Ontario Abandoned Places Visiting and documenting forgotten places Visit us on your cell phone at cell.ontarioabandonedplaces.com

BURWASH

Here is one visitor's story...

Actually, the old jail is still standing as well as several garage areas to the left of the jail (as seen in picture on your website). I live in Sudbury and have been to the jail several times over the years.

The jail and garages are accessible through doors and windows that have been broken open. It was a low security jail which is why all the prisoner cells had windows and large wooden doors. I believe that there are three floors to the building, including the basement, which is flooded with a bit of water. There are isolation cells in one end of the building that have walls made of glass almost a foot thick. There is a gymnasium with stage on the second floor. There is a large diesel engine in one room in the basement that must have been used for back-up power during a power outage. There's also a few rooms in the basement that look like they were used as woodworking / manufacturing shops for inmates.

The jail itself is still fairly sturdy, but there are some things that are very dangerous, and are worth mentioning. All of the sinks, baths, toilets, glass have been smashed by people over the years making it dangerous to walk around inside. There is no light in certain areas of the basement, so if you don't have a flash light you won't be able to see where you're going. There are also several open manholes around the perimeter of the building that are hidden by overgrown grass, and are very easy to fall into if you're not careful.

The first time I went to the jail I was around sixteen years old. I was with a bunch of my friends, it was night time, and a full moon. We had a bunch of flash lights and were prepared to go into the jail at night. I have always enjoyed a good thrill, but on this particular night I got way more than I had bargained for.

We were standing in the field infront of the jail, the sillouette of the building was visible from the moonlight. It was looking really creepy, seeing such a enormous building totally empty, no light, in the middle of nowhere. Once we saw the building we had all pretty much decided that you would have to be crazy to want to go into that building at night with a full moon, even if we had falshlights. So we decided to investigate around the perimter of the building.

We were walking toward the right side of the building, me following my friend with the flashlight, when I fell into an open manhole, fell roughly 10 feet and landed on my butt in a small room which I later found out was the basement. It was pitch black, and I immediately began to panic, screaming and yelling for my friends to get me out, and to give me a flashlight so I could see where I was.

My friend threw his flashlight to me, I could see I was in a small room with pipes running along the walls and roof. There was also a grey styrofoam on the walls that was all scratched up.

My friends got a long stick and tried to pull me back up the manhole with no luck, the stick kept breaking. Some of my other friends were heading back to the truck to get a rope, but I decided that I would try to find my way up to the ground floor, and try to find a door or window that I could climb out of to get out of the building.

I walked out of the room and into a hallway. I continued down the hallway until I reached the part that was flooded with water. The water was about a foot deep, so I continued along carefully making sure I didn't fall into anymore holes, until I came to another room and peered inside. This is when things get kind of fuzzy because I was panicing really bad, I may have even been in shock for all I know.

I looked inside and noticed that it was a fairly large room, there were chains dangling from the ceiling, and there were wooden stools stacked on benches to the roof (it looked like some kind of crazy torture chamber). At this point my imagination went a little crazy, and I went completely nuts. I turned and ran up the flooded hallway, yelling, screaming, crying, and laughing all at the same time the whole way until I came to a flight of stairs which I went up. I remember seeing the cells with big wooden doors and toilets, and sinks smashed all over the place. I kept running up and down the hallways looking for a door or window to jump out of. I also remember coming out in the gymnasium, and I also recall seeing the huge diesel engine right before I found a door to the outside. It was bolted shut, but I kicked it open surprisingly easily (its amazing what you can do when your terrified) and started running to the truck still yelling, screaming, crying and laughing too. It was probably the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

I went back the next day to do some more investigating during the day, and retraced my steps. The crazy torture room, turned out to be a wood shop, and it wasn't nearly as scary above ground because light was entering the building through the many windows. It was still pretty creepy, but not as scary as the night before.

Kevin D.

Secondly here are 48 pictures taken by Jeff M.