The Enduring Ghosts of the Camsell: A Building's Journey Through a Nation's Conscience

By: Ryan Krawchuk

The Charles Camsell Hospital, originally a Jesuit college and then a military hospital, was Canada's largest "Indian hospital" from 1946-1973, where Indigenous patients, often forcibly removed from their homes, endured segregation, experimental treatments, and family separation.
After its closure in 1996, the abandoned site gained a reