A grisly double murder-suicide in the space above what is now a high-end lingerie shop. To be sure, a few surprises, some humourous, others macabre, await on a Calgary Ghost Tour.

“I would say that everyone that comes on the tour learns at least one thing that they didn’t know before about the city,” says Johanna Lane, owner of Calgary Ghost Tours.

Tour-goers can choose between eye-opening tours of Inglewood, downtown, Kensington and 17 Avenue southwest—the latter of which are new on the menu for this, Calgary Ghost Tours’ second year.

Inglewood was an obvious place to start for Lane, with the Deane House, Cross House, Suitor House (which Lane argues is the most haunted house in Calgary), St. John the Evangelist Church and many other haunted sites located in the vicinity. It has now reached the point where she is considering offering two different tours of the area, thanks to an abundance of spooks.

Lane relates that many of the tales they have gathered since the company started have come from customers, recounting past encounters while on the tour, or over beer at the pub afterward.

One woman, while on the Inglewood tour, told of the days when she used to watch horror films in the basement of what is now the Buffalo Cafe and used to be a voodoo shop. She related that while on the main floor, they would hear someone walking around on the second floor, coming down the stairs and then going back up. The problem? There is no second floor.

Coincidentally, the writer interviewed Lane at the Buffalo Cafe, and when asked whether there had been any past ghostly activity in the shop, a café staffer told the same tale.

Over the first season of the tours, Lane and her colleagues collected enough stories from the Kensington and 17 Avenue southwest areas that this year they will be running a tour in each. The Kensington tour will include the Hillhurst School, Riley Park, and an old cemetery, guaranteed to give visitors shivers. The 17 Avenue tour, meanwhile, will take revellers to the site of the aforementioned murder-suicide, former funeral parlour the Rose and Crown, as well as the Moxam and Lougheed buildings.

Perhaps some of the most unexpected tales can be heard on the downtown tour. Many tour-goers may work downtown, but most have probably not given much thought to the spooks that lurk in the dark corners of the historic buildings peppering the core. Those who take in the downtown tour can expect to learn secrets of the Chamber of Commerce building, a tragic tale about the Doll Building on 8 Avenue, the madame that haunts City Hall and the spectre sometimes seen at Divino.

“People are surprised, absolutely,” says Lane of customers’ reactions to the things they learn on a Calgary Ghost Tour. “Most people go, ‘Here? That happened?’ ”

Each tour is led by a guide wearing a cape and carrying a lantern to set the mood—fun, but still a bit creepy. They leave it to the ghosts to give the scares; there are no costumed ghouls leaping from behind bushes or recorded ghostly sounds here, just real, live (or more appropriately, dead) spirits. Though most people leave at least a little more open-minded than they came, no one has yet left early out of sheer terror—except one poor soul whose friends tormented her for an entire week beforehand and then spent the tour using a variety of methods in an attempt to scare her (if you have friends like these, take the tour without them).

At the end the evening, adult participants head to the pub, either to shake off the willie-nillies or continue the creepy ghost stories. In Inglewood, this is the Hose and Hound, where a monkey ghost might be blamed if a drink starts to move.

Children are welcome on the tours, though in general it is not recommended anyone of any age prone to nightmares come along (at the very least, they need be forewarned). The tours are also wheelchair accessible. People of all ages and backgrounds turn up, from grandmas and pregnant women to Boy Scouts and singles groups.

Though there is no need to bring anything special along, besides a sense of adventure, the folks at Calgary Ghost Tours ask participants to always come prepared for Calgary weather. The tours run in spite of rain and involve an hour-and-a-half of walking outside, so whether it’s a wool sweater, a rain poncho, an umbrella or bug spray that is called for according to the day’s weather, think ahead.

“It’s spookier, and you’re more likely to see something—we actually have a lot of fun (in wet weather),” says Lane. The intrepid may also want to bring a camera or sound recorder. Rod Coates, producer of the Access Network reality show The Intuitives, has had much success capturing “orbs” (balls of light caught in photos, usually by digital cameras, and believed by many to be energy or spirits) on the tours.

According to Dr. Micael Ledwith, author of The Orb Phenomenon, the only real tricks to getting a good orb photo are to use a digital camera (the higher the megapixels, the better for capturing the image) and to use the flash.

Especially dedicated ghost hunters hoping to catch EVP (electronic voice phenomena), typically wispy voices caught in the background of recordings, when the recorders know no one was speaking, may opt to bring along a sound recorder—just in case.

But beware—the sounds are hard to capture, but they can be very creepy when you do.

Calgary Ghost Tours run from May long weekend until Halloween. Schedules and more information can be found at http://www.calgaryghosttours.com