Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

This story was submitted in April 2002 by a visitor to the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in Quebec City. Built in 1893, the hotel is one of the city's premier heritage buildings, and as one might expect, also has its fair share of ghost legends. Here are a few of the stories currently making the rounds of the local tour guides:

Strange Man on 5th Floor

My tour guide, "Warren," gave a set of keys to these two sets of travelling couples to their room on the 6th floor. The two couples were riding the elevator up, and when the doors opened, they stepped out of the elevator and realized they were actually on the 5th floor. They figured they had pressed the wrong button,and thought nothing of it. That's when they saw a man dressed in period clothing. The strange man did not speak to them, and they thought he was a member of the hotel staff, dressed in period garb to "entertain" guests at the hotel. They got on the next elevator and went up to their floor.

That night, they all settled down in their beds, falling asleep. Then suddenly,they felt a presence in room. They looked around and saw the strange man standing between the two platform beds, looking from left to right, watching them sleep.The two couples were scared stiff, too afraid to even get out of bed to turn the lights on or say anything to their spouses. They just lay there with their eyes closed. They felt him watching them for a long time, perhaps a few hours. They didn't sleep at all that night, and just lay there petrified.

The next morning, Warren saw them and asked why they looked so tired. They told him their story and said that they weren't going to go on tours with this company any more.

The Yin-Yang Eyes

On another trip, a young woman from Hong Kong was seated with her companion at the front of the tour bus, behind Warren, as it made its way to Quebec City. They were passing through a stretch of forestland, which was quite boring for most people. Suddenly, this woman gasped "Aiya!" and covered her face, then looked away from the window for a while, until the forest was out of sight.

Warren asked her what was wrong, and was worried because this woman was pale and looked very scared. She wouldn't tell him at first, but then after a bit more convincing, she explained that she has what Chinese people call the Yin-Yang eyes. That means that she can see both the living (in the Yang) and the spirits(in the Yin). Since she was a child, she has been seeing spirits of dead people.Most of the time, it's not scary to her because the spirits don't seem to realize that they're dead.

Anyhow, as they were passing by the forest, she was looking out the window, and she saw a man being hanged on a tree. She could see that he had scraggly longhair, and was wearing a white outfit with a large red circle in the middle of his shirt. This startled her immensely, because she said that she had never seen the spirit of a hanged man before.

Then Warren related to her a bit of historical info about the stretch of land they were passing. It used to be near a battlefield, and when the French took prisoners, they would execute them by hanging. I don't know much about this dark side of French America's history, so I can't tell if the tour guide was telling the truth or just making this up to scare the girl. I don't think Warren would do that to a girl who was already very shaken up, since he seemed really nice on the trip.

The Phantom Bedmate

The next incident occurred when they had arrived in Quebec City. This tour group was also staying at the Chateau Frontenac.

That night, as this young woman was sleeping in one bed, and her friend in another, she woke up because she sensed that someone was in the room -- someone not human. She felt this "person" lay down on the bed next to her. She was very scared and began reciting Buddhist mantras, what had been a very successful"trick" in the past. Unfortunately for her, the ghost didn't pay heed to the Buddhist mantras this time, and continued to lie there for almost an hour. Then the young woman felt the ghost leave the bed. She relaxed for a bit, and not five minutes later, the ghost returned, and this time lay down even closer to her. The young woman was getting even more scared, and started pleading with the ghost to leave her, swearing in English and in Chinese at the ghost. Nothing worked.

She decided to open her eyes (she had kept them closed this whole time) and address the ghost. This was another effective "trick," although risky, because she might end up seeing something terrifying.

Despite her fear, she opened her eyes and saw a female ghost with long dark hair in a white nightgown standing next to her bed, gently stroking her arm as if to say: "Don't worry, sleep now." The young woman was scared stiff. After about a minute, the ghost left.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons