The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel rises from the pines of Alberta’s Bow Valley like a stone castle, its steep gables and winding hallways giving it the presence of something far older than its 19th-century origins. Guests come for the mountains, the hot springs, and the grand architecture, but many leave with stories they never expected. Among the hotel’s most persistent legends is that of Room 873, a suite on the eighth floor that was so haunted, according to decades of guest accounts, the hotel eventually sealed it behind brick and plaster. Even today, visitors claim that something still lingers behind that false wall, something that refuses to be quiet.
The story begins with a tragedy. Though records are sparse and the hotel has never confirmed the details, the most circulated version claims that a family once occupied Room 873 during a winter holiday decades ago. According to the tale, the father suffered a sudden break, killing his wife and young daughter before turning the weapon on himself. When staff entered the room the next morning, they found bloodstains on the carpet and walls, and the imprint of a small handprint smeared across the bathroom door. The marks, it’s said, never fully disappeared no matter how many times the room was cleaned or refinished.
Guests who stayed in the room afterward reported terrifying disturbances. Some awoke to the sound of a child screaming in the night. Others said that lights flicked on and off on their own, or that the bathroom faucets opened with no one near them. The most unsettling accounts described the same detail: bloody handprints appearing on the mirror, only to fade slowly as hotel staff wiped them away. Night after night, the calls to the front desk piled up. Eventually, after years of complaints, the hotel allegedly took the most drastic step possible.
They bricked the room over.
Today, visitors walking the eighth floor of the Banff Springs notice something peculiar. The hallway shows a sequence of door frames, evenly spaced, except for one. Where Room 873 should be, the wall looks slightly different. The baseboard shifts. The spacing is off by inches. And those familiar with the hotel’s older floor plans insist that the door once stood exactly there. When guests knock along the wall, the hollow sound suggests a space behind it. The hotel’s official stance is that renovations simply altered the room numbers, but visitors who compare old maps to the present layout find the explanations unsatisfying.
The legends didn’t stop once the door disappeared. Housekeepers have reported hearing a young girl crying on the other side of the wall, only to open the nearest adjacent room and find it empty. Guests passing late at night claim they see a flicker of movement in that section of the corridor, like a shadow slipping across a nonexistent threshold. Others insist they’ve heard scratching at the sealed wall, soft at first, rising into frantic scraping as they hurry away.
Perhaps the most chilling accounts come from those who say they’ve seen something directly. A woman in a white dress, shimmering, indistinct, wandering the eighth floor before vanishing near the bricked-over room. Or a small girl, barefoot and silent, standing in the hallway with wide, frightened eyes. In several stories, she raises her hand as if asking for help, then fades into nothing, leaving behind only the impression of a tiny palm poised against empty air.
The Banff Springs is no stranger to ghost stories. Its halls have hosted tales of vanishing bellmen, phantom brides, and spectral guests who never checked out. But Room 873 endures because of the physicality of its absence: a room deliberately sealed away, a space that people can point to, knock on, and wonder about. It suggests that something once happened there, something the hotel could not explain, contain, or tolerate.
True or not, the legend persists because the eighth floor of the Banff Springs feels strangely incomplete. Even without knowledge of the story, many guests pause at that uneven stretch of wall, sensing the odd break in the rhythm of the corridor. It is a gap not just in the architecture, but in the hotel’s memory, one that invites speculation, fear, and the whisper of a past that refuses to stay quiet.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Canadian Rockies tourism archives referencing Banff Springs ghost folklore
– Alberta historical hotel records and architectural plans (publicly available sections)
– Interviews with former staff collected in local Banff ghost tour materials
– Contemporary travel reporting on Banff Springs’ paranormal reputation
– Folklore research on Canadian hotel hauntings and oral legends
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
