The historic Young building at Camosun College’s Lansdowne campus, with its distinctive four-faced clock tower and red brick and sandstone exterior, looks and feels like a place where ghosts might roam freely on dark winter nights, wandering through drafty hallways and underground tunnels.
In fact, strange noises, unexplained phenomena and the eerie feeling that someone is there have all been reported by staff and students working late into the night in the building, which was built in 1914 as a teacher’s college, called the Provincial Normal School.
Named in honour of Dr. Henry Eason Young and his wife, Rosalind, the building served as a hospital during the Second World War, with the morgue located in today’s gymnasium.
John Adams, a local historian and proprietor of Discover the Past Walking Tours, says the building’s physical location provides a clue about why so much paranormal activity appears to takes place there.
Adams says its proximity to Mount Tolmie and several “well-known energy vortexes” surrounding it make the Camosun campus prone to ghostly manifestations. “We have gathered many stories from students, staff and neighbours that show us it is a place of intense haunted activity.”
Sometimes, alarms go off in the middle of the night for no reason. One person claimed a ghostly hand once reached out and saved them from a potentially disastrous fall. Others recount stories of a creepy apparition that approached, only to melt into nothing at the very last moment.
Nicole Kilburn, an anthropology instructor who has an office on the second floor, says she has worked in the Young building for 19 years and has heard a number of stories surrounding unexplained phenomena that “can’t be proven through the lens of science,” although she she’s never experienced anything out of the ordinary herself.
She says while people in the West tend to see ghosts in a negative light, that’s not the case for other cultures, who are much more open to the presence of their ancestors. “They find it comforting to still have relationships with their loved ones after they’re gone.”
Some cultures believe that if they don’t say the names of their ancestors, those ancestors will be truly lost, she says, which is why they make a point of “visiting the dead” and remembering their ancestors every year, including bringing offerings of food.
As for the ghosts in the Young building, and what might be motivating them?
“Some cultures believe that ghosts are the unsettled dead with a need to manifest themselves because of unfinished business.”
