Canada seems to be enjoying a boom in Gothic tourism. Specifically, hauntings are a draw.
[I]n an age when a haunted reputation can make the difference between profit and bankruptcy, hotels, restaurants and even entire Canadians cities are clamouring to prove that they are swarming with the lost souls of the dead.
For example,
Halifax’s Five Fishermen restaurant is centrally located, is housed in a gorgeous 1817 heritage building and — according to its proprietors — its seafood fare is among the best in Nova Scotia.
More importantly to some diners, though, is the fact that they can enjoy a gourmet meal in a place where mangled corpses once lay.
In 1912, when the building was a funeral home, it briefly held the waterlogged bodies of victims from the RMS Titanic. Five years after that, it held charred victims from the Halifax Explosion.
As a result, staff now say the building crawls with unexplained crashes, mysterious shadows and ghostly tapping.
Here's a countertraditional thought:
“It is said that ghosts haunt where they were the happiest,” wrote the hotel chain in a 2012 press release claiming that their hotels feature the spirits of murdered Beatle John Lennon and Titanic victim Charles Melville Hays.
and:
[Colorado’s Stanley Hotel ] also reassures would-be guests that they only host “happy ghosts.”
Those ghosts aren't imprisoned by unfinished business? Well, they are certainly summoned up by business of some kind, it seems.
Infocult: stalking the world as it becomes more Gothic.
(thanks to Randy McCall)
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