The Cracked Van Newton and the Haunted Van Gilder

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THE CRACKED VAN NEWTON. Ice Cream Newton, our beloved Chevy Astro van, has been sporting some significant cracks in her windshield for several years now. No biggy. Just about every vehicle in Alaska has dings and cracks and holes and rust... we're all about practicality, not aesthetic perfection. But when that practicality is compromised, in the form of the rubber gaskets that presumably block water from flooding the inside of Ice Cream Newton, we take notice. And when the duck tape holding down those rubber gaskets begins to go "fwap, fwap, fwap" at cruising speeds above 10 mph, you know it's time to actually deal with the situation.

Enter, Seward. A quaint ocean-mountain town without a stop light and, come to find out, without a windshield replacement shop. No, to get something fancy like that done, you need to schedule a week day appointment in the metropolis of Soldotna, or Anchorage, both 2 hours away. I tried for a weekend gig and a kind (tongue pressing against my cheek) gentleman told me,

"Honey, I didn't move here to handle glass on my Saturday, you know what I'm sayin'? There's fish to catch and moose to shoot."

THE HAUNTED VAN GILDER. Finally I tracked down a shop in Soldotna that had an open appointment on a day I was going to be in town for a committee meeting. When I mentioned I was from Seward and needed a guarantee that the job could be done well that day, or I wouldn't be able to get home, the guy got excited...

"Seward! I lived there for 10 years when I first moved up from Georgia... worked at the Van Gilder Hotel. You ever been there?"

"No, I don't think we have... I think I've seen it though."

"Well you should go by; it's a beautiful hotel, just beautiful. I was into restoration you know, that's why I took the job. But the haunting was a little much."

 "The haunting?"

"Yeah, I had at least three days when I told my boss I had to leave, it was just too much... You see in the winter months we would close the hotel down and just work on stuff, and take reservations for the busy summer. One day I went up to the second floor and opened a supply closet. Next thing you know, every sheet and every towel is flying up off the shelves, flying out the door, hitting me in the face and making a huge mess all over the hallway. Another day I was going up to THE room, the room where Fannie was killed back in the day.  I was trying to hang up a framed plague in there and as soon as I started hammering on the wall, the window blows open, wind pours in, lamps fall over, pictures crash down from the walls... I was like, 'okay okay, I won't hang up the plague!' Guests too... tons of people staying there would report hearing loud stomping up the stairs in the middle of the night, doors slamming, that sort of thing... it's like sometimes the murder would get reenacted."

So according to the Seward City News and the Van Gilder Hotel website itself, a woman named Fannie Guthry-Baehm really was killed by her husband in the hotel in 1950. Now considered by many locals (and clearly my windshield repairman!) to be the resident ghost, Fannie shows up on all the Alaska ghost hunting websites as a must visit in Seward...

HALLOWEEN. Our trick or treating options just got a lot more interesting! We'll let you know if we cross paths with the undead!