By Thomas Smith

In April, The Paranormal Seekers, a paranormal investigation group based in Durham Region investigated the Sterling Bank at the Minden Cultural Centre. Afterwards, the group contacted Shawn Chamberlin about investigating the Dominion Hotel. Shawn Chamberlin, owner of the Dominion Hotel, says that the Dominion Hotel is the oldest building in Haliburton County. While Chamberlin has had amateur paranormal enthusiasts stay and investigate paranormal happenings, he has never been approached by a professional group of paranormal investigators before.

“There are a lot of stories about the Dominion Hotel. A lot of these stories are more about things that happened here. Funny doors that open,” said Chamberlin. “We have a cougher. We have somebody who coughs in the pub area and we don’t know who it is and we are the only ones there. It is so real that at different times my son has said bless you, not realizing there is nobody there.”

“Just strange things happen, like sometimes a door opens on its own. Sometimes in the kitchen a door will just open and we think somebody will want to come in or go out,” said Elli Chamberlin.

“We have things like people walking or people complaining that there was a party upstairs, but they were on the top floor. So that is kind of weird,” said Shawn Chamberlin with a laugh.

The ground floor of the Dominion Hotel is the restaurant and reception area. On the second floor, there are six rooms for guests to rent. The third floor is an attic they use for storage.

“About a month ago, someone complained of someone walking above them,” said Shawn Chamberlin. Interestingly, there was only the roof above where the guest’s room was located.

Chamberlin said that The Paranormal Seekers split themselves into two groups. One group, called the ‘sensitives’ rely on their spiritual connection to communicate and validate experiences with supernatural entities. The other group uses scientific equipment such as EMF readers to capture and validate the presence of entities. To ensure the sensitive group’s credibility, they were not told the exact location of the investigation beforehand.

“They were really really transparent with everything going on,” said Shawn Chamberlin. “We were welcomed to watch ro even to participate if we wanted. I sat with them for a fair bit, but didn’t want to get in their way.”

Chamberlin says that all guests are welcome to attempt to connect to supernatural forces and larger groups of supernatural investigators are more than welcomed.

Chameberlin says that unexplainable things happen frequently in the world around us.

“You really have to be receptive. Not everybody is observant. A lot of things that go in require you to be observant,” said Shawn Chamberlin. “A lot of people wouldn’t notice something like a flickering light or footsteps after everybody has gone to bed.”

“We do see a lot of things that we can’t explain.”

“It’s funny because anybody that has any sort of experience, they don’t realize they are having it,” said Shawn Chamberlin.

“We had a lady staying at one of our rooms in the wintertime. In the morning, she thanked me for the great night and sending in a housekeeper to check in on me,” said Shawn Chamberlin. The woman told him that the housekeeper came into her room and stood by her bed. She described her body covered in a feeling of warmth, niceness, and that she was cared for. The Dominion Hotel does have a housekeeper.

On another occasion, Shawn’s son was staying at the Dominion Hotel and heard music from the 1920s and 1930s. Thinking a clock radio was left on, he went to investigate but found them all unplugged. At night, they have seen chairs move on their security cameras.

It is those kinds of things that happen, said Shawn Chamberblin.

“Just because you cannot explain it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“We do have the girl in the attic who shows herself periodically,” said Shawn Chamberlin. “There is nobody living in the attic. There are a lot of people that have seen it and it is one of the stories that everybody tells.”

In a post to their Facebook page, The Paranormal Seekers said that as soon as they began their investigation at the Dominion Hotel, they had three separate K2 meters and two different REM pods all spike in and around the bathtub in room four.

“These energy spikes seemed to correlate to our questions, beeping and flashing lights in response. The team was unable to find a logical explanation as to why multiple pieces of equipment would react in such a way,” said their post. The team says that they had numerous encounters throughout the night including three separate figures appearing on SLS camera and their strip lights and Spirit Bell activating.

“We were thrilled to head back to Minden and were completely blown away by the activity we encountered,” said their post.

“Sunday night after the folks had left we were sitting in the pub doing a wrap up and all the lights were off. All of a sudden, one of the lights came on. It was like it was on a dimmer,” said Shawn Chamberlin. “The switch was off and there was no power to it.” In addition, their computer near the front was flashing on and off.

“It was such a great experience, it was fun, and a little enlightening and maybe a little frightening too,” said Shawn Chamberlin.