BOO BOYS Investigate: Juneau Drug Company

Welcome, everyone, to the latest in our investigation series. In this installment, we will be exploring the strange, supernatural occurrences that have taken place at one of Downtown Juneau's local businesses. There are many instances in which people have claimed to have had run-ins with the paranormal in places that one might not expect—places with no known history of traumatic events or past activities that would cause a haunting. Juneau Drug Company is an exception to this, as it holds a dark secret that could very well justify the employees' encounters with ghostly inhabitants who have supposedly taken up residence in the store's cellar. To get a better picture of what exactly happened here, we'll need to take a trip back to the year 1918, when tragic events would unfold surrounding the unfortunate passengers of the Princess Sophia.

The Wreck of the Princess Sophia

In October of 1918, tragedy would strike the unsuspecting crew and passengers of a Canadian Pacific Steamer Ship as she departed from Skagway, Alaska to her destination of Vancouver. Over 300 people aboard the ship would lose their lives when the vessel unexpectedly crashed into Vanderbilt Reef just four hours after it's departure. For unknown reasons, the ship veered off course, which caused the eventual collision with the reef. When the crew realized what had happened, they sent a distress call to Juneau, pleading for rescue from their dire situation. Rescue vessels were dispatched immediately to assist the passengers of the ship, and upon arriving at the scene, would circle for several hours waiting for an opportunity to save those aboard the Princess Sophia. The captain assured those onboard that there was no need to panic since the ship would likely be lifted from atop the reef at high tide. However, things would take a turn for the worse, and as weather conditions worsened, the rough seas made rescue efforts near impossible.

As the seas worsened, the rescue boats were forced to turn back, leaving the passengers to their doomed fate. The high tides and powerful winds caused the ship's stern to lift, then violently crash down into the reef, breaking away most of the hull. As water began to flood the vessel, the vessel would make one final transmission, before falling silent: “taking water and foundering, for God’s sake come and save us!” The ship sat on Vanderbilt Reef for 40 long hours, before finally sinking on the evening of October 25th.

On the morning of October 26th, once the seas had calmed, rescue boats once again set sail for the Princess Sophia. When they arrived, the only part of the Princess Sofia that was still above water was 40 feet of the mast. The ship's passengers were lost to the sea. All 343 people who were aboard the Princess Sophia perished, making it one of the worst shipwrecks to ever occur on the West Coast of America and earning it the title of "the unknown Titanic of the West Coast."

Aftermath

During recovery efforts, the bodies of the victims began to accumulate, the city of Juneau realized that they were unprepared to handle the nearly 200 corpses that been recovered. The morgue and converted warehouse were unable to house all of the corpses from the Princess Sophia. As a temporary solution, the morgue workers had to store the additional bodies in the cellars of many local businesses. One such business that served as storage, was Juneau Drug Company. Today, employees of the shop have claimed to have had encounters with what they believe to be the restless spirits of the passengers whose bodies were stored in the basement.

Some employees have allegedly been touched by unseen forces and have felt an eerie breath on their face. There is a sense of dread, or an angry presence felt by many who enter the basement of the drug store. We reached out to the manager of Juneau Drug, hoping that we would be able to perform an investigation and determine who or what might be the cause of these paranormal encounters. Much to our delight, the manager agreed to let us conduct an investigation of the basement during store hours, and we geared up for our next adventure in the realm of the supernatural. Unfortunately, we would only have about an hour to investigate, so this was definitely going to be much shorter and fast-paced than our typical cases. This is the investigation of Juneau Drug Company, and I thoroughly hope that you enjoy reading.

The Arrival

On the day of our investigation, we arrived at the store at approximately 3 pm—hoping that we would have some time to interview some of the staff about their experiences with the paranormal. One employee, Fae, was happy to oblige—and actually reached out to us on Instagram beforehand wanting to share their story. Our interview with Fae Is below:

This was the first that we had heard of someone physically seeing a spirit at Juneau Drug and left us with many questions as to what all of the activity meant. Who was this little girl that had been seen peeking around the corner, and who was the mysterious shadow man hiding in the basement? What did the number 47 mean? Perhaps these were the restless ghosts of the passengers whose bodies were stored in the basement—one being a child and the other possibly being a spirit filled with anger at the fact that its life was cut short so tragically. The number 47 also had to have some kind of relevance to the passengers as well, and we theorized that perhaps the number was referring to the number of bodies that had been housed in the basement. We hoped the answers would become clear as we began our descent into the cellar.

