A man in black strolls the back corridor of the Bear’s Paw Café in Jasper, but it’s not an employee.

It’s a ghost.

Bakers who work the solitary night shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. have repeatedly reported seeing a dark figure walk down a hallway adjacent to their work area. While they prepare pastries at a counter with their back to the hallway, they’ll get a glimpse of someone – or something – moving past the open doorway.

“Whether or not it’s their imagination, I don’t know,” said owner Stewart Laing. “It’s just strange how it’s the exact same story over and over again... I’m a believer in ghosts, I don’t know if you are.”

Laing, who purchased the store in 2002, said the bakers, who work alone overnight, see a shape in their peripheral vision that disappears when they turn their heads. 

He’s seen it too. “When you see it out of the corner of your eye it’s a dark silhouette, just a dark figure, a silhouetted figure and the moment you turn around you don’t see it, which would lead you to think it’s your mind playing games, it’s two in the morning and you’re by yourself,” Laing said.

“But when people come to you with the same story, it makes you wonder.”

Though Laing doesn’t know the history of the building, he feels the guest has a connection to the space. “I figure it’s somebody, either an old owner or somebody who worked in the building who just hasn’t... who had something to do with the building at one point or another, just checks it out,” he said. 

He gets the sense it’s a man, though he can’t put his finger on why. “I have a feeling it’s a male figure, just because that’s what everybody feels,” Laing said. 

Though it may give bakers the willies, the spirit has never presented a threat. “Nothing’s been moved, nothing’s been turned on. You just see it walking down the back hallway and standing in the front by the muffin case, so maybe he just wants a muffin,” Laing said, laughing. “I don’t know.”

However, one baker who just moved out of Jasper after the coffee shop closed for the season on Oct. 26, was pretty shaken after a bread-maker seemed to turn on by itself one night. “That’d be enough to send me packing,” Laing said.