Since the spooky season is upon us and the publish date happened to be October 31st, I thought I’d have some fun with an all-around North Shore Halloween special. I’ll send a tingle down your spine with some terrible tales of North Vancouver hauntings, as well as share some newspaper clippings and events from Halloweens’ past all the way back to 1908.
I’ve had some first-hand experience with hauntings throughout my life, so I have to admit I find other people’s experiences with ghosts fascinating, and can’t help but compare them with my own. Even without my background, I’d still find them intriguing, as do many people, as the supernatural realm has still never been conculsively understood or proven by modern science, despite the occurrences of ghostly expereriences in history spanning millennia. This unknown in a world where so much is documented and proven, creates enduring intrigue.
I’ll begin with what, according to the Vancouver Paranormal Society has called ‘likely the most haunted’ building on the North Shore, Presentation House. This building at the NW corner of Chesterfield and Third Street, which is currently a live theatre venue, has served as a community space since 1976, and has a long history dating back to 1902 when it opened as Central School at its original location at 209 W. 4th St. It became the new headquarters for City Hall in 1913, when the school population outgrew it, as did the current City Hall at the time on East 1st. For a time the building also housed the local police and jail. It was moved to its currently location in 1976 and became a theatre, art gallery and North Vancouver Museum and archives. The gallery, museum and archives found new homes in the last decade, but the Theatre remains.
Class assembled at W. 4th St. entrance outside Central School, June 1912. Inventory number: 479. Courtesy, NV Archives, MONOVA.
With this long and varied history, (which you can read about in depth in Anne Marie Lawrence’s NSH article) it’s no wonder that there are ghost stories attached to it. The Vancouver Paranormal Society has had so much success having experiences there and capturing ‘evidence’ that they’ve returned a number of times to investigate further.
Formed in 1993, the Society is not-for-profit and is made up of volunteers who use equipment such as voice recorders to capture EVPs (electronic voice phenomenon) EMF (electromagnetic field) sensors, night vision goggles and radiofrequency interruption sensors. Their main goal is to help their clients find peace of mind, and they aren’t ‘ghost hunters’ per se, but look for real-world explanations when possible. An article in the North Shore News of October, 2024, quoted them as saying, “Every time we come, we get more and more confirmation that there’s something here. So, we just keep coming back,” said McLean, one of the Paranormal Society’s volunteers.”
The article talked about a few ghosts that were encountered there. Cecil Hasley, the caretaker for more than 25 years, slept in the building on occasion and encountered a spirit he called ‘Frank’ who was, apparently, quite inappropriate at times, according to the president of the Paranormal Society, Kelly Berge, as told to the NS News. they said they’ve found a lot of evidence that Frank is there, including EVP recordings of him saying inappropriate things and finding out he likes whisky!
But Frank isn’t the only spirit. Staff at the theatre have reported getting ‘bad vibes’ on the third floor, actors have felt a strange presence backstage, a sound tech heard ghostly feet springing towards him one night as lose as having a glove go missing, only to find it the next day, neatly folded in the middle of the set.
The Society investigators also said they found the spirit of a young girl on the third floor, and one of them saw a shadowy figure bending over one of the theatres chairs, and then disappear. Shortly before this figure was spotted, all the batteries in the investigators’ equipment died simultaneously.
Even the caretaker was said to have faintly identified himself to the investagators after passing away in 2019.
That certainly is a lot of hauntings for one building!
Another reportedly haunted place is McEachran House at 3650 Capilano Road, across from the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I wrote about this in my article, Hobbits, Hauntings and Hot Food the story begins with the sad passing of Lili McEachran, the wife of Archibald (Mac) McEachran. Lili was the widow of a friend of Edward Mahon, who owned the Capilano Suspension Bridge at the time. He gave her a job running the restaurant at the Bridge and she and Mac fell in love when he’d come in to get a meal from her. She was possibly 30 years his senior, but they got married and lived and worked at the tourist site together. When she was in her early seventies, Mac started building them their first house of their own. Lili was very excited for it to be finished and was following its progress with bated breath while Mac worked on it. Just as it was completed, she fell ill with a heart problem and passed away before she could live in her new home with Mac.
McEachran House as photographed in 2026. Photo by Jenny Morgan
Her story doesn’t necessarily end there, though. There has been a woman with Lili’s description sighted for years around the McEachran home and in the basement. One story reported by the North Shore Outlook in 2006 tells of a teen named Meredith who was working for her friend Tara’s father around 1989 in the basement of the restaurant washing linens. She’d been told there were some strange goings-on at times and was a bit nervous. Tara said she’d check in periodically, so when someone came down the stairs and asked “What are you doing”, Meredith assumed it was Tara for a moment until she turned around and saw a woman in 1920s clothing with a disheveled bun. The woman disappeared and Meredith screamed. Tara came running, and after she was told what the woman looked like, pulled Meredith into her dad’s office and showed her a picture of Lili. It appeared to be the very same woman she’d seen! Many other staff have reported seeing her as well over the years. After waiting so ardently for the house to be finished, only to not live long enough to live in it, it seems she may have found a way to do that post-mortem.
