A woman in white wandering the hallways, footsteps with nobody attached, and lights that seem to have minds of their own might sound like a Halloween horror movie, but at one downtown Juneau hotel, they’re practically part of the guest experience.

Just in time for spooky season, the Alaskan Hotel & Bar has been crowned Alaska’s most haunted location in a new statewide index released by HauntBound, a travel and paranormal history website.

The century-old establishment on South Franklin Street topped a ranking of 26 Alaska locations examined for their ghostly reputations, with four distinct published accounts giving it the strongest documented collection of supernatural reports in the state.

HauntBound’s researchers ranked locations according to the number and independence of published accounts, how long the stories have persisted and the quality of their documentation. The methodology does not attempt to prove the existence of ghosts, meaning the results measure how thoroughly reported the hauntings are rather than whether the dead have actually stuck around.

Juneau has plenty of other skeletons in its closet, too.

Three other local landmarks appear in the directory, ranging from a saloon with a mischievous piano-playing spirit to the remains of a gold mine where the past refuses to be forgotten. For those keeping score at home, that gives the capital city four places to get acquainted with things that allegedly go bump in the night.

Still, Juneau’s winning entry has more than a century of history to help explain why the stories refuse to die. Opened in 1913, the Alaskan Hotel welcomed guests when mining shaped much of the city’s economy. The Victorian architecture and elaborate woodwork are familiar fixtures downtown, and the property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Alaskan was the only location that also cracked the statewide top five.

Hotel owner Bettye Adams said that employees were more likely than guests to report unsettling experiences, although not everyone working at the establishment believed its ghost stories.

One of those employees was front-desk clerk Jake Good, whom paranormal writer Jeff Belanger interviewed during a September 2023 visit. Good described Room 219 as unusually cold, saying that entering the room consistently gave him goose bumps and an uneasy feeling. His account is the earliest of the four reports HauntBound counted in its ranking.

Among its alleged permanent residents is Alice, a woman whom local legend describes as having been left behind when her miner husband failed to return. According to some versions of the story, she turned to sex work at the hotel before her husband returned and killed her. Reports describe a blonde woman wearing white appearing in the corridors and bar, accompanied by flickering lights, mysteriously moving objects, and footsteps echoing through empty passages.

Another story, however, centers on a particularly unsettling incident in one of the hotel’s rooms. Room 315 was the setting of a frightening incident involving a visiting U.S. Navy sailor in May 2007, when the sailor specifically requested a haunted room while his ship was visiting Juneau. Police responding to reports of screaming discovered that he had fallen from a third-floor window, and officers subsequently found blood covering the room’s walls. Despite suffering extensive injuries, the sailor survived.

The incident is documented, but nothing establishes a supernatural cause. Nevertheless, it has since become part of the hotel’s already formidable reputation.

Even television investigators have come calling. The Travel Channel series “Portals to Hell” filmed at the Alaskan in October 2018, and according to an April 2019 Capital City Weekly report, a hotel co-owner said footage from the investigation showed unexplained orbs of light floating through the basement.

The co-owner’s own experiences include seeing figures move at the edges of her vision, hearing dogs bark when nobody was around, and occasionally sensing another presence in the room.

In May 2025, travel writer Johnny K. described spending a night at the hotel in an article published on Medium. While preparing for bed, he heard what sounded like furniture being dragged across the room above him. Similar noises continued through the night, but when he asked about them at checkout, a desk clerk reportedly checked the records and told him the upstairs room had been unoccupied.

More spirits around town

Visitors hoping for a less frightening encounter can find another alleged resident ghost a short walk away at the Red Dog Saloon at 278 S. Franklin St.

Local lore identifies its resident troublemaker as Professor Phineas Poon, a piano player whose cremated remains are said to rest in an urn above the bar. Unlike the Alaskan Hotel’s darker stories, Poon is blamed mainly for playful mischief, including misplaced objects, though his historical identity and the story surrounding his remains have not been independently established. Apparently, retirement is difficult when there is still a piano to play.

Over on Second Street, the Silverbow Inn houses another supernatural character who seems incapable of clocking out.

The building’s history includes the Messerschmidt’s family bakery, and its resident ghost is said to be a former baker still making the rounds long after the ovens cooled. Visitors have described unexplained footsteps, faint music, shifting furniture, and shadows near upstairs windows, with reports often placing the disturbances in the early morning, around the hours when bakers would once have begun their work.

As with the Red Dog’s piano player, the baker’s identity is unverified.

Across Gastineau Channel, Douglas Island’s Treadwell Mine ruins provide a different sort of Halloween atmosphere. A catastrophic cave-in in 1917 flooded much of the mining complex, leaving behind the industrial remains now visible along the Treadwell Historic Trail.

Unlike the other three locations, the ruins were included primarily for their atmosphere rather than documented haunting reports. Once among the world’s largest hard-rock gold mining operations, the complex employed more than 2,000 workers at its peak. Today, foundations and abandoned mining infrastructure remain among the trees, although HauntBound found no formal record of paranormal investigations at the site.

For curious residents, there is no need to wait until Halloween to explore the city’s history. Several downtown locations also feature on local ghost walks, where visitors can hear the tales while passing the places that inspired them.

Whether the apparitions are real, tricks of the imagination, or stories improved by a century of retelling is an open question. But with October underway, Juneau’s supernatural residents may already have reason to celebrate. After all, topping Alaska’s haunted rankings is quite an achievement for a hotel whose most famous guests supposedly never checked out.