What happened
Carcross, once Caribou Crossing, sits on the narrows between Bennett and Nares lakes, on the trail to the Klondike goldfields. In 1901 William Anderson opened a hotel here, which in 1903 was bought by Dawson Charlie – one of the men who discovered Klondike gold – and renamed the Caribou. After his death in 1908 the hotel was leased by Edwin and Bessie Gideon. On Christmas Eve 1909 the building burned down, and the Gideons rebuilt it in 1910. Edwin died in 1925, and Bessie ran the hotel alone until she died there on 27 October 1933. Ever since, the hotel has been said to be haunted by her. Guests tell of a woman standing in a third-floor window and banging on the floorboards, of knocks on doors at night, of bubbles added to baths and of a figure standing at the foot of the bed in the owners' suite. She is sometimes seen together with Polly, the hotel's famous pet parrot. She is described as “a shy spirit, neither friendly nor unfriendly.” In 2008 the hotel was designated a Yukon Heritage Site, and Canada Post has featured it on a stamp in its “Haunted Canada” series.
Witnesses
Hotel guests and owners, including accounts quoted by CBC; the hotel's history was compiled by ExploreNorth, and the radio series Yukon Nuggets (Les McLaughlin) described the ghost on the third floor.
Explanations and hypotheses
The history of the hotel and the Gideons is well documented in licences, notices and estate records; Bessie's death in 1933 is certain, although a 1998 cemetery survey failed to locate her grave. The ghost stories, however, are hotel tradition, with no detailed accounts from the years right after her death. The current owners stress that the local stories are far gentler than the ghoulish skull on the postage stamp. An old wooden building by the lake, with a long and colourful history, naturally attracts such legends.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.