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Inside Whitby Psych.
Year: Whitby Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1919, and closed in
1996.
Location: Whitby, Ontario.
Status: Abandoned, locked up pretty tight and with rumours of
security.
Accessibility: While most entrances to the buildings are blocked,
there are many points of access for the determined infiltrator, most in the
form of broken windows.
Hazards: Again, rumours of security abound and seem to have some
merit to them. There are always the usual mumblings about escapees from
the nearby active hospital living in the buildings, but these are
unconfirmed. The steam tunnels connecting the buildings do have a fair bit
of fryable asbestos kicking around, so either avoid them, move through them
quickly and cautiously or bring respirators.
Interesting features: Whitby Psych consists of many, many buildings,
each with its own unique features. More get demolished with each passing
year, and this is a damn shame. I'm told the powerhouse and the nurse's
residence are two of the most interesting places. There's some info about
the hospital's history at the end of this page.
Recommendation: A very cool, creepy, place with a wonderful
ghost-story atmosphere. I highly recommend it for exploration, just not
alone.
June 23rd, 2002
As it turned out, Asher, Static and I were all in the same place one fine Sunday morning, so we decided to go somewhere. Now, experience has taught us that every time we simply decide on a whim to pack up some supplies and hit the hills, out of boredom or some other channel for irrationality, disaster generally results. Actually, "taught" is probably too strong a word, since we opted to ignore the results of every other excursion that started this way, hastily throw what looked like relevant supplies into the back of Static's five-colour Monte Carlo and drive to Whitby Psychiatric. We'd heard that there were active security patrols there, it was still mid-day out and a crazy, copyright-infringing OPSEU worker named Maggie is pretty sure we go there to steal people's identities or thoughts or something but nonetheless, Whitby Psych sounded pretty good. We'd only been there once, months ago, and had been itching to explore the place further.
We were armed with a set of vague directions from one on-line map site or another, and had with us a wide variety of hats, flashlights and dust masks. We also brought what we shall refer to simply as our wonderful new digital camera, a nifty and surprisingly resilient little Olympus dealie that Asher and I had been saving up for and which I shouldn't be allowed to use because every single photo I take with it is crooked or badly-cropped. But I digress.
In all fairness, the only real snag we hit on the way to Whitby was when we failed to realize that an exit our map directed us to take was actually referring to the second exit with that name, and we wasted about half an hour in what turned out to be Pickering. We ended up at the Pickering nuclear power plant, snapped a photo and got directions to where we were actually going from several serious-looking fellows. We decided infiltrating the nuclear plant probably wouldn't be in anyone's best interests and off we went.
Finally, after about two hours of travel, we pulled into the parking lot of
the active Whitby Psychiatric Hospital, just across the road from the
abandoned grounds. On the way in, we'd seen construction vehicles all
around the perimeter (from crews involved in demolition and renovation) as
well as a pick-up parked by a pile of dirt that we assumed to be security or
groundskeeping.We weren't sure how seriously to take the rumours we'd heard of security patrolling the grounds, or of people being constantly busted here, so we decided to head in as discreetly as possible. This meant no dust masks, no toques, no giant mag-light -- in fact, almost nothing we'd been so proud of ourselves for remembering to bring. Instead, we tossed two small LED flashlights into our camera case and equipped only with that we made a beeline for the abandoned grounds and, once onto them, tried to look for a way to get indoors, underground or otherwise out of sight as quickly as possible.
Whitby Psych is a beautiful place in the day -- the grounds are well-kept and the old buildings have a certain undeniable charm. If we were apprehended on the grounds, we supposed we could just say we were photographing the area and that we hadn't seen the "No Trespassing" warnings on the perimeter (which indeed we hadn't, which is no great feat since the abandoned Psych has numerous inroads that are completely unmarked). We didn't have to tour for long before we came across a building that we had actually entered on a previous excursion with Nanoman, this time with its front doors hanging wide open. Obviously someone had either just entered the building or just left it, likely someone with more authorization to do so than we had. Nonetheless the opportunity to get inside was too good to pass up so we quietly dashed up onto the porch of the building and ducked inside.
