Bessie Gideon refused to let mere death end her career at the Caribou Hotel. Her husband Edwin died in 1925 and never came back. Bessie died in 1933 and never left. Her friends and neighbors gave her a funeral and buried her in Carcross—but no one knows the location of her grave.
Ghosts Haunt the Caribou Hotel.
Her gentle, shy, and kindhearted spirit inhabits the Caribou to this day.
In his The Caribou Hotel, John Firth tells us she knocks on doors. She adds bubbles to bathtubs. Occasionally she stands at a third-floor window, simply observing.
One kindhearted guest encountered a little old lady, accidentally locked into the hotel. He helped her get out of the building, and she disappeared–Bessie.
Bessie helped the housekeepers, even learned to run an electric vacuum cleaner. In the 1990’s she occasionally called to summon Kathy Haydon, a cook at the hotel. Kathy would respond and find no one there.
A bartender, Janet Thompson sometimes spent the night in the Caribou after a late shift. She would wake up in the middle of the night with her long brown hair standing straight up from her head; after a moment it would fall back in place. She learned to shake it off and go back to sleep.
Bessie’s spirit became famous, of course. Travel guides identify the Caribou as the famous home of Ghost Bessie. In 2015 Canada Post actually issued a stamp commemorating Bessie and the Caribou.
Bessie Geraldine Trusty married Edwin Gideon in Illinois and the couple followed the Gold Rush north to the Chilkoot in 1898. Firth tells us that 39,000 men braved and conquered the Chilkoot; only 1,000 women climbed it with them.
Shy and kindhearted, or not, Bessie obviously had grit. If she wanted to hang around after she died, she could damned well do it.
Another story of the Caribou Haunts