Doors Open Ottawa: Visiting the Old Ottawa Jail

The second building we visited a few weeks ago during Doors Open Ottawa was the Old Ottawa Jail, now a downtown youth hostel.

We entered through a side door, walking upstairs to the eighth floor,

This top floor has been left unchanged, a kind of "museum" to show what the jail originally looked like back in the days when it was used.

The Carleton County Goal, as it was called, had been the main jail for over 100 years, from 1862 to 1972.

The cells were shockingly small.

I had little interest in reading the gruesome details of how many people were locked in one cell, who the hangman was, or in taking pictures of the scaffold where people had been hung.

Perhaps another time.

I just wanted to get out...