We toured its hallways on the lower floor briefly, moving quietly and
whispering to each other. We couldn't hear anyone else in the building but
weren't prepared to push it just yet. If we remembered properly, this was
the female infirmary, the second building we saw with Nanoman and one we
accessed through the tunnels. This meant that we could get out of this
building, and go somewhere interesting, without stepping back onto the
grounds. Good. That was the plan. And anyway, I'm a sucker for
tunnels.We explored the building a bit more, not having had a chance to see it in the daylight before. We looked into all its rooms, hallways, nooks and crannies, and admired the beautiful solariums. The sunlight pouring into these places makes them look almost habitable, almost friendly. Almost.
We were a bit nervous about being here without any kind of self-defense, not even a heavy flashlight. No discussion of the place ever wraps up without one inevitable turn to wild conjecture about escapees from the current hospital residing there or the possibility of hauntings by the tortured spirits of all the people who died here. It's part of what makes the place so creepy, such a living ghost story. And it is, frankly, all well and good, but when your flashlight-per-capita count is approximately two thirds and you're squeezing through a tiny, dark tunnel ten feet below the earth with abstract graffiti all over the place screaming threats and insanities at you, it's comforting to have a heavy object to hold onto. We didn't have one but, of course, said tunnels were exactly where we were headed next. The smell of cigarette smoke had just come up in this building and lingering was likely a bad plan.
Static and Asher each armed with a small flashlight and me with the camera-strap around my neck, we passed the asbestos contamination warning on the door to the tunnel entrance and contemplated how hard it would've been, really, to have just stuffed some dust masks into the camera case. Oh well. Into the tunnels we went, and crouching and squeezing we made our way through the narrow gaps between the wall and the crumbling pipes, trying to collectively kick up as small a volume of lethal fibres as possible. We stopped at certain locations along the way to snap photos of the tunnels themselves or rooms off of them. Back in the day, of course, when a patient finally crossed over to Status: Deceased, they would be dragged to the morgue through these tunnels so as not to upset the other patients. These tunnels have a history which is, to say the least, disquieting. Occasionally one would see red hazmat stripes spraypainted along the bulkier pipes, an unambiguous sign that therein lay the Seriously Bad Shit. At one point we passed an old elevator shaft near which someone had drawn a small red button labeled "Press For Peace Of Mind".
We explored the tunnel all the way in one direction and came to a wooden barrier that had apparently been put up recently. I don't know what it was meant to block access to but it was an irritating thing to find. We turned around and went, instead, towards another building we had seen before and knew this one to connect to -- a squat building which appeared to have served as a kitchen and probably a cafeteria.
We made our way through the tunnel for some distance, and it eventually opened into a wide underground room, criss-crossed with pipes and supports, with a door at the far end. As we headed for the door, chatting at a normal volume, Asher suddenly froze and hissed at us to keep quiet. We complied, and she whispered to us, "there is someone over there."
I was at first inclined to think that she was imagining something. I took my light from Static and shone it briefly around me. I didn't think she meant she'd seen someone living in this room, since our normal behaviour when that happens is to ignore the person in question and leave their area as quickly as possible. Just as I was thinking of asking her where, exactly, this "someone" was, and how she knew, another flashlight beam lit up the room.
It was only for a second, a beam cutting in as it was shone across the doorway at the end of the room. I nearly swallowed my tongue. Hearts pounding, we switched our lights off simultaneously and stood dead still, totally silent. We could hear quiet voices ahead of us and the light came in through the doorway a few more times as they came closer, once sweeping up and across the place as if searching for something.
We all had the same thought -- security heard us down here, they sent someone down, we are busted. The only straightforward exit was toward them, the way we came was blocked by a metal grating that we probably couldn't get through in the dark, and all we could do was wait for them to come in and get us.
I felt around in the darkness and realized the wall next to me had a hole in it, allowing access to a crawlspace, about five feet off the ground. This seemed like the only possible hiding place, so I began to hoist myself up into it. My feet weren't even off the ground before Static, who had apparently been contemplating a quite different course of action, shouted out "hello?"
The voices in the next room stopped, then shouted back. "Who's that?" Static yelled, and the response came: "Who's that?"
A pause. "Photographers," Static said.
