most reports happened on one single floor - not reassuring for a group who was scattered all around the hotel - but perhaps the funniest part of the day was hearing my friend's shriek when we learnt it was the fifth floor, where her room was located. That evening, we went back to our rooms on video call, just in case.
Ghosts or not, the Fairmont Château Laurier remains one of the finest hotels I’ve stayed in. Beyond the history and the questionable nighttime company, it’s a properly luxurious stay - there’s an indoor pool original to the building, a well-equipped gym, a spa, and restaurants - we went to Zoe's and Akira Back - serving some of the best food we had on the entire trip.
The location is also a major perk - Parliament Hill is a five-minute walk away, the Rideau Canal sits right outside the front door (frozen and turned into the world’s largest skating rink in winter, a scenic laisure walk or cycling path any other time of the year), and the ByWard Market, with its restaurants, bars and nightlife, is close enough to drag yourself back from.
So don’t let the spirit of Charles Hays - real or imagined - put you off booking a room.
Book the holiday
Stays at the Fairmont Château Laurier in Ottawa typically range from $250 to $550 CAD per night (£140-300) for standard rooms.
Air Transat offers direct flights from London Gatwick to Ottawa with return fares from £357 per person. Book at airtransat.com. The airline also offers year-round direct flights from London Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow to Toronto.
