The Ottawa Jaol

It was built in 1861. It was Ottawa's first jail. Prior to its opening, felons were transported by coach to another town.

The city built it to handle a problem that was created when they brought in Irish labourers to dig the canal. When the project was done, the men were out of work, bored, and angry with the employed Francophones. Gangs were formed, trouble brewed, and a need for incarceration was perceived. But transporting convicts to the other town was dangerous. The increasingly powerful gangs would stop the coach and break out their members.

At the time the Ottawa Jaol was built it was state-of-the-art, impenetrable, and a model of prison reform.This was not just a box of cells.

One of the security features built into it was a tunnel which went from the courthouse, past the constabulary building to the jail. Once convicted, a person was ushered underground and into the system without any hope of escape. The Courthouse is the large building on the corner (now an arts centre) and the jail is far right. The space above ground in between had been at one time a yard.

That tunnel still exists, but it is so badly decayed that it is now blocked at all entrances.

This is a shot from the gate looking up. The top floor (which is the ninth floor of this four story building) was the hospital. but hospital care for inmates usually consisted of amputation and isolation from the cell blocks for diseased dying. Nobody actually wanted to go there. Nowadays it is the family floor for couples staying with children.

The main entrance, who's arched roof only barely makes it into the photo above, was for officials. Visitors who came to see loved ones in the system went through the side entrance. It has a barred gate and a low flight of stairs up to the main floor (3rd).

The very high stone wall that encloses it, separating it from the courtyard and what used to be the cemetery, is curved. This narrow, steep semi-circle has a very interesting feel. Like the beginning of some horribly warped maze.
When people came to visit, though, they got no further than the room on the other side of this door. Prisoners were brought from the cell blocks to stand in a stairwell just off that room and talk through a tiny barred window in a huge wooden door.
Later, when the jail was more crowded, a new window was put in, but it was further along the stairwell wall above the descending stairs and short prisoners could not see who they talked to.

This is the main stairwell in the jail and was as much a "floor" as the rest of them.

This shot is from the 4th floor looking up and down. Below is the "3rd", Main floor where a common room and some internet and phone facilities have been set up in the former visitor's room. Up are private room floors (as opposed to dorms). There is a floor at every landing (end of each flight of stairs) due to the design which caused the back section to be built off level from the front section. This is how they were able to have nine floors in a four story building.

It was this stairwell where the prisoners would talk to their loved ones, either standing on the landing beside the blue billboard, or on tip toe further down the next flight.
These stairs provide access to every part of the jail. They are the only set to do so, and would have created a bottleneck in a riot.

There are some built in security features here. Although one came late. The risers have a line of holes in them so a guard could tell who was on them from behind. Shackled feet or boots. They were not open, notice, so somebody couldn't slip a loop through and trip a guard. The grates that fill in the well, lining up with each flight are called 'suicide grates'. But they were installed a year after the jail was built due to a murder of a guard by a prisoner who threw him down the well.

There has been a lot of changes over the hundred years this jail was opened. You can see in the brickwork where doors have been sealed off and entryways changed. A lot of other things stayed the same for the entire history of the place.

My first night:

I arrived in Ottawa at 11:30 by plane. The trip was for business and the association is a non profit, so I had tried to arrange a billet. My usual host was in Nepal, but she offered to let me use her place if it was all right with the roommates.
Turns out the whole thing weirded out the roommates, so I gave my back-up billet a call. He was hesitant on the phone, so I suggested the hostel for the first night.
It cost $25/night plus $2.50 for sheets. They asked if I needed sheets, and I did, but later on I read a sign that said sleeping bags were not permitted in the hostel because they sometimes came with bed bugs. If you couldn't bring your own bedding, how could you not need theirs?

I got in quite late. Despite the fact that I had chosen the cheaper "dorm bunk" over a private room, I was able to get a cell to myself. when I reached my floor (4), I was amazed at how much it remained jail-like. I was on a cell block complete with bars, bleak bricks and huge, imposing locks (which had been rendered useless) on the cell doors. Most of the cells were dark. I could tell there were people in them, but I did not see a living soul that night. It was a bit unnerving.

I found cell 7 (one of two cells which had its door open) into which I had been assigned "Bunk 1". At the back of the cell was a glowing orange light which dimly illuminated a switch. I flicked it and the bright main light came on.

Bunk 1 was on the bottom. I felt safer on the top, opposing bunk because it was harder to get to, and nearest the light switch.

