The Motel That Wasn't & The Shadow People That Were

This is something that happened some 35 yrs.
ago on a lonely stretch of the Trans Canada
Highway just east of Winnipeg, Manitoba


This is an incident that happened to my ex-wife (before she was my ex) and myself on a cross-country trip. We were driving from Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada's west coast) to Toronto, Ontario, that's a 2700mi / 4600km trip. It was November so winter was already gripping much of the eastern prairie provinces....Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

By the evening of the fourth day we were pretty tired with a rough, twelve hour drive under our belts. Snow storms and icy roads for most of that day had taken their toll on our adventurous spirit so, by the time we reached Winnipeg, Manitoba, we decided to just by-pass the city and to look for a motel on the outskirts of town. As the city lights faded in the rear-view mirror, the gas stations and other businesses and factories thinned out to nothing pretty fast. It took almost another hour of driving before we came across a motel. By now it was about 10:30 PM

We pulled in and went and registered for a room. It was quite a large, new looking place, lots of rooms but it looked pretty much empty. Only two or three units were lit up but, there were no other cars in the lot. Anyway, we were so tired by now from almost fourteen hours of driving that all we could manage was a shower then fall into bed. It must of been an hour or more before I could shut my thoughts down, to stop seeing flying snow and headlights every time I closed my eyes.

At about 3:30 AM my wife woke me up whispering "Roger, there's someone in here." I opened my eyes and though it was really dark in the room, I could make out silhouettes of people standing silently around the bed. I slowly reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. As the room flooded with light, these "shadow people" faded away. It's not like they just "poof" disappeared, they actually faded into thin air.

Needless to say, we got up right away, threw on some clothes, grabbed our bags and left that room. When we got outside, I was surprised to see that we were totally alone in that place. There wasn't another vehicle to be seen anywhere around there. The parking lot was covered with about 6 inches of virgin snow but, there were no tire tracks or footprints anywhere. I stopped by the office to drop off the key and it too, was deserted. The door was unlocked but there wasn't a soul around. Everything, with the exception of the quiet rumbling of my pick up's exhaust, was deathly quiet. I threw the key on the counter, jumped back into my truck and we left. Thinking about it later, I thought it odd that the only other vehicle tracks leading off the highway when we pulled in there, led to the office and then out onto the highway again. I made the only tracks to a unit.

Well, the following May, we were driving back to the west coast and decided to watch for that motel. When we were just about a hundred miles away from Winnipeg, we started paying close attention to the highway. Mile after mile went by with no motel. Finally, we reached the city but we hadn't seen any motel on the highway where we had spent that night. I'm pretty sure we hadn't driven by it, there had been nothing along that stretch of highway to distract either one, never mind the two of us.

I was only just turning 26 at the time and I don't mind saying, the implications of that night scare the crap out of me. I wish I knew then what I know now. I think I would of listened to my "gut feeling" and also just pulled up to the office then straight out again. I still get the willies when I think about it now. Because of my relative "youth" and the general sceptical mentality of the day, this story has gone relatively untold...until now.