an adventure. Sometimes when I’m sitting at a table out in the bar area, I feel a hand on my shoulder. Somehow, I sense that the spirit is attempting to comfort me.”
In the mid-90s Kris had been responsible for the security of the building. It was not uncommon for him to spend the night in the hotel alone. Many times, in the late evening, he would hear footsteps up and down the hallways. He never saw a full figure but, what he did see, was the dark outline of a person and a glow around the outline.
He was strongly attached to the building and he felt that the energy in the hotel drew him in. He also felt that the spirits in the hotel wanted to communicate with someone. “I was doing my prep work one morning when four or five times in the span of 20 minutes, someone would open the door and call my name. After the fifth call, I left the kitchen, went into the restaurant area and told the waitress to stop bothering me,” Kris said.
She had not called his name at all!
Half an hour later, she arrived at the kitchen door and told him to stop calling her name. There was no explanation. They were the only two people in the hotel at the time. Later that same day the phone rang. Kris picked up the phone and heard someone breathing on line three — just a prank call. Then he realized that line three had never been connected! For the rest of the day every little thing that could go wrong did go wrong.
Each time Kris closed up the kitchen for the day something would happen to him. He felt “they” did not want him to leave at the end of the day. “One summer I lived in the front of the building on the third floor. Every night I closed the hotel and then made a round to check that all the lights were off. Shortly thereafter I would discover rooms still lit. Sometimes a repeat round would bring the same results. I was the only living person in the building,” said Kris.
During renovations of the hotel there were several unusual incidents — paint brushes disappeared from one floor to be found on another. Something or somebody would stand over you as you worked.
The central dining room of the hotel, once the lounge and dancefloor, has a lovely stone fireplace. Kris said there were days when it was impossible to light a fire in it. It simply would not start. As far as Kris was concerned this area was off limits, especially after 10:00 p.m. He refused to go there. He explained, “I sense such negative activity in this room after 10:00 p.m. at night.” A picture of E.B. Sutton was hanging in that lounge and Kris swore that the eyes of Mr. Sutton followed him. “It’s an eerie feeling,” he said.
There have been several negative encounters in this same room. One manager was cleaning the salad bar after a busy dinner hour when a broom from the corner of the room suddenly flew through the air, across the room and struck her on the head. Guests at the hotel have seen a woman appear in the area. Several of them have seen this woman walking around the room, as if looking for someone or something. No one knows who she is.
I was taken through the kitchen, the back room, and the pump room beneath the building. Kris was convinced that one spirit inhabited the back room of the kitchen. It was not uncommon for glasses to inexplicably smash on the floor. I sensed that I might have an experience in this area myself. The pump room is at the end of a narrow, dark passageway and I felt somewhat unnerved as we headed there. To add to the effect, the door on the room was the original door to 319 (a haunted room). I was told that stray animals lived here at one time but that one day they just stopped coming. We experienced no activity there, but the tension in the air was palpable.
As we re-entered the kitchen, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and my shoulders felt very cold. Kris turned to me and asked, “Do you feel it?” He had no sooner asked the question when an ashtray at the back of the freezer flew across the room and dropped at our feet. “This goes on all the time,” was Kris’s only comment. For me, it was a shock, a thrill and a moment of triumph. To write about ghosts is one thing; to experience them is quite another. Now one of the stories of the Bala Bay Inn was my own.
The photograph on the cover of the Bala Flyer shows holidaymakers at the C.P.R. station in 1916.
I was, however, soon to acquire another story. We had a book launch that fall at the hotel. Bob Sutton joined me at the table in the lobby.
We had no sooner started to get settled when the lights began to flicker. “E.B. is here. I knew he’d show up for this!” said Bob.
In spring 2006 Kim Ward and Chris Grossman purchased the Bala Bay Inn with the intent of creating a first-class inn in Muskoka. Their plans involved establishing a new interior look. The entire building was renovated and modernized without losing the historic flavor of the building. In May they opened their doors to the public.
Neither Kim nor Chris is concerned about the ghost stories surrounding their inn. In fact, they are not afraid to promote them. The main lounge on the first floor of the inn is aptly named the Ghost Lounge. The ghostly activities have continued since the first investigation was recorded in Haunted Ontario.
Pauline Levesque is head of housekeeping. She has been employed at the inn since 2004. According to Pauline, “I don’t believe the hotel is haunted. I have never seen anything.”
Although Pauline does not believe there are spirits in the building, she did reveal some stories she had been told by fellow staff members.
About two years ago, staff encountered some unexplained activity in the Ghost Lounge. Pauline described what happened. “There was a table set up in the Ghost Lounge. The table was laden with dishes. The staff working on the first floor heard a crash in the lounge. When they entered to investigate they discovered broken dishes on the floor by the table. No one had been in the lounge at the time.
“Staff would complain they heard voices on the second floor, but nobody was there. I am just waiting for something to happen to me.”
Dave Fraser is a jack-of-many-trades who has worked at the Bala Bay Inn from 2004–2007. He was originally hired as a cook. In 2007 he was made head of security and maintenance for the building and grounds. Dave is a firm believer in the spirit activity of the place. He knows from experience.
“When I worked late at night in the kitchen, I would often see a movement out of the corner of my eye. I always felt it to be a female presence — an older woman. I would see her standing by the doorway of the kitchen. It was as if she were keeping watch over the kitchen.”
Dave saw a little girl sitting on the steps of the landing in the main lobby.
He explained, “She was wearing period clothing — a large flowing dress. She was about eight-or ten-years-old. She was seated on the third step. Her hair was long. She looked so real. Although we didn’t make eye contact, she was there for several seconds and then vanished. I only saw her once, during the first year I worked here.”
One time Dave was cleaning the french-fry-maker in the kitchen. There were two nuts on the bottom of the machine. Dave removed them and set them down on the counter. Then he went to the sink to wash the parts of the machine. When he returned to the counter the nuts were gone. He spent several minutes looking for them. Then, to his surprise, he caught sight of them back on the french-fry-maker. Someone had started to screw the nuts back on. Dave was alone at the time, or so he had supposed.
A couple of years ago a guest who was staying on the second floor remarked to the desk clerk that an oddly-dressed woman was walking the hallway. She, according to the guest, was dress in outdated clothing. He went on to describe her attire. A few months later the staff was able to identify the woman’s outfit after studying Bob Sutton’s photo album. Bob pointed to a picture of three
