The Prisons are Empty. The History Remains.

In the uninhabited wilderness of Kilarney Ontario, Burwash Correctional Facility stands unguarded and empty. It’s history slowly seeps into the land it stands on and this is where I come into the story. As a bored undergraduate student looking to explore, I just wanted to be able to say that I had been there. But as I squeezed my 5’2” frame into a musty cell the size of a broom cupboard, I couldn’t help but wonder what anyone could have done to deserve this; and I knew I had to find the answer. I am now studying wrongful convictions in Candian prisons from the 1950’s and presenting my research in the form of a full length stage play. When people ask me about my thesis, I show them this picture that I later went back to collect from Burwash. The picture shows a crumbling stage in the abandoned prison. This was the only room in the whole prsion that felt as though it had ever seen happiness, the only room that still felt alive. This picture holds a piece of the history that I carry with me now while doing my research and it is time that it is shared.