Death Row Jail Cell During the Ottawa Jail Tour in Ontario, Canada.
While I was searching on-line for unique things to do in Ottawa, Canada before my trip there last week, I came upon a neat tour company called The Haunted Walk of Ottawa. Unfortunately, the outdoor walking tours weren’t available in January and I was disappointed that I would get no spooking during my trip.
With a little more digging, though, I realized that some of their tours do run year round. The Crime and Punishment Jail Tour immediately piqued my interest, a one-hour walk through the Old Carleton Jail (it has been the HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel since 1973).
For $13, David took 4 of us into the “other side” of the HI- Ottawa Jail Hostel, which is preserved for just such ramblings. The Old Carleton County Jail was built in 1862 and acted as a jail until 1972. The original visitor’s area is still intact with a tiny little barred window on a door being the extent of the visiting “room.”
Lori Henry in a Cell on the Ottawa Jail Tour at the HI Ottawa Jail Hostel in Ontario, Canada.
Later, a larger window was made, but it’s still a far cry from the rooms that are common today. From there we got to creep into old cells, which are completely bare. The windows across the hall from the doors used to be open (they’re now glass), so cold Ontario winters would just blow on in.
To Death Row we went, searching through the miniscule cells, no larger than the tiny single bed that sits there lonely. What, no flat screen TVs??
The climax of the jail tour is the working gallows, the noose hanging hauntingly in anticipation of its next victim. David opened the door and we all just marvelled at the trap door below that would open to let the guilty party hang to his or her death. Really spooky.
Then it was out to the old exercise courtyard. This is where David told us that a man was (allegedly) wrongly executed and now haunts the old jail. It has happened numerous times while on this tour that people’s noses will begin to bleed at this point in the story…
Copyright 2010 Lori Henry
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