There is a house in Upper Lonsdale at 133 Osborne Rd that I hadn’t heard of until I began researching ghost stories. A traditional craftsman bunglaow built in 1925, it was named after its first resident, a printer for the Vancouver Sun, named W.J. Gilbert who lived there with his wife, Nellie until 1948. I’m not sure when the first cases of hauntings started, as people often keep that kind of thing to themselves for fear of judgement on their mental health, but in the mid-1990s, the North Shore News wrote about a woman who moved in and was visited briefly by a previous owner who told her to look out for two entities in the form of an angry old man and a lovely young woman. She didn’t seem too fussed about them, but thought the new owner may like to know.
The owner invited a friend to visit her in her new home, but the friend kept insisting she didn’t want to because she had a ‘strange feeling’. She finally relented after several more invitations, but shortly after arriving, after looking around while her friend made them tea, ended up running out the door and drove away. She eventually shared with the owner that she’d seen vivid visions of a pretty young woman and angry old man.
In 1998, the house was sold to a young family with two small children, ages three and six. Local Vancouver historian, Eve Lazarus interviewed and wrote about them in her book, At Home With History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes, which I have in my home library. She writes about how they began to have unexplained experiences shortly after moving in and contacted the previous owners, asking if they’d seen or hear anything, only to be told that they hadn’t. The boys slept in their own rooms on the main floor, while the parents slept upstairs. One morning around 4:30am, the mom heard running downstairs, but when she went downstairs, the boys were both fast asleep. The next morning around that time, she awoke to find her three year-old on the driveway, and swore there was no way for him to have opened the door himself. The following day he said he couldn’t sleep downstairs anymore because the “boy and the girl are keeping me awake all night”. Other times, she heard doors opening and closing when no one was around. Another strange thing that occurred was when the owner was looking back at photos she’d taken before they’d moved in and saw a little face looking out the window on the top floor.
Who were all these ghosts? The owners who moved into the home in 1998 looked into past owners to try and determine who may have not moved on, but wasn’t able to find any explanation. Eventually things settled down after a few months, as often seems to happen after there has been change or upheaval in a home.
There are many more stories I found online in local reddit and Facebook threads, some about hauntings in West Vancouver, but I couldn’t find more than casual discussion between people. Some of the houses no longer exist, and others I couldn’t find any evidence as to haunting experiences. Other places were in nature, such a certain areas of Lynn Valley trails. The threads were sure interesting to read, though! Lots of responses like, “Oh, I remember that place! It used to give me the creeps when I’d walk by!”
As I’ve been researching and writing the past week, I’ve been working on putting together my Halloween costume, and was curious as to what costumes on the North Shore used to look like. I searched in the West Vancouver online Archives and found this delightful photo. The costumes are starkly different from today’s costumes, and even very different from costumes from a decade or two later, which was already more commercial. These are so lovely and homemade. I’m not sure if they are supposed to be something in particular or just dressed out of the ordinary. They’re wearing coats and have lanterns, so it looks like they’re about to go out for a lantern walk. I wonder what they’re wearing under the coats or if the paper hats are the main part of their costume?
Group of children dressed up for Halloween.
Courtesy of West Vancouver Archive, CA BWVA C030-S01-IT2762, 1915
By the 1950s, newspapers on the North Shore were full of advertisements for costumes, candy, decoration and fireworks, just like today’s flyers. The only difference between then and today’s costumes is that it was more common to sell a mask and make the rest of the costume, whereas today most costumes come with all the pieces ready-made in a bag.
Courtesy of newspapers.com, North Shore Review, Oct 28, 1955
Courtesy of newspapers.com, North Shore Review, Oct. 22, 1954.
I had made the wrong assumption that Halloween in the early nineteen hundreds on the North Shore was far less of a celebration than it is today, and the commercialisation of it has made it more popular in the latter half of the 20th C. However, I search through newspapers of the time brought up countless newspaper articles and ads! There were all manner of celebrations, including: Parties, banquets, dances, masquerades, concerts, plays and socials. Another thing that surprised me was that many of these celebrations were put on by church organisations. These weren’t strictly Christian celebrations, but parties and dances very much in the current secular tradition.
Courtesy of newspapers.com, The Express, Nov. 6, 1908
Courtesy of newspapers.com, The Express, Oct 20, 1911
Courtesy of newspapers.com, The North Shore Press, Nov 4th, 1913
Another thing that was common all the way through the decades was dealing with mischief. Newspapers on the North Shore were full of reminders in late October for kids to behave, as well as discussions over what the rules should be around firecrackers and fireworks, and how the police should manage the mischief. There were even court cases detailing youths’ property destruction, and the fall-out from it. This article below struck me as quite funny!
Courtesy of newspapers.com, The Express, Oct 17th, 1924
Along with the mischief, the newspapers also wrote frequently about good times and the joy that both adults and kids were getting from Halloween celebrations. It seems to have been a very popular celebration for the last century and shows no sign of slowing down!
What kind of costumes were your favourites, NSH readers? Did you have any ghostly experiences or hear of any in your neighbourhood growing up? Do you have any unusual Halloween traditions? Were you a rule-follower or mischief maker?
REFERENCES
Presentation House: If These Walls Could Talk (Anne-Marie Lawrence, NSH)
Two creepy tales of the paranormal on the North Shore, by the North Shore News
At Home with History, The Untold Secrets of Greater Vancouver Heritage Homes, by Eve Lazarus.
Newspapers.com ( The Express, The North Shore Press)