"So are we!"
We all heaved a sigh of relief, a bit disgusted with ourselves, switched on
our lights and came out into the
open, where we met the two guys who'd shaken us up so badly. As it turned
out, we'd scared them just as badly and they were as relieved as we were
that they hadn't encountered security or psychopaths. It turned out that
they were, in fact, professional photographers who had decided to check the
Psych out on a whim the day before, and ended up spending six hours there.
They'd come back today, after reading on Nanoman's web page about the
Psych's extensive tunnel network, and had already been here for two hours
that day. They told us where they'd come in and where they'd been, as well
as ways they'd found to access some of the more interesting buildings. We
gave them whatever advice we could, and told them how to get to the
infirmary we'd just come from.They were just going up to explore the kitchen we were now under so we went with them, discussing our various motivations and discoveries on the way. We'd seen this building before, so we snapped a few new photos, and they were disappointed to discover there wasn't much by way of a second floor so we headed back down to the tunnels where they decided to go look at the infirmary. We gave them directions and they told us how to get to where they'd come from, including the location of a four-way tunnel intersection. We went our separate ways then, and the three of us proceeded down the tunnel to the intersection.
We took a right and explored a cottage this led us to, which was adorned with strange graffiti and had obviously been a popular meeting place for kids in the area at one point. On the way back we ran into the two other tunnelers again, who told us an amusing story about how the building we had directed them to was occupied by the groundskeeper when they arrived, nearly leading to them being quite sternly lectured and promptly ejected but instead, as it turned out, leading to the groundskeeper fleeing the premises. The two of them had gone to one end of the building, near one of its two tunnel accesses, where they made enough noise to get the groundskeeper's attention and then ran through the tunnels to the other end of the building just as he arrived to apprehend them. There they banged around some more, re-entered the tunnels and repeated the game as he ran over to catch them there. This apparently went on three or four times before the groundskeeper had had enough and left the building, infuriated.
With the two photographers we explored all four cottages, connected in a straight line going out from two sides of the tunnel intersection, and got to see many nifty things. In one cottage people had stacked desks and dressers to allow access to the attic, which was a uniquely hot and miserable place to be.
The last direction down the tunnel intersection was a concreted-off dead end, another artificial barrier erected at some point in the past. We had been hoping to find the morgue, for the sake of simple morbidity factor, but instead decided to go topside and see some of the other buildings. By this point we had spent almost four hours here, which we were all surprised to find out.
Our two new acquaintances opted to show us a small warehouse they'd discovered which was apparently filled with beer labels, then pointed out an open access to the gargantuan powerhouse. Static and the fellow with an exceptionally expensive camera slipped in through a hole in a front window and went to unlock a second-story door one could just barely climb into from the ground, around back. I was eager to explore the powerhouse, its wonders having been heartily endorsed by Nanoman on our last trip here, where we never actually got to see inside it.
So as not to mince words, I am by all definitions a sucker for technology.
I'm
intrigued by machinery. I am, in particular, intrigued by old, antique, or
abandoned machinery. I am intrigued further by machinery which is not only
abandoned but also very, very big. And my god, did this place ever
deliver.I never expected such an monument of industrial infiltration in an abandoned hospital, but there it was. The small complex of machine rooms, offices and generators we first came across are simply teasers, if you will, culminating in a room the size of a large gymnasium, with a catwalk around its perimeter, completely filled with hulking metallic monoliths. I was blown away. Suffice to say, oh yes, it was nifty.
We ended up running around the catwalks a little and explored the powerhouse further for a short while, and eventually, our camera's memory card filled to capacity and all of us having had a fairly decent workout by this point (the three of us had been here for five hours, the two photographers for seven), we decided to make our exit. On the way to our respective vehicles the photographers informed us of how they had managed to access the main, six-story hospital building. We decided that we'll have to come back some day soon and check it out ourselves, along with the nurse's residence, and we must try to hunt down that morgue. Odds are we'll make it a larger excursion for that occasion, seeing as the place offers up so much that simply must not be missed.
As it turned out, the photographers were the owners of the pick-up by the dirt pile we had wondered about on our way in. We got our stuff put away and headed home, where my desktop computer's hard drive crashed and Asher and I both got a particularly virulent flu for three days. Bad psych mojo, I suppose.
We'll hopefully be returning soon and taking even more photographs, but until then be sure not to miss the updated photo gallery.
What a place. And to think -- we didn't steal a single identity! :D
December 16th, 2001
Early this morning, 1:00AM or so, a large group of UEC and fans made our way to the abandoned Whitby Psychiatric Hospital. Mordac, Krall, Cyan0sis, Dain Bramaged, Flame0ut, StaticX, my sister and I finally found our way to the city of Whitby, after much delay, and then to the local establishment where we were to meet our guide. After waiting around for a few moments we saw a figure walking towards us, which turned out to be our host. He introduced himself as Nanoman, whom I had e-mailed only hours before we left. He seemed to know everything about the abandoned psychiatric hospital and its history, so after we chatted for a short time we were off.
Now, the new psychiatric hospital is located right next to the old abandoned one and this being the case we felt that we should be discrete about our presence. As such, we parked in the new Whitby Psych's parking lot and walked around the grounds until we came to a section that led into the abandoned area -- sans a "No Trespassing" sign. Once we made our way in we tried to keep in the shadows, apparently there is security around the grounds every so often. Nanoman said that most of the buildings had been sealed up tighter than they were in the summer -- this led to us not entering most of the buildings. However, we found one building that had its doors open, so we went on inside. It was a cottage, where we explored the kitchen and the various hallways, rooms and closets it had to offer. One didn't have to be in the place long to realize what a unique atmosphere it had -- that is, a very creepy one. The place really is the sort of thing that campfire ghost stories are made of, between its sordid history and the signs of recent life that are to be found everywhere. Everything from abandoned cutlery to kitchen trays was scattered around and it all gave the impression of a busy place that was simply forgotten all of a sudden.
Once we were finished looking around the building (even the basement) we made our way to the steam tunnel entrance. You see... underneath the grounds in the old Whitby Psych there is a network of steam tunnels. These were a very cool thing to see. There was just enough clearance for us to proceed, hunkered over, in a long row through the tunnels. All around us were pipes, valves, and oh-so-much asbestos. We stooped over and hustled down the tunnel and found ourselves in another building -- the female infirmary. On the door to the steam tunnels we found a sign warning workers to wear appropriate gear for dealing with asbestos.
After we were finished looking through the building we went outside and tried some other buildings -- which were locked. The grounds were pretty massive, with walkways winding between dozens of old buildings. Finally we found one we could get into when we heard voices, so under Nanoman's recommendation we took off.
And that was the tale of our brief journey to the Old Whitby Pysch. Hopefully, we will be returning soon to see more of the place. It stands out among the sites we've been to as being, quite simply, one of the most creepy and involving -- the place is truly intimidating.
After some searching I found some history on the place.
The provincial government bought the property that the hospital was built on in 1912. Work on the design had begun about a year before this purchase, in 1911, by James Govan, an architect. The design that Govan proposed was of German influence, designed to help the patients heal in a comfortable enviroment -- as opposed to the rank, dark, cold 'hospitals' in the general area prior to Whitby Pysch.
Ground was broken on May 6th, 1913. The prisoners from Central Prison were summoned for the physical labour -- their wages were about $0.55 to $1.00 per an hour. A railroad, lumber mill, and farm were all established on the grounds to aid in construction of the site. In about 1916 the buildings were begining to house staff and patients -- most of which were sent from Toronto Hospitals. In 1917 soldiers began to return from overseas and were in need of long-term health care which the general hospitals could not provide, as such cottages were leased at Whitby Pysch and temporarily renamed "The Ontario Military Hospital" -- by 1919 all the soldiers were moved or had returned to their respective homes. In late 1919 Whitby Phychatric Hostipal was reopened, or rather renamed from "The Ontario Military Hospital". The hospital was in use until 1996 when the new Whitby Psych. was opened.
For more information see The history of Whitby Psychiatric Hospital page.
Of course, don't miss the all-too-short Whitby Psych Photo Gallery.
If you have anymore information about the hospital or any interesting stories, please feel free to e-mail us at [email protected].
-Asher Archive
.