The heart of Quebec City’s English community has a dark history: the Morrin Centre was once a prison – one of the oldest in the province.
Its summer prison tours are now more popular than ever.
“This is the cheapest hotel in Quebec City. If you have committed a crime, it’s free,” one of the tour guides joked, as he explained how some people voluntarily committed crimes to escape Quebec City’s cold winters.
As the visitors wander through the centre, they’re invited to step into the room that was once a part of death row.
“It was the first building in Quebec City to be built to be a jail,” the guide continues, before calling on a volunteer.
Meghan Urbanski, who’s visiting with her family from Connecticut, bravely steps forward.
She tiptoes into the cell, which was once an icy solitary confinement cell, and allows the door to be closed on her.
“It was scary and pitch black. I don’t know how they handled it,” the teenager said later.
“If I was a prisoner, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it.”
The prison, which was built between 1808 and 1812, has been open to the public for tours for several years, but the centre’s director says it’s getting more and more popular each summer.
“I guess we don’t get to go to prisons normally, so I guess it’s kind of cool to see something that once was a prison,” explained Barry McCullough, Morrin Centre’s Executive Director.
“It still looks very much like a prison, like a very scary prison.”
Three-quarters of the prisoners were English-speakers; the vast majority of them were Irish immigrants charged with petty crimes.
However, even small crimes could lead to death by public hanging.
Out of the 16 men who were hanged on the balcony over the jail’s front door, eight of them were charged with theft.
“It is kind of a nondescript building, you might say, on the outside. It looks like a nice building, but you come inside and you realize it was a prison, with so many people in here,” said Ken Urbanski from Connecticut.
“Over the years, I didn’t realize how may people came through here.”
The Morrin Centre also houses Quebec City’s largest English-language library.