Not far from the place where I lived by myself for the first time, there sits an abandoned hospital. The abandoned hospital theme is a popular one for scary stories and I suppose mine isn't much different.
The first time I walked by it, not knowing what it was, I got a bad feeling and had to look away, despite my initial curiosity about the big white and crumbling building just sitting in the middle of a residential area.
Sometime later that summer my sister told me about a movie that was filmed in Edmonton, some kind of comedy about nursing students. She said production "actually took place inside that creepy hospital near your apartment". I had tried to avoid walking past that so-called creepy hospital and was just hearing for the first time what it actually was. A creepy abandoned hospital. She went on to say that it was closed down because of asbestos, and in the back of my mind I wondered why a movie would be filmed inside of an asbestos filled building.
Time passed and I moved away from that place, and the Charles Camsell Hospital just became a scary thing I tried to avoid staring at when I (rarely) passed by it on a bus. Now to my main point.
Just recently, the various traumas inflicted upon aboriginal people in Canada, particularly the children, is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind, and my pondering led me to a list of supposed mass grave sites, for aboriginal children taken away to residential schools in this country. Sorry for the dark turn in topic, but anyways...guess what? The name of the Charles Camsell Hospital is on that list, apparently near the staff garden is the aforementioned horror. Of course, the claims of such a thing existing are not being formally investigated. I was more than a little upset after finding this out, and after looking into the history of the hospital and surrounding areas a bit more I decided to stop. I haven't been sleeping too well and my conscience is bothering me. The true stories of what went on in there may never be revealed, there is a lot of conjecture and denial intertwined with the few facts that keep turning up. What I do know for sure is that a lot of unspeakable things happened, and the way I now feel about it.
When bad things happen en masse, traces are left behind on the landscape. There is supposedly a redevelopment project being led in the place where the hospital is now, but can the past really be buried just like that? Even if it's a mystery, I don't think it's truly possible to do so. A little light in the dark places will keep it alive.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Hidden away in secret places
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