The Other Downtown: Prince George's Ghost Stories After Dark

A familiar street, another set of stories

A shop whose former owners are said to have stayed, a restaurant linked to a friendly woman, a building its storyteller would avoid at night: these are among the teasers Ian Gibbs uses for Prince George Ghostly Walks. The details are invitations to listen, not directions to go hunting through somebody else’s property.

The appeal is the change of attention. A block normally crossed on the way to dinner becomes the destination. You look up at an upper storey, consider an older business name, or realize that a place you pass every week has a history you have never asked about.

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How the walk came north

Gibbs described the origins of his Prince George venture in a post about starting the business. He had spent ten years leading ghost walks in Victoria. After moving, he missed gathering strangers and introducing them to a city through its stories, so he began developing a walk in his new home.

That is a useful way into this version of downtown. A guide is choosing where to stop, which account to tell and when to reveal it. You are hearing a shaped piece of local storytelling, with all the pleasure of a tale delivered in the place it concerns. The performance is part of the experience.

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Places with more than one name

In October 2022, CKPG included the former Columbus Hotel, buildings on Vancouver Street and the former Shooters premises in a report on Prince George’s haunted reputation. The names make a small map of places connected by locally told stories, rather than by their architecture or original purpose.

Shooters deserves its own story because the building is gone. Here, the wider point is how an address can carry several identities. What looks like one place on a map may occupy very different places in different residents’ memories.

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Remember the hotel, not only the haunting

The City’s downtown heritage-sign text traces the Columbus Hotel to Louis Zimmaro, a former Grand Trunk Pacific worker. A larger hotel opened on Third Avenue in 1920, followed by a brick addition in 1929. Zimmaro met arriving trains and offered prospective guests a ride. It is a vivid detail of a town welcoming railway travellers, long before a ghost walk became another reason to stop there.

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The lives behind the address

The Columbus was also a place where people lived. After the devastating 2008 fire, writer Sarah de Leeuw explored its loss in Columbus Burning, which won a CBC Literary Award for creative nonfiction. UNBC’s account of her work emphasizes the residents and the marginalization that shaped their circumstances.

That history changes the tone of the place. Alongside its place in local ghost lore, the Columbus belongs to a story about homes, poverty and the people a city can overlook. Those lives deserve to remain visible when the building that held them has disappeared.

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Join the stories in person

The operator lists downtown walks for the 2026 autumn season and describes a storytelling tour without organized jump scares. Children may attend, but the operator flags sexual themes and some gore, so it is not automatically a suitable family outing. Check the live booking page for a date, meeting instructions and availability.

This is an outing in Prince George, with its interest in the streets themselves. You do not need to believe every story to enjoy returning to a familiar corner with something new to think about.

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