My heart pounds so hard I feel like it's going to jump out of my chest and land at my feet. I tell myself that there's nothing to be afraid of, that it's all just the power of suggestion. I steel my nerves and reach for the heavy door that separates level eight from the rest of the building. I hold my breath. I pull it open...Level eight of 75 Nicholas Street in downtown Ottawa is what once served as death row to inmates of what was then the Old Carleton County Jail.
The jail, opened in 1862, was closed in 1972 due to "poor and unsanitary conditions," according to Stephanie Lechniak from Haunted Hamilton, an Ontario society specializing in supernatural and occult history.
A year later, the building re-opened, this time as both a Hostelling International youth hostel and one of the most haunted places in North America.
Megan McDonald has been director of the hostel for the past three and a half years, during which time she has seen people actually check out due to the building's unique reputation.
"A lot of people come to stay here because it used to be a jail, or because it's rumoured to be haunted," she says. "It's a novelty to stay in a jail cell, especially at first." McDonald has discovered, however, that a haunted jail isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea.
"Some people have checked in and said, 'you know, I thought I could do this, but I can't. Especially in the winter when you're one of two people staying here, it can feel pretty empty," she explains.
While McDonald claims that she doesn't really believe in ghosts, she has also experienced some strange things during her time at the hostel. And although level eight is now used for storage as opposed to accommodations, she says that employees usually go up there in twos.
"I don't hang out on death row by myself," she stresses. "It's just level eight that gets me."
The hallway is long, with darkened windows to my left and empty cells to my right. The floor creaks as I pass by. I peer inside the tiny cells, but don't step too close. I'm chewing my pen into mush and wishing I had asked someone to come up here with me. Cells two and three swing open when I touch their doors. I jump back. Cell one stays shut. That's fine with me...
Travis Croken is one person who freely admits to a belief in the unbelievable. Currently working as a tour guide with the Haunted Walk of Ottawa, Croken gives supernaturally-infused tours of the city, including one of the jail entitled "Ghosts and the Gallows".
"Part of it is a respect thing," explains Croken as we walk from death row to the gallows. "You just have to think about the people that lived here, the fact that there were women and children living in these conditions."
In the 19th century, when the jail was first opened, children would be imprisoned alongside their parents if no alternative, such as a family member's home, could be found.
This meant that children were subjected to the same conditions as adults, including confinement to a three by six foot cell for over 23 hours of the day, the use of a chamber pot emptied only once a day, and glassless windows that were open to the elements.
"There are accounts of prison guards shovelling out snowdrifts from cells," says Croken. "So if it was -50 C outside, it was -50 C inside your cell."
Guards, however, did more than just shovel snow. Besides the three public hangings that took place at the jail, rope-burned beams and broken floorboards attest to what Croken terms "unofficial executions".
Prisoners would have a rope crudely tied around their neck before being flung over a beam in the stairwell by the gallows. After dangling for an unspecified period of time, they would be cut loose and left to fall eight levels to the floor below.
Renovations and excavations in the 1970s revealed the remains of between 10 and 12 people under this part of the jail.
Solitary confinement, a windowless cell in the jail's basement, found prisoners stripped naked and spread-eagle and released for only 15 minutes once a day to eat their single allotted meal and use their chamber pot.
"You can still see the shackles on the floor," McDonald points out as we stand in what has been termed "The Hole" by historians and hostel employees alike. In the dim basement light, it seems aptly named.
"And of course, then there would have been no electricity, so this would have been in total darkness," she reminds me.
I walk from death row out to the gallows as the heavy door swings shut behind me. Looking from the platform to an overhead beam, marked by rope-burns from "unofficial executions", I feel a lump form in my throat
Far from being afraid, I'm on the verge of tears when I think about how many people died here, and how death must have come as a welcome to some...
The jail's most famous, or infamous, inmate was James Patrick Whelan, an Irish immigrant and alleged Fenian, or Irish rebel, sympathizer. Whelan was accused, tried , and convicted of the murder of the politician Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in light of evidence which is now viewed as highly circumstantial. Many felt he was being used as a scapegoat due to the high level of anti-Fenian sentiment in Ottawa during that time.
On February 11, 1869, after spending ten months in cell number four of death row, he was executed in Canada's last public hanging in front of a crowd of approximately 5000.
But, according to some, his stay didn't end there.
"I was brave enough, or crazy enough, to spend a night in cell four of death row," remembers Croken as we stand down the hall from the cell where Whelan spent his final night. "I woke up twice during the night, once to see a man standing and looking down at me. It didn't really click in at the time, and so I just turned over and went back to sleep.
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