The following is transcribed from my journal for that night:

I'm not going to sleep well tonight. Not just because the mattress on this too small bunk is worn to a doughnut holed at my hip, but also because despite my tolerance for bleak accommodation, and my penchant for weird, this jail cell…cell is just too spooky.
I was all right, actually, until I went exploring. The cell block on the other side of this floor is wholly dark. The cells are standing open. They seem larger than this side, so I went into one to see.
I was a little unnerved by the blackness, but I could see the small pocket of orange glow that was the light switch nightlight. It occurred to me that somebody could be occupying the cell. I stopped still a moment, listening for sounds of breathing. They could be stopped as well, holding their breath in fear of the intruder. The feeling that some person was in the cell became tangible. I was certain. But then, what if there were no guests here? What if the feeling of occupation I had was the sensing of a lingering spirit - one of the long deceased criminals?
I was a little past jittery when I dove for the light. I flicked the switch with a satisfying click. But there was only the click. No light came on to dispel my imagined miscreant spectre. It remained dark, and I remained in it. Suddenly, the door seemed much too far away, And beyond it, the darkened hall seemed too dark and too long and filled with too many dark, open cells.
Now I am back in my own cell. The unlockable iron-bar door is not enough security, and I have lost the ability to shut out the main light. This is a creepy place, indeed.

Having given myself a case of nerves the first night, I decided it was best to wait until the last night to go on the "Crime and Punishment" tour that was offered at a fairly cheap rate. I did some exploring on my own, though. Down the central stairs, and through the back section of the building to the courtyard. I also examined an isolation cell that had been left as is by the hostel for display purposes.

The Yard:

The Yard was a sad place. It was longer than wide, surrounded by tall grey walls where it did not hug the building. The prisoners were given time out here daily, but make no mistake, it was as miserable an experience as any other part of the jail. They were chained together and walked in a circle for exercise. Above them, and above the main entrance in and out of the building for them, was the gallows. It was built right into the mason work of the entryway, making it permanent. When all the other gallows in Canada were dismantled after capital punishment was banned, the Ottawa Jaol gallows had to be left intact.

So, the unhappy prisoners were paraded under the exit they'd take if they didn't "wise up".

I think the sorrow of this sad space left an impression in the mind of an artist who's sculpture sits in the corner of t he outer wall and the courthouse side.

He looks so very alone out here. He's made of metal and cement. I think he's been around a few years. A few people on the tour were quite spooked by him.

Solitary Confinement:

I found this alone, first, and drew it. The dank cold of the stone, the rings in the floor and walls, gave me shivers of loneliness and despair. Later, on the tour, I learned that some of the mentally ill prisoners, or the young (who might only be in the jail because their family was too poor to care for them) were placed in here as a means of quieting them down. They started their day faced with living in a dungeon populated by real criminals and violent men, and if what was done to them made them cry, they finished up here, pinned to the wall by hands and feet (sometimes alone, sometimes with up to three others - who could be there for any reason, innocent or deadly), and sealed into utter blackness until they stopped screaming long enough for the guards to believe they were calm. There would be no pot in here for relieving oneself. The smell would be deadly in such a small airless cell.
Rather than some distant basement, the isolation cells were located in the passageway all new detainees had to go down upon entering the jail. They were walked past so they could hear the cries and the moans of the men inside. It was expected to scare them into complacency.
There were two doors on the cell, an outer door (removed now) and an inner, barred door. The barred door is self explanatory, the outer door's use was to keep light out of the room, and be a barrier between the cell and any traffic in the hallway. There is a gap for food to be passed through the door, but it would be useful only if the inhabitant were not chained.

The gallows:

This was the end of the line for Death Row inmates…well, officially there were only three hangings over the course of the jails 100 year history. The first was so controversial as to change the law in Canada, and force this institution to change the architecture a bit. The convicted man was a young Francophone who had been accused of assassinating one of the Members of Parliament (the only Canadian assassination). It was less likely a political crime, and more likely involved alcohol, but it stands in the record as an assassination. More to the point for our convict, the evidence against him was shaky, at best. He was more the political victim. He had tremendous support in Quebec, the opposite in Ontario, and a famous execution which brought both sides to the crest of a hill overlooking the jail upon which thousands watched his ugly end. There were riots, of course.

The government came to the conclusion that the real problem was the fact that his death was seen. They banned public executions in Canada, and made the newly built Ottawa Jaol add a set of shutters outside the gallows to prevent anyone seeing something disturbing. That would be anyone besides the prisoners who were in the yard below. In the picture above, the shutters are those grey wooden boards under the arch in the back.

