‘Felt like there was something there:’ stories from Nanaimo’s most haunted buildings

Located at the south end of Beban Park in central Nanaimo, Beban House is reportedly home to the spirit of a young boy playing with a red ball. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

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Currently the home to BGC Central Vancouver Island offices and related childcare programming, the house still holds onto a lot of its history and spiritual charm.

Youth programs manager Grace Comeau has worked in the house since 2017 and was quickly told about some of the happenings others have witnessed.

“A big one that comes up is a boy with the red ball, so seeing him at the top of the stairs. Another big one that I’ve heard is people here believe it’s Mrs. Beban or her friends with their teacups upstairs, kind of chattering and having their tea, so you hear the dishes and stuff.”

The “boy with the red ball” is a well-documented story stemming from reports made years apart by two children in the early-to-mid 1990s both claiming to have played with a Chinese boy wearing white clothing and playing with a red ball.

A former child’s bedroom in the basement of Beban House, one where Comeau feels especially heavy energy. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Comeau’s more direct experience comes from working in the evenings gathering materials for programs run by BGC.

She said one door near the main entrance to the house usually stays closed and locked.

“I’d been working in the evenings, and when I go to close that door is unlocked and open and I never unlocked it. Last year when we did our haunted house, I told that story to the groups that came in and then that next week, when I was working, the door was unlocked and open again. It was just kind of funny little things, but it doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but it’s just funny to notice if it’s happening.”

She added there’s a general feeling “that the ghosts mean no harm” and are just wanting to remind some they’re there.

During a tour of Beban House for this story, Comeau told NanaimoNewsNOW a small room in the basement, believed to be a child’s bedroom, and another room facing the current Centennial Building, which she dubbed the “Mistress Room”, hold heavier air.

“[The bedroom] supposedly is the room that a little boy had died in years previously, and so I find that room makes me very uncomfortable. I kind of hold like a sadness down in the basement, because of that reason. I think the mistress room…there was like a night recently where I felt very cold, and I’ve never had that, and I felt like there was something there.”

Staff who work out of the historic Great National Land Building on Church St. say a presence makes itself regularly known through a variety of means. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Great National Land Building (Church St., Downtown Nanaimo)
Built in 1914, those currently working in one of the downtown’s most prominent buildings say they share the space with a spirit they’ve lovingly dubbed ‘Michael’.

Olivia Thomas first became aware of the presence when she began working on site in April 2024 and after Snuneymuxw First Nation Elders completed a blessing on the building.

“They said that they had felt, or kind of came to know, that there was a spirit in the building during their ceremony. They actually said it was an old man spirit, and that he was happy to not be alone anymore.”

The spirit’s presence was felt immediately by Thomas.

“Within the first week or so of working there, I had had stuff move in my office, like the arm for my computer monitor. It’s not something that just moves by itself, but it moved right in front of my very eyes and I was like, ‘oh, hey, I guess they’re right!'”

She got accustomed to saying ‘hello’ to the spirit when coming into her office, however when she started sharing the space with a co-worker and her greetings shifted more to them, Thomas said a picture leaning against a wall flew off in a way neither her, or her co-worker, could explain.

The name Michael comes from a deck of oracle cards, similar to tarot, which Thomas keeps in her desk.

She said she pulled a random one, with the name of the archangel ‘Michael’ on it.

Thomas added two of the men killed in the 1887 No. 1 Esplanade mine explosion were named Michael, and believes the spirit which inhabits the building is one of the miners.

Several mine shafts and tunnels run underneath downtown Nanaimo and around the building.

Located atop Commercial St., the iconic Great National Land Building is reportedly inhabited by ‘Michael’. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Tiffany Riche works with Thomas in the Great National Land Building, and said she’s experienced different instances of a spirit.

Lights being left on or doors remaining open, both against normal procedure or behaviour for their workplace, are common.

“I’ve noticed quite a few times, the elevator will come up here to the third floor. Because we have big confidentiality rules, I’ll stop and stand up and look, and usually there’s nobody there at the elevator like it doesn’t even open. Occasionally, it opens and there’s just nobody there.”

She also said two separate banners in the lobby of the building simultaneously crashed down as she walked past one morning, prompting her to ask the spirit if they were hungry and ultimately buying it a chocolate donut.

The offering of food to spirits is consistent with some Indigenous ceremony and cultural practices, with the belief being spirits get hungry and offering food is a way to care for them.