The basement was cluttered with various medications and merchandise—as well as random assortment of other miscellaneous items like pieces of furniture. The first thing that we did upon entering, was to arrange our REM-Pods and motion balls throughout the area. The entry way was quite large, with a dark room towards the back where Fae spotted the mysterious Shadow Man. We placed a pod and motion ball in both spaces, then our laser grid against the wall in the main space to capture any instances of shadows moving about. With a camera set to monitor the grid, Jerrod and I began roaming with an EMF meter, a digital voice recorder, and the SB-7.

EMF readings appeared to be normal, with no unexplained spikes or activity as we roamed throughout the basement. Additionally, there were no coherent responses on our SB-7 spirit box—so I attempted to capture EVPs by asking for the passengers of the Princess Sophia to reveal themselves, and even called out to the mysterious Shadow Man. I also asked for the significance of the number 47, and if that was how many spirits were trapped in the drug store. While asking questions, I may have received an unexpected response when asking for a "crisp high-five."

Unfortunately, I received no high-fives during this investigation. =(

We were unable to detect any responses to our prior questions regarding the mysterious number 47 or the identity of the enigmatic Shadow Man, so I decided that it was time to bust out the SLS camera.

While using the SLS we captured a few instances of possible entities in the basement with us:

We received no intelligent responses from these figures when prompting them to perform certain actions, so it's a likely possibility that they may have just been false readings. It is somewhat interesting that we captured a figure in the room where the Shadow Man was previously seen, but we will take this evidence with a grain of salt. After some time using the SLS camera—and with only about 20 minutes remaining to investigate—we decided to head into the mysterious room that Fae had mentioned that she had never entered.

The room was dark and dank, with large areas of mold covering the walls. As we entered the room, we were greeted by a musty, pungent odor that made breathing unpleasant and somewhat laborious. We lingered in the room for about 15 minutes, once again using the REM-pod, an EMF meter, and our digital voice recorder. Strangely enough, we didn't seem to feel any negative or foreboding vibes in this room.

I asked Jerrod to lock me in to spend 5 minutes of solo time in the room. Despite being alone in the darkness of a room that could have literally been filled with dead people, I didn't feel too uneasy. I was more worried about tripping and falling into one of the massive water-filled holes in the floor (which I did by the way). Once my 5 minutes were up, and I was feeling somewhat light-headed due to the mold, we called it a day. We gathered up our equipment and departed the drug store, grateful for having been given the opportunity to investigate. Although we reached out to management requesting to return for a second time, we have yet to receive a response.

Results

We only received two pieces of evidence during this investigation—it was only an hour long so perhaps if we had more time we would have found more. Despite this, we are very happy to have been able to investigate the drug store. Below is a brief summary of the evidence collected during our time at the location:

SLS Activity — There were multiple instances of our SLS camera picking up

humanoid figures in the darkness of the basement. Despite this, we did

not receive any intelligent responses to our requests for the figures to perform certain actions for us.

EVP — This is the first time that we have ever captured a possible EVP during an investigation. As exciting as it is, I'm still somewhat confused and disappointed that out of all of the questions we asked, we only received a response when asking for a friggin high-five. What's worse, I didn't even get that damn high-five. I feel betrayed.

With the evidence gathered we are unable to come to a conclusion as to whether or not the drug store truly is haunted, and we left with more questions than answers. Who is the Shadow Man? What about the little girl in the break room? What is the significance of the number 47? Perhaps one day these questions will be answered, but for now, the BOO BOYS are going to put a pin in it. We hope that maybe we will be the ones to return and discover the truth. Until then, this is going to do it for our investigation of Juneau Drug Company. I hope you enjoyed the read, and I'm sorry that it was a short one. We have already teased our next investigation on our social medias, so if you're hungry for more, head on over and check it out. I guarantee that the next one will be much longer, with a BUNCH of evidence. A full write-up of our investigation of the HISTORIC ANCHORAGE HOTEL will be posted next month, so stay tuned, and stay spooky!

-Ron :)