In this last episode of season 4, Cold Case Canada, I’ve asked four BC-based storytellers to tell us their favourite murder and haunted building stories.
Francis Rattenbury (1867-1935)
Will Woods, founder of Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours tells us the story of Francis Rattenbury’s murder, an architect responsible for buildings that include the Parliament Buildings and the Empress Hotel in Victoria and the Law Courts in Vancouver.
Francis Rattenbury and Alma Pakenham
Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore
Vancouver Fire Hall no. 19
Is this who’s haunting No. 19 Firehall?
Vancouver Fire Hall No. 19 has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. Captain Ryan Cameron, who has served 27 years with Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, believes that the ghost is none other than Bill Wootton, a fire fighter who worked out of the original fire hall in 1943 when he was killed on the way to a call. Bill likes to slide down the fire station pole, slam doors in the middle of the night, play ping pong and leave a chill in the stairwell.
The original West Point Grey Firehall in 1925, now no. 19. Courtesy Vancouver Fire Fighters Historical Society
1329 East 12th Avenue, Vancouver
Amanda Quill is a Vancouver-based paranormal investigator who welcomes abnormal activity and has happily lived in several haunted houses over the years. In 2001, she and her son Nathan moved into this East Vancouver house along with a ghost cat, a male in his 30s, and a little girl who appeared to Nathan in a frilly dress.
1329 East 12th Avenue, courtesy Amanda Quill
Irving House, New Westminster
In 1990, Jim Wolf was fresh out of university and got his dream job as curatorial assistant at Irving House. Soon after starting at the museum, he met his first ghost. Most recently, Jim was the heritage planner with the City of Burnaby and he has authored several books including The Royal City: A Photographic History of New Westminster, 1858-1960.
Halloween is my favourite unofficial holiday of the year, so it was especially rewarding to end Season 2 of Cold Case Canada with a Halloween Special. I reached out to five fabulous story tellers to tell me their favourite ghost stories—stories that take place in some of Metro Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods.
Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore
Will Woods, courtesy Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours
The Chinatown Ghost:
Will Woods, founder and chief storyteller at Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours tells us about his encounter with the Chinatown ghost. He also tell us what to expect on the Lost Souls of Gastown Tour including the unsolved murder of John Bray.
Bill Allman is the former theatre manager at the Vogue, one of Vancouver’s most haunted venues. Tom Carter photo.
East Georgia Street Murder:
Bill Allman is president of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, owner of Famous Artist Limited and a recovering Vancouver lawyer. He tells us about the ghost that haunted an East Georgia Street house after a violent shooting and murder of Vancouver police chief in 1917.
Michael Kluckner’s 1984 painting from his book Vancouver: The Way it Was depicts the shooting and murder of Police Chief Malcolm MacLennan and George Robb, 9 in 1917.
Haunted Piano:
Tom Carter is a Vancouver artist, historian and musician who shares his Vancouver loft with a haunted piano.
Tom Carter with his haunted 1865 Steinway piano. Dan Chambers photo.
Chinatown Nightclub:
When Tom was researching the Mandarin Garden (1936-1952) for his gorgeous painting, he found that the Chinatown nightclub was once owned by Chan See Wong Fong. After he died on the premises, staff began experiencing strange things. They heard voices, taps turned on by themselves, electrical devices became unplugged and there was a disembodied hand.
Mandarin Garden ca.1950s, Tom Carter painting 2021
Fort Langley Cemetery:
Aman Johal is a heritage interpreter at Fort Langley National Historic Site and he’s a storyteller for Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours. You can catch Aman live guiding the Grave Tale Walking tour between October 15 and November 7 and visit William Henry Emptage’s and his wife Louisa’s gravesites.
Greg Mansfield is the author of Ghosts of Vancouver, the website and book. He takes us to Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, a now abandoned former asylum for the criminally insane.
CTV’s St. John Alexander and Greg Mansfield, October 2021. Eve Lazarus photo
For more ghostly stories check out these podcast episodes:
Since this is my last blog for the year, I thought I’d put together a list of my top 10 favourite FB pages. My criteria is pretty simple: the page has to have a strong Greater Vancouver flavour, there has to be a historical element, and the page has to post reasonably often and with original postings.
The Archives does an amazing job as our official keeper and promoter of Vancouver’s history. But most importantly the Archives took the step a few years ago of digitizing tens of thousands of photos and making high res versions freely accessible to anyone who wants them. They also have a great blog.
I started this page a couple of years ago and it has grown into a mixture of curated material, photos and original posts (you really don’t know what you are getting from one day to the next because I’m never sure myself).
Most long time Vancouverites have at least one Foncie photo in their album, and his photos really touch a chord and say a lot about our history. Foncie took his first photo in 1934 and his last in 1979. He was the last of the street photographers
This is a local business run by Will Woods (shown wearing cool hat). Will has shaken up the idea of the walking tour, added some theatre and shows the sketchy side of Vancouver to locals and tourists. His FB posts reflect this side of Vancouver.
For keeping Vancouver’s heritage buildings as an issue, for publishing the top 10 watch list of endangered buildings and for putting on great events that keep us interested in heritage. You need to follow this page.
