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Offered languages
- English
Old Town is where Toronto started, and for its first hundred years the city kept building jails here: four of them, all within 700 metres, each grander than the last. This self-guided ghost walk takes you past every one.
You play a new recruit of a small paranormal bureau, and the Questo app hands you its file on Old Town, open since 1960. The dead along the route have their own versions of what happened, and your job is to check them: a tailor hanged in 1798 for a forged dollar note, two rebels executed behind a stockade in 1838, a bishop who nursed the sick through the fever summer of 1847 and died of it at 42.
Every stop has a challenge you solve with the real thing in front of you: a carved head on St Lawrence Hall, the blue plaque on Mackenzie House, the gargoyles of Old City Hall.
Allow 2 hours for about 3.3 km, from the dog fountain in Berczy Park to the Church of the Holy Trinity. Go whenever you like, day or night, with hints and 24/7 support on hand.
What's Included
Meeting and pickup
The game starts at the dog fountain in Berczy Park. After booking, we'll message you a code and activation link. Activate with your own email, then log in to the Questo app with that email. No message? Open the Questo app, tap "Bought a quest somewhere else?" and enter your booking reference number.
The game ends in the yard of the Church of the Holy Trinity, on Trinity Square behind the Eaton Centre.
Itinerary
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1Berczy Park
The case starts at Berczy Park, by a cast-iron fountain where 27 dogs stare up at a gilded bone and one cat looks the other way. You'll answer a rhyming riddle from the fountain itself to earn your clearance into the Bureau.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
2St. Lawrence Market
In the south market, between the butchers and the sandwich queue, you'll decode a question with every vowel swapped for an X and find a date on site. This was Toronto's first city hall and its jail at once, and the basement cells flooded every spring for decades. A hundred metres away, St Lawrence Hall has no ghost at all, just a carved head to pick out of four doctored photos and a room where Frederick Douglass once spoke.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
3The Cathedral Church Of St. James
At St James Cathedral, whose spire was once the tallest thing in the country, the sign out front has been tampered with in your photo. Its archive holds the papers of Dr George Grasett, killed by the fever of 1847 after 24 days running the fever hospital. Across King Street, the grand King Edward hotel stands where a ten-cell log jail went up in 1798, and you'll spot what has vanished from its awning.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
4Metropolitan United Church
Courthouse Square and the 1852 Adelaide Court House come next, and you'll solve a photo puzzle at each. Two rebels were hanged here behind a stockade in 1838, and the old courthouse cells are now a restaurant's washrooms. At Metropolitan United, in a park of its own off Queen Street, a plaque gives back a word blacked out of your note. In 1888 this congregation started the campaign that closed Toronto on Sundays.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
5St. Michael's Cathedral Basilica
Up on Bond Street, the statue in front of St Michael's Cathedral is missing something in your photo. Bishop Michael Power laid the cathedral's first stone in 1845, nursed the famine emigrants in the fever sheds of 1847 and was buried in its crypt at 42.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
6Mackenzie House
A few doors along, Mackenzie House is the narrow brick home of Toronto's first mayor. You'll use a number code to pull a password out of its blue plaque. When the house went to the city in 1960, the inventory ended with two words: one ghost.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
7
The app shows you four versions of Massey Hall's red neon sign, and only one is real. Churchill, Helen Keller and Billie Holiday all appeared here, and in 1953 five jazz musicians played a set people still argue was the greatest jazz concert ever recorded.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
8Old City Hall
At Old City Hall you'll count the carved faces erased from a photo of the entrance columns. The architect fought the council over his fees for years, so he carved the councillors into the stone as gargoyles and spelled his own name across the frieze.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free -
9CF Toronto Eaton Centre
The file closes behind the Eaton Centre, in the yard of the Church of the Holy Trinity. Four photos of the pavement labyrinth each have a different centre, and you'll pick the true one. The church opened in 1847 on one condition from an anonymous donor: its seats would be free forever.
10 minutes • Admission ticket free
Additional info
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- A charged smartphone with internet is required to play the game in the Questo app
- Comfortable walking shoes are recommended
Tags
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Cancellation Policy
- For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
- If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
- Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
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