The south-eastern corner of British Columbia is a mountainous, thinly populated region known for its rugged beauty, abundant natural resources and a rough-and-ready past. Running parallel to the Canada-US border is the Crowsnest Pass, location of two of the worst mine disasters in Canadian history, the cataclysmic, murderous collapse of Turtle Mountain, and a reputation as a wild and lonely place. It was also the setting for the strangest experience of my life.
In the mid-seventies I was one of a small group of casual friends whose common interest was motorcycling, and early one summer evening we left Calgary for a few days of fun riding through the mountains, heading across the border and through Idaho. Our ultimate destination was Spokane, about five hundred miles to the south-west, give or take a few extra miles of detours to take our pleasure on sinuous secondary roads.
By the time midnight was several hours gone, we were well into the Pass, and it had started to snow. Our pace slowed, both for safety and comfort. Riding at low temperatures is an exercise in bloody-mindedness and the wind chill factor at even 50 mph makes it feel like the high Arctic. We were also getting tired, and I was not the only one nervous about losing control on the increasingly slick road. The Crowsnest Pass highway is dotted with the remains of once-thriving coal towns, some still clinging to life, others virtually abandoned, and we decided that at the next one we would call it a night.
Soon enough, out of the blackness came the relief of a neon sign, blinking wetly in the falling sleet. It announced a hotel, a clapboard structure that looked cheap and a little rundown but we didn’t care; all we needed was a place to dry off out of the cold and to get a few hours of sleep. We pulled off the road into the empty parking lot, unstrapped our gear and hauled it up the wooden steps to the hotel entrance. Light from the lobby spilled through the glass-fronted doors—a good sign at two o’clock in the morning—but but there was no one at the front desk as we went in. We rang the bell for service and waited, chilled to the bone.
Across from the front desk was a dining room, and after ringing the bell again and waiting for a few more minutes with no response, we peered through the doors to see if we could raise anyone. The lights in the room, which held about twenty tables, were full on, but our calls went unanswered. Somebody remarked that the food must be lousy as nearly every table held the remnants of a meal, with plates half-full of food and untouched glasses of beer. Cigarettes had been left to burn down into sagging tubes of ash. Chairs seemed to have been pushed back hastily and some had toppled over. Uneasy glances passed between us; the place felt eerie, hurriedly abandoned.
A narrow staircase led up from the lobby and we moved towards it in unison, bunched together and laughing nervously, a little too loudly. I figured I’d be safe with four guys but they sounded as apprehensive as I felt, and it wasn’t at all reassuring. On the second floor, rooms led off the hallway, some with closed doors, some wide open, lights on. Clothing was scattered everywhere, beds were unmade, messy. A red negligée lay puddled on the floor of one room and somebody wisecracked that the place must have been a brothel, raided in full flagrante delicto.
But the negative vibes were strong and we didn’t want to spend any more time up there speculating about the possibilities. No one wanted to stay, but going back out into the freezing night was not only unappealing, but risky.
Back downstairs, we tried to make light of it all. There must have been a police raid either for drugs or illicit sex, and that would explain everything. Someone pointed out that there had been no cars in the parking lot. Surely if the hotel patrons had been arrested, they wouldn’t have been allowed to take their own cars? What would make people leave so suddenly? And why did it feel so odd, as if the air were heavy with dread?
After a low-voiced consultation we decided to hole up in a corner of the dining room with a good view of the doorway and try to get some sleep on the floor. We arranged ourselves to be as close together as possible, and I was grateful for the chivalrous offer of an inside position. We hunkered down, all except for Pete, who sat upright against the wall and, to my consternation, drew a 9mm Luger from his pack to rest on his lap. No damn way he could sleep, he said. Too f-ing weird in here.
We slept fitfully, and just after dawn we were up, hastily pulling our stuff together, not willing to spend another minute in the place. In the gray, chill light we roared away one by one, leaving behind a nameless, deserted town and an enduring mystery.
This experience came back to me when my son returned a few days ago from a road trip that took him through that same part of the country. He and his girlfriend stayed at a hotel that seemed all right when they checked in, but once in their room he was taken over by a sense of foreboding so strong that he became violently sick to his stomach. In the morning his girlfriend woke up with the same feeling and they couldn’t get out of there soon enough. In Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Blink’ he writes of our instinctive and sometimes unconscious reactions to events, people and situations—messages that we often ignore, sometimes at our peril. What were we reacting to? I have often wondered if the place I stayed in was haunted, and my son is convinced that his hotel room was.
What about your stories? Have you experienced something odd that had no rational explanation and was left to float in the vague, unsettling realm of the paranormal?
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