Haunted Trolley Tours examine Flathead's supernatural sites

There are so many haunted places in the Flathead that someone should start a tour.

That was the idea that came to Scott Davis and his daughter DawnD Kjensrud of Montana Trolley Company last year. After pitching the idea to the Valley Area Paranormal Research (VAPR) team, they found a tour guide in Jan Roth, the group’s co-owner, and the Paranormal Trolley Tour was born.

“It’s educational with a side of goosebumps,” said Kjensrud during a dress rehearsal tour on Oct. 17. “We did four tours last year. It was so much fun.”

So much fun, in fact, that she tripled the number of tours this year to 12.

“I created a Facebook event two weeks ago. We sold out within 72 hours.”

With a maximum capacity of 29 riders per tour, plus driver Alan Gilbertson, that’s a lot of folks to shuttle around in the chilly October evenings preceding Halloween. No tours are scheduled for Oct. 31 for the safety of trick-or-treaters about town.

THE MONTANA Trolley Company has operated in Kalispell for five years, offering seasonal tours and Christmas decoration sightseeing, in addition to chartering custom outings.

Their first trolley “Hazel” is a rare wood-framed TVI that for many years served as a student transit at Northern Michigan University, according to Davis. He found it sitting in a pasture near Polson and spent seven months restoring it inside and out.

By then he had the trolley bug. Two more streetcars, “Theta” and “Ruby,” were purchased and driven up from Arizona and restored. And a fourth, “Patriot,” which served the Olympic village in Lake Placid, New York, was purchased from Pennsylvania and trucked out to Kalispell. To round out the fleet, they also have an open-air train.

Ruby is the trolley of choice for the paranormal tour, trimmed inside with brass railings and finished wood paneling, two-person wood-slat seats with a side bench in the middle and a wrap-around bench in the rear. With the lights on inside it’s bright and warm, cozy even; but, the moment the lights go out on a dark foggy night, it’s good to have someone to hold onto.

PARANORMAL RESEARCHER Jan Roth looks the part as tour guide, a stout and fit man decked out in a black cowboy hat, black coat, black boots, jeans and a mustache. Although he takes his work with VAPR seriously, the trolley tours are all about good, family-friendly fun.

“I want to give people a good time,” he said. “It’s OK to be skeptical. In fact, it’s better to be.”

On the trial run, he demonstrated the devices he uses to search for paranormal activity: the Mel meter, about the size of a first-generation iPod, monitors electromagnetic frequency on a digital display; the smaller K2 meter, which resembles a remote control, also detects the presence of electromagnetic fields; and a laser light grid. Those who go on the tours will have the opportunity to learn how to use them.

“We have advanced our investigations using tools of the past and present,” Roth said of VAPR. “Our investigations evolved using a scientific approach and using historical archives to substantiate reported claims and personal experiences.

“There are many types of so-called haunting,” Roth added. “The most common are intelligent, residual, and poltergeist, and a very small percentage are malevolent or demonic events.”

The tours run nightly, tonight through Sunday, and will feature Roth’s lively storytelling between stops at the Conrad Mansion, old hospital, Kalispell Grand Hotel, and a top-secret location or two.

For more information about the tours, contact the Montana Trolley Company at www.montanatrolleyco.com or 406-752-1523