In September 2015 a man at a gas station in Waterton, Alberta told us one of the balcony doors on an upper floor of the Prince of Wales Hotel might be unlocked. You could just tell he knew things. We went.

The hotel was closed for the season. No lights, no guests, no staff. Just us and the wind and floors that creaked in a way that felt like the building was deciding something. There was a chill in the air that wasn't weather. It was coming from inside the walls. Some of the Spooky Boys did not want to be there. I wanted to be there. I'm not afraid of ghosts.

We were looking for Sarah.

Sarah worked at the Prince of Wales in the late 1920s. She fell in love with a man who didn't love her back. Heartbroken, she jumped from the fourth floor mezzanine into the lobby below. She died. Her ghost has been reported on the upper floors ever since, usually in a white dress, usually near Room 510. Some guests say she whispers. Some say she cries. A few have woken up to a pale figure at the foot of the bed that vanishes when the lights come on.

We went up floor by floor. There was one light on in one room. We didn't know if it was Sarah or a hotel employee who would have had opinions about us being there. We avoided that room. We kept going toward the mezzanine.

When we got close the air changed. Not cold exactly. Wrong. The specific feeling of being watched while doing something you are very much not supposed to be doing. The hairs on our arms went up. One team member reported feeling confusingly aroused. They have asked not to be identified and we are respecting that.

I looked into the shower in one of the rooms near the mezzanine. I heard something. A whisper. Something that may have been a figure in white. The camera did not capture it. The feeling in that room was not something a camera would capture anyway.

We ran. All of us. For what felt like a very long distance. It was probably less than that but it felt like a lot. We made it out. The air outside felt different on our faces. We were changed by what happened in there and I stand by that assessment.

The Lady in White is not the only thing in that hotel. There is a male spirit in bellhop clothing seen in the service halls. Phantom footsteps near the fourth floor balcony. Lights flickering at 3:33am with the power off. Furniture moved in closed rooms. Voices humming songs nobody recognizes.

The building sits at the convergence of lake, valley, and mountain in a way that some researchers believe creates a natural hotspot for spiritual residue. I believe this. The geometry of that location is not accidental. I have a document on it that connects to some other mapping work I've been doing. It's not ready.

Some of the Spooky Boys want to go back and stay overnight in Room 510. Others do not want to do that. I am in the first group. Sarah has been in that hotel since the 1920s. She jumped from the fourth floor for a man who didn't love her back. She has been there for almost a hundred years and nobody has sat with her properly and asked what she needs.

That seems like something worth doing.

I'm not afraid of what she'll say.