The North Vancouver Museum and Archives has been fundraising this year for a new museum that would live at the foot of Lonsdale. They’ve also ramped up their postings on FB and shared some really fascinating bits of local history and photos for people on both sides of the Inlet.
Not all the photos are of burning buildings, some are shots of old equipment, trucks, parades, old Vancouver and heritage fire halls. And, if you’re in need of some eye candy pop over to The Hall of Flame calendar page — it’s okay it’s for the children!
Through the annual heritage house tour, lectures series, walking tours, Places that Matter and their collateral, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation does an amazing job of keeping heritage important and fun. Follow this site for information about grants and events.
I can’t say enough good things about Vancouver Then. Jeremy Hood posts consistently and often and he puts a huge amount of work and thought into his posts and photos about Vancouver. My favourites are his then and now posts that show how much we have changed, or in some cases, how much we haven’t.
Noted fiction author Caroline Adderson started this page a couple of years ago and has attracted a huge following of people who are just as outraged as she is by the demolition of character houses in Vancouver. Her relentless beating on City Hall has had real results and her page was the basis for Vancouver Vanishes, a book of essays with contributors such as Michael Kluckner, John Atkin, Kerry Gold, and me.
If I have missed any of your favourite pages, please leave a note in the comment section below!
I went to a Christmas party at the Gregsons last night. Actually, the Gregsons don’t really exist; they are characters in War for the Holidays, a play set in 1915, and which takes place in an 1893 Queen Anne house in Vancouver’s West End.
Will Woods, who is well known for his Forbidden Vancouver tours, has taken a leap into theatre, and we’re lucky he has, because the play, which is part history, part improv and part just really good acting, is riveting.
Written by newcomer Tiffany Anderson, War for the Holidays took a year to produce and it shows, from the convincing performances, to the clothes, right down to the trays, decanters and newspapers—supplied by Vancouver’s Salmagundi.
We, the audience, are cast as the Gregsons’ neighbours and are completely immersed in the show, even moving from room to room with them. And, the play delves into some heavy issues—war-time Vancouver, desertion, suffragettes, the old boy’s club, and racism—and it kept me on edge the whole time, and more than a little uncomfortable.
That feeling of unease starts at the front door. Chang, the Chinese houseboy, takes our coats and leads us into the parlour. And, yes, West End families employed Chinese help—it was cheap and it was prestigious. At one point in the play Chang takes us into the kitchen and shows us a picture of the bride he has never met, but who will soon join him in Vancouver.
We have eggnog in the parlour—served by Chang of course—and later plum pudding in the dining room. At one point the women are taken upstairs to share in a secret and we get to see the period bedrooms and stand in the cupola that overlooks the rest of Barclay Square and that was supposedly designed by Francis Rattenbury.
Roedde House, 1415 Barclay Street
Roedde house is the perfect backdrop for the play. One hundred years ago the actual occupants were Gustav and Matilda Roedde. Gustav founded the city’s first bookbinding and printing company, and they lived in the house until 1925 with their six children and three St. Bernards. At Christmas 1913, the family’s tree burst into flames and the house was only just saved by the firefighters working at Fire Hall 6.
Fortunately that scene is not reenacted, but there’s plenty of drama, including a lot of yelling around the dinner table.
The best thing though, is that the Gregsons are not our relatives. At the end of the play we can leave them and go have Christmas with our own dysfunctional families.
One of the things I loved most about being a contributor to Vancouver Confidential was working with reporters, bloggers, artists, tour guides, actors, musicians and academics that cut across both decades and demographics. The experience made me realize what a truly diverse group we have working in the local history and heritage space.
So just for fun, I’ve asked several of my heritage heroes to tell me their favourite residential or commercial building, and to tell me the one building that should never have left our landscape.
John Atkin is a civic historian, heritage consultant, author and walking tour guide. He co-chairs the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, sits on the board of the Friends of the Archives and is a Trustee of the Dr Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. In his spare time John likes to bind books and draw.
Favourite Vancouver building:
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church on Campbell Avenue in Strathcona is a single-handed effort from the Russian Orthodox missionary priest, architect and carpenter, the Reverend Archpriest Alexander Kiziun. He died before completion, but was responsible for its design. He salvaged materials from a variety of sources which makes the church unique in its construction and character.
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church
The one building that should never had been destroyed:
The Georgia Medical Dental building should never have been demolished. Silly reasons put forward by the council of the day, a developer with an outsized ego and a building which would have been a dramatic blend of old and new if it had survived for a few more years like the now celebrated Hotel Georgia.
Aaron Chapman is a writer, historian and musician with a special interest in Vancouver’s entertainment history and the author of Liquor, Lust, and the Law, Live at The Commodore, and a contributor to Vancouver Confidential. You can catch Aaron live at the Vancouver Archives on March 22
Favourite Vancouver building:
The Vancouver Planetarium. The steel crab sculpture, the UFO like dome building, and the ramp that rises up to the doorway makes you feel like just entering the building is an event. The design is modern, but it’s the location for the Vancouver Museum, and therefore full of the past that makes an interesting contradiction. And there’s something of that late 60s “space-age” era architecture that not only reminds me of that design style that was so popular when I was a kid, but the whole place also likely reminds me of the elementary school field trips fondly spent there. Runner ups? The Penthouse and The Commodore Ballroom, of course!
