Victorian Gastown Tour: Murder, Revenge, and True Grit

Enter a realm of murder, vengeance, and resilience in a captivating tale of Victorian Gastown. This immersive one-person play is guided by a skilled actor in character. As you wander through cobblestone streets, tales of devastating fires and smallpox come to light, leading to a surprising conclusion in this exceptional performance-theatre experience.

Duration: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Cancellation: 24 hours
Highlights
  • 356 Water St - Join the guide at the entrance to Historic Gastown, right outside Monaco Coffee, located at the corner of Cordova and Water St.
  • Victorian Hotel - After exploring a long-forgotten alley, arrive at the historic Victorian Hotel to uncover how the character’s life unfolded and what truly occurred during the Klondike era.
    -…
What's Included
  • Local guide
What's Not Included
  • Gratuities
  • Hotel pickup and drop-off
Additional Information
  • Children must be accompanied by an adult
  • Operates in all weather conditions, please dress appropriately
  • Please arrive at least 10 minutes before the scheduled start time
  • Our tours are designed for adult audiences and do contain some references to adult themes. Our age recommendation is 14+ but certainly children aged 10+ can attend and enjoy our…
Location
Monaco Cafe
Water Street
Meet outside Monaco Cafe at 356 Water St. in Gastown. Close to Waterfront Skytrain and Seabus Station.
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.8
(1271 Ratings)
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Tammy_m
Nov 1, 2025
Awesome experience - Our tour was outstanding. Our guide was an amazing storyteller. We leaned a lot about Vancouver history and just over an hour was perfect. We had the added benefit of it being Halloween so lots of fun costumes to see.
Review provided by Viator
538sidw
Oct 26, 2025
This was the coolest thing - This was the coolest thing! The tour was extremely enjoyable despite the rain. Our storyteller/guide Cole aka George was wonderful. His tales felt real and gave me a feeling of emotional connection with the events and people he was telling us about. So glad I went on the tour. Thank you! 🙏👍💕☺️
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Kirs2nb
Oct 24, 2025
Amy missed her vocation - We did our tour with Amy who was a great guide and she has clearly missed a vocation to be on the stage. She did really well in ushering a large group across many roads and really took time by sharing her lantern to involve as many of the group as possible for a really cohesive feel. Her storytelling was fantastic and she really taught us a lot about the history of Gastown, and that gassy Jack even came from where we live……Yorkshire. My only observation is that on the ticket it said 90 minutes and to end at 8:30 but Amy was still going at 8:50 and we realised we were going to be late for our dinner reservations, so felt quite distracted towards the end. I can see on the website it says 1 1/2 to 2 hours so maybe the ticket could be changed could reflect this and therefore avoid any misunderstanding. Great value and well done Amy for keeping the group engaged and with more than a few laughs thrown in as well.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Karen_d
Oct 21, 2025
HISTORY thru the back allies of VBC - Zoie was animated, personal and had a fun humor about her. Truly enjoyed the experience, her period appropriate clothing and the gin flask!
Review provided by Viator
Audreystcyr
Oct 20, 2025
Must do - We had an incredible experience with our guide Billy ! Kept us interested the whole time ! I highly recommend if you want to discover more about Vancouver :)
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Amyliem2025
Oct 20, 2025
Amazing ! - Thanks to Billy for the amazing tour! We had a great time learning about Vancouver and it’s history. Highly recommend!!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Overbaughbunch
Oct 19, 2025
Kennedy, A Master Storyteller - Kennedy brought us along his journey through the past with stories wrought with tragedy, perseverance and rebuilding. His description of the events coupled with his enthusiastic rendition were enjoyable from the first moment to the last stop.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Zachary_p
Oct 17, 2025
Beautiful storytelling and history - Vanessa is such a talented guide! She really brought the history to LIFE and gave the characters such humanity. I will think about this experience for many years to come.
Review provided by Viator
3elijahr
Oct 17, 2025
Overall a great storytelling experience - Very fun and informative tour of gas town. Cole was very performative and had excellent story telling skills. Very fun way to start a trip.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Banense
Nov 19, 2025
The scariest part was the uninvited stranger who joined our tour - I love ghost tours and have done them in other cities like Montreal, Kingston, Ottawa, and Barrie. Always a good way to learn interesting local history and lore. So had to do this one on my first trip to Vancouver. The tour was 1.5 hour long and our guide Vanessa was fantastic, a real professional actress. She was immersed in character and engaging and interactive. She would give one person her lantern to hold at each stop on the tour, and give you a Werther's candy as a thank you. Her professionalism was tested when during our tour, some random guy decided to glom on to our tour. She politely reminded him that the tour was for paying customers only and offered him information to book his own, but he insisted on staying saying he lived there and it was his right to go anywhere he wanted. He followed our tour for a while, and what's worse isn't that he was just there but that he was getting into people's personal space and being purposely annoying and creepy, people said he was probably drunk. After a while of this eventually one of the guests on the tour had enough and he confronted the guy, threatening to call the police, and put his body in between him and the group. A few other guys started exchanging words with this man and he finally left. Vanessa was such a pro that she kept her cool and remembered all her lines even when being distracted by this hanger-on, and she went right back into character. Honestly, this was the scariest part of the tour. That being said, this tour was a little different than other ghost tours I've been on and not really so much about the ghosts (although some of it was) but about the history of Gastown and its past characters. Some memorable to be sure, but if you're expecting to go from site to site being told about the ghosts of all the buildings, it's not like that. Instead, it's an actor as a historical character storytelling about the goings-on of early Vancouver. There were a few sad and creepy stories but mostly not. I later looked up some of the allegedly haunted buildings in Gastown and they weren't even mentioned on the tour (like the Old Spaghetti Factory for instance). Still, it's interesting to learn local history and I would do one of these tours again (like the Stanley Park one) if I ever return to Vancouver, and would recommend it to others. Just know it's not really a traditional ghost tour, more of a storytelling historical tour with a few ghost stories peppered throughout.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
From $28
up to 15 guests
1 - Adult
Cancellation: Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start of your experience (local time).