“I don’t believe in the ghost, so I was quite taken back to do that, and since then, I haven’t had that happen again, and the banners have never fallen down again,” Riche added.

Lantern tours run through the Nanaimo Museum are sold out every year, with nearly 30 occurring in October. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Nanaimo Museum tours through downtown
Featuring a mixture of history and the supernatural, Lantern Tours through downtown Nanaimo have become increasingly popular over the years, and quickly sold out for 2025.

An hour and a half walk through the downtown and waterfront areas is interlaced with stories of specific buildings, the history behind them and researched details about the spirits who inhabit them.

Museum program coordinator Steph Kveton serves as one of the tour guides and said they don’t have to go far to experience presences, as Museum staff are having “strange experiences” within their own building, particularly linked to a violin and case belonging to a former miner.

“Our experiences are ongoing with that one. We’re hearing some voices, we’re having lights turn on and off when we’re not turning them on and off, ourselves and just some interesting coincidences around dates and things.”

More on the object will form part of this year’s tours, running all through October.

Tours run through the Nanaimo Museum typically end at the Bastion, telling stories about ghostly presences at one of the city’s most iconic landmarks. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Kveton said one story which formed part of last year’s excursions surrounded the now-demolished Dunsmuir House, near the present day Departure Bay Elementary School.

Built in 1881 by Robert Dunsmuir for his son James and his wife Laura, it was a series of journal entries made eight years later which caught the attention of Museum staff.

Eunice Harrison, who was renting the house with her husband Eli, documented a strange feeling while studying Latin in the house’s dining room one night.

“She felt someone looking at her, she had that feeling that you get when someone may be looking at you…the hair standing up on the back your neck, a little bit of tension down your spine. She glanced up and saw a child’s face, watching her through the partially open door.”

Their children were asleep, Eli was working late as a Judge at the Nanaimo County courthouse, so Eunice was unable to explain it.

Some time later the same night, this time while playing piano, Eunice wrote of a small child’s face floating in the doorway.

She was told a small child had died in the house a few years previous after falling down the servant’s stairs, but it’s an aspect Kveton can’t confirm.

“There is no record of a child dying in that way in that house, but we do know that James and Laura Dunsmuir lost two children while living there…of illness a few years previous, and they were buried in Nanaimo cemetery. There’s this third Dunsmuir child that’s also buried in that cemetery, but their headstone is lost so we don’t know their name.”

Tickets for this year’s tours sold out quickly earlier in the fall.

Kveton said those interested should consider becoming members of the Museum to get early access at discounted rates, or be prepared to buy the $15 tickets when they go on sale to the general public soon after Labour Day.

It’s one of the biggest yearly fundraisers for the Museum.

Staff and students at VIU’s Malaspina Theatre regularly address and greet “Neil”, a presence they feel. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Malaspina Theatre, Vancouver Island University
For years, a presence lovingly named ‘Neil’ has been felt inside the theatre at Vancouver Island University.

While nothing has ever been confirmed, theatre manager Leon Potter said he was told the name comes from Neil Rutherford, a former student, technical director and co-founder of the theatre program, who passed away in 2015.

Potter said a number of unexplainable things have occurred over his tenure, mainly surrounding electrical signals like lights or theatre equipment.

“It’s one of those odd little stories that became urban legend. If you’re in a rehearsal, lights start flickering or cues are messed up in the board, shadows passing…that’s the idea, people had forgotten to say goodnight to Neil.”

The ritual of greeting “Neil” is engrained in all who regularly work in the building.

It’s the responsibility of the first person in the building each day, usually Potter, to say good morning to the presence, while the last person out the loading bay doors each evening says goodnight.

Odd happenings with the lights or stage cues have been attributed to Neil, at the Malaspina Theatre. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

“Neil’s” presence has never resulted in any negative feelings for Potter, who said he’s never had an experience at VIU where he’s felt cold, or heard odd sounds.

“You walk into a place and you get that feeling, there’s a feeling of ‘ok I’m not safe here’, but you don’t get any of that here. If anything, you get the opposite. If you’re here, working, creating art and working on shows, there’s always this warm feeling.”

Potter said most theatres have some sort of presence, at least in his experience.

He said in other buildings, he’s heard knocking sounds on interior doors when he knew he was the only person in the building.

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by Alex Rawnsley

‘Felt like there was something there:’ stories from Nanaimo’s most haunted buildings

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