Hmm. Only three hangings. There were lots of deaths in the jail. But only three hangings. This beam, which stretches across the back stairwell may have been placed there to haul furniture up to the upper floors, but since there wasn't anything more than narrow cots and small desks in the upper floors, and the stairs are so wide, and the gallows balcony is right there and so handy…
It's obvious the small rope burns on the top of this beam came from dangling something else off it besides furniture. Nobody's sure, now. But it really has no purpose otherwise. This stairwell did not have "suicide gates". There was no barrier to a good drop.

My Nights Alone on the Cellblock:

My Cell

View from my bunk…and a drawing I did. I had a lot of time, and was inspired.

This cell, now used as the changing room for the shower on the Women's floor has not been painted, and so is closest to the original dark vaulted cells. By the way, this cell block had larger cells (6 feet instead of 3) and housed 2 prisoners (or 4) apiece.

Death Row And the Range:

The Range There's only one left, but I believe there was a Range for every cell block except solitary. This was the area just outside the cells where inmates were not only permitted to mingle, they were forced to do so. Most of the day, prisoners were kept in their ten by three feet cells (literally just enough room for their cots), but for a couple of hours, they were locked out of their cells so that they could get some exercise. There were several problems associated with this: - The Jaol was sometimes used as a place to keep youths who had no other home these poor boys were shoved into the midst of some hardened criminals. There are accounts of unexplained deaths that aren't such mysteries when you think about it. - There was no heating in the Jaol, and apparently there was a problem with the windows. Inside your cell could stay relatively warm, but the range was often full of drifting snow. The inmates had no winter clothes or boots. It would have been a very harsh couple of hours.

Death Row I really did take pictures of Death Row. One is in the haunted section, others didn't turn out at all. And I had a little distraction while shooting. The story (and I'm sticking to it) is that I didn't want to go on the spooky tour until the last night, because I had to give presentations through the week of my stay which would fall flat if I spent my nights shaking in a lit jail cell hugging my knees and peering into the darkness. So it was only on my last night that I got up to the preserved Death Row level. While on the tour, I learned some interesting things, the most important of which was that I did not need to be with a tour group to gain access to the floor. I could come back alone and shoot without the crowds. This seemed like a good idea at the time. I was soon back upstairs waiting in the shadows for the last tour of the night to go through. I didn't want to disturb them, but I think my faint shuffling might have given some goose bumps. When they were clear, I got out my handy disposable camera and started shooting. I don't know what happened to most of those shots, but what I have now are two remaining. The one to the right here is of the number one death row cell. They numbered the cells from four to one with one housing the inmate who was next in line for death. It is furthest away from the noose, however, so that the prisoner could be walked past the others. When the hostel folk took over the jail, they left this cell as it was. A metal ante chamber had been built in front of this cell to make it less likely for friends to break the prisoner out before his execution. Because there's no power inside, it was seriously dark. I was not sure what I was shooting at, I just held up my camera and pressed the button.

Is the Ottawa City Jaol Haunted?

A lot of people believe that ghosts roam the halls and inhabit certain cells in the Jaol. There have been many sightings written up in the hostel's visitors book. I spent several nights alone on one cellblock. I can tell you that my normally unphased nature around things spooky was not holding up at all here. I had a constant feeling of being watched -even being talked to - by somebody I couldn't see. I did not take my 35mm with me because it was too heavy. I used purchased disposables, instead. There were several cameras used throughout my time here, and their shots are mixed together. So the blobs that show up on the film are not from the same camera, not the same film. They are not present in every shot. They could be perfectly explainable as particles in the air that reflected light from my flash. I try not to have a narrow-mindedness about this in either direction. But I will say that in the thousands of pictures that I've taken, these were the first to show up. Since them, I have had blobs in several locations with my good cameras, my digital, and disposables. This shot is of the women's cellblock. The spot in question is between the doors at floor level. You can click on the pictures to see them at their actual scanned size.
On The second cell block (the empty one). I shot another low blob.
More interesting, is the blob that looks like it's out in the corridor while I was shooting the interior of the cell door.
This is the one that got to me. I had been so spooked on the death row floor that I had to force myself to stay to get the shots (really uncharacteristic case of nerves). The worst of the tension was around the #1 cell. This shot, up death row was intended to capture the layout and the antechamber addition. The big glowing blob was not welcome.