The one building that should never had been destroyed:
The Cave. I was too young to ever go in myself before it was demolished, so perhaps I’m considering it through an odd lens of nostalgia. How wonderful would it be today to see a show that had such history to it, and knowing that you were standing in the place where so many great jazz musicians, comedians, and stars came through, especially in a place designed to look like a cave with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere as the decor. Hipsters today would have flocked to a place with such kitsch.
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre (Vancouver Planetarium)
Jeremy Hood is the sole administrator for the FB page Vancouver: Then. “It has been a labour of love for the past two and half years and I am still blown away by some of the comments of real life Vancouver stories, some first hand, some passed down, that follow in the comments section of the photos I post,” says Jeremy. “When not working at my day job I am a photographer, a local history buff and cat lover.”
Favourite Vancouver building:
The Dominion Building wins out for me mainly for its uniqueness and how little it has changed in over 100 years. There is no building quite like it in Vancouver and it is situated in a location that enhances the magnificent stature of the building, including the mansard roof and decorated cornice. Even with a city that has grown around it, it still manages to stand out.
The “now” photo by Jeremy Hood, the “then” photo of the Dominion Building Vancouver Archives, 1944 CVA 1184-615.
The one building that should never had been destroyed:
Two buildings that should not have been torn down are the Birks Building and the second Hotel Vancouver. The Birks Building, while majestic, handsome and a cruel loss to the city, didn’t have quite the mind-boggling ‘wow factor’ that the second Hotel Vancouver had. The sheer size of this hotel building and the fantastic detailing that went into it is almost impossible to imagine today, with vintage photographs of it likely just scratching the surface at what as treasure this landmark building once was. One can only wonder ‘what if’ and how that building would look today if it was saved.
Will Woods is the Founder and Chief Storyteller at Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and a contributor to Vancouver Confidential.
Photo by Kiri Marr
Favourite Vancouver building:
Any one of the early twentieth century buildings on Pender Street in Chinatown that have retained they recessed balconies and ornamental features. It’s really something to walk down that street and see buildings that wouldn’t be out of place in Guangdong, circa 1900-1920. And the recessed balconies are perfect for our climate here, but for some reason never caught on!
Second Hotel Vancouver on Georgia Street
The one building that should never had been destroyed:
The second Hotel Vancouver. The images that survive today show what an incredible and ornate building that was. A real tragedy it is gone, especially when the current occupant of that site is one of the city’s most bland office buildings. Fast-forward ten years and I expect I will be saying the Canada Post building on West Georgia. I’d love to see that retained and turned into an art gallery or museum – akin to the Tate in London. I think the merits of 1950s architecture will be increasingly apparent, the faster it slips into the rear-view mirror and the more of the buildings are lost. That particular building has a hint of the futuristic about it (helicopter pad on the roof for example), but also homage to tradition, with the large emblem on the front. It’s also “Herzogian” in its era, the photographer who seems to capture the ‘essence’ of Vancouver as well as anyone over the years. Almost as if the ’50s were ‘peak Vancouver’ in terms of visual richness.
I met with Will Woods for coffee last week. Will is a young Brit who moved to Vancouver six years ago with his wife and little boy, and like a lot of us transplants, fell deeply in love with the history of the city.
You may have seen him hunched over the card files at the Vancouver Public Library’s special collections, checking out the journals at Vancouver Archives, or wandering the alleyways of the Downtown Eastside.
Will Woods
“I met historians, I scoured old newspapers, I walked every street in downtown. I had a mission to discover the history of the city that isn’t found in the guidebooks, that isn’t taught in the schools,” he says. “There were stories of corruption, rioting, gangsterism, smuggling and vice.”
He was hooked.
Will chucked in his job as a risk management consultant for Deloitte and founded Forbidden Vancouver, a company that leaves Grouse Mountain and the Suspension bridge to the tour buses, and looks at the speakeasies, opium dens, crooked cops and bootleggers of Vancouver’s shady past.
Customers for his 90 minute tours range from 22 to 75.
What I find interesting is that Will isn’t going after tourists for his tours, although he’s not knocking them back either, but he’s honing in on the locals.
It’s a smart move. I’m always surprised at how many Vancouverites have never heard of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen gardens, visited the Space Centre or taken the Stanley Park train (you don’t need kids for this).
Will hasn’t just researched the city though. He took six months of acting school, studied body language, and created a role for himself—an investigative newspaper reporter.
While most tours are educational based and led by university students, Will’s tours are themed. His current tour is built around prohibition—(1916 to 1920ish). Eventually he wants to run 10 to 12 themed tours a week, he’s currently developing one on crime, and fortunately for him, there was no shortage of it.
“The toughest thing is knowing what to leave out of the tour,” he says.
Will’s tours run every Friday and Saturday night and wind their way through Chinatown, Gastown and the downtown area. You can book online at www.forbiddenvancouver.ca
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Favourite Vancouver building:
Favourite Vancouver building:
