deadmonton - the inglewood neighbourhood

Request for funds - February 29, 1928

The story of the Charles Camsell Hospital began when Bishop Legal of St. Albert requested that a Jesuit college for boys be built within Edmonton. Completed in 1913, the building ran lengthwise along 128th Street, facing west.

Known as the Edmonton Jesuit College, the facility closed in 1942 and was turned over for use by the U.S. Army as part of their war effort to build an all-weather highway to Alaska.

During that time, the former college was known as the Northwest Service Command Headquarters and a number of detached outbuildings were added – connected to the main building through a system of underground corridors.

When the highway was completed in 1944, the building was returned to the Canadian Government and for a short while the site became the Edmonton Military Hospital.

After renovations were completed in 1945, the Department of Veterans Affairs used it, operating as the Jesuit College Hospital.

In 1946, the one-time college was used by the Indian Health Service (some reports indicate it was the Department of National Health and Welfare) as a tuberculosis hospital. During this time, the building became known as the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital – run in conjunction with the United Church.

The hospital was named after a geologist who was the federal Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources from 1920 to 1946. Camsell also founded the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 1929, and was its president from 1930-1941.

The next five decades of the hospital's history is shrouded in a mixture of fact and urban legend.

The Camsell operated as an occupational therapy program for aboriginal patients under the watch of Canada's Indian Affairs Department. It earned a reputation as an "experimental hospital."

It has since been alleged that the aboriginal patients was treated poorly, abused, and in some cases, murdered. It has also been alleged that south of the building, near what used to be the staff garden, a mass grave of aboriginal children exists.

When officials were questioned about this, they denied the grave's existence and stated that most of the people who died in this hospital were buried near a residential school in St. Albert.

It was also suggested that some of the patients in the hospital's sanatorium were put there against their will, and that other patients, thought to have certain "defects," were sterilised without patient approval – a practice known as eugenics.

The latter claim was not outside the realm of possibility – read more »

In 1928, the Province of Alberta passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilisations on individuals classified as mentally deficient.

A four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created that, over 43 years, approved 4,725 individual sterilisations. 2,832 procedures were actually performed in approved hospitals designated by the Board.

In 1972, the Sexual Sterilisation Act was repealed and the Eugenics Board was dismantled.

Alberta was the first part of the British Empire to adopt a sterilisation act and was the only one to vigorously implement it.

Canada's western provinces were highly influenced by American trends in the day. During early debates regarding the suggested Alberta sexual sterilization bill, many references were made to then-existing U.S. legislation.

With Canada rapidly becoming populated by immigrants, sponsors – including Louise McKinney and Nellie McClung – supported the bill with intentions to better the nation's gene pool.

The argument for eugenics sprang from claims made by Dr. Clarence Hincks who established the Canadian National Committee on Mental Hygiene in 1918. Hincks stated the aim of eugenics was to fight "crime, prostitution, and unemployment," claiming such social ills were strongly tied to feeblemindedness – suggesting there was a link between mental abnormality and immorality.

Furthermore, it was widely believed at the time that persons with these disorders had a higher reproduction rate than the normal population.

By 1937, 400 operations had been completed. In 1937 and 1942, amendments were made to the Act removing the requirement of patient consent if the Board deemed an individual "incapable of intelligent parenthood."

Another 1942 amendment further widened the Board's power to include non-psychotic individuals with syphilis, epilepsy, and Huntington's Chorea.

Aboriginals were seen as foremost targets of the Eugenics Board's attention. Although they were only responsible for 2 to 3% of the population, they represented 6% of all cases put before the Board. In the last few years that the Act was in place, Indians and Métis were subject to 27% of all sterilisations despite representing only 2.5% of Alberta's population.

All told, the Act was disproportionately applied to those in socially vulnerable positions, including: females, children, unemployed persons, domestics, rural citizens, unmarried, Roman and Greek Catholics, and persons of Ukrainian descent.

In 1995, Leilani Muir, a victim of involuntary sterilisation in 1959, sued the Alberta government.

At the age of 10, Muir, an unwanted and abused child, was admitted to the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer. She was confined to the facility until 1965, when she left against medical direction.

Years later, Muir struggled with infertility, failed marriages and depression. Muir later learned that she had been sterilised during an appendectomy while detained at the Provincial Training School. Subsequent IQ testing revealed that Muir did not suffer from mental deficiency.

At trial, Court of Queen’s Bench Madame Justice J.B. Veit ruled in favour of Muir and awarded her $740,780 and an additional sum of $230,000 for legal costs.

Over 700 other victims of the Alberta Eugenics Board contested the Alberta government for similar reasons. The majority of those cases were settled out of court.

A full investigation into the practice of eugenics at the Charles Camsell hospital has yet to be launched.

By the mid-1960s, a new building was deemed necessary. In 1967, the hospital moved into a new facility and the old college was destroyed. By the 1970s, there was no longer a need for a tuberculosis hospital and the Camsell became a general treatment hospital.

In addition to rumours of mass graves, the hospital's notoriety was raised by the death of man who fell while working on the building's roof in 1982.

In 1984, 60s crooner Roy Orbison checked into the hospital suffering bronchitis. He stayed for more than a month.

In April 1989, the Charles Camsell Hospital Historical Society was established with a mandate to safeguard items of historical interest pertaining to the hospital, such as documents, pictures, and carvings, to promote the understanding of the hospital's medical and social history.

Of note was the unique relationship that had existed between the hospital and native populations. In 1990, the Camsell donated a collection of over 400 arts and crafts items made by patients to the Royal Alberta Museum.

Also in 1989, the TV movie Small Sacrifices was filmed in the hospital with Edmonton standing in for Springfield, Oregon. Crowds gathered to catch glimpses of Hollywood's hot couple of the day – Ryan O'Neal and the late Farrah Fawcett.

The film was based on the true story of Diane Downs who was convicted of the first-degree murder and the attempted first-degree murder of her three children. The movie also starred Gordon Clapp who went on to play Det. Greg Medavoy on the long-running TV series NYPD Blue.

In 1992, staff was merged with the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Camsell was officially shut down in 1993.

With the Camsell site in limbo, a group of residential school survivors began an effort to have the remains of the children, who they claim died in the facility and were subsequently buried on its grounds, be repatriated to their traditional homes and territories for proper interment.

The burial claims and the hospital's deteriorating condition helped fuel already-told stories of hauntings, both online ....

.... and in print (such as Jeff Belanger's 2005 Encyclopedia of Haunted Places).

In 2004, the movie White Coats (also known as Intern Academy) was filmed in the now-vacant hospital.

The less-than-successful comedy was written and directed by SCTV alumni Dave Thomas, and starred Thomas along with Peter Oldring and Pat Kelly (now of CBC Radio's This and That), Dave Foley, Dan Aykroyd, Maury Chaykin, Matt Frewer, Saul Rubinek, and future school trustee and Alberta politician Sue Huff – see images »

In 1996, the Camsell had been shuttered and condemned due in part to asbestos contamination. Various plans to retrofit the facility repeatedly fell through and the building was eventually sold to Edmonton architect and developer Gene Dub for $3.6 million in 2004.

In November 2006 a fire broke out in the building, caused by a demolition crew.

Firefighters had to fight the fire from the outside of the building as it had been booby-trapped.

Barbed wire had been wrapped around the railings of staircases. Additionally, hidden obstacles had been installed throughout the abandoned structure – all in an attempt to keep a homeless population out of the building.

Dub's plans to develop the site as a seniors residence (with ground-level retail space) have been hampered by zoning restraints, the concerns of Inglewood residents, ongoing demolition difficulties, and nervous investors.

The building and grounds now exists as a neighbourhood eyesore, surrounded by a tall chain link fence and actively patrolled by a private security service. Trespassers are threatened with hefty fines and swift police response.

Local residents have said that further demolition of the structure appears to be moving at a leisurely pace, with one or two workers coming in three or four days a month.

Rumours that the Charles Camsell site is haunted – at least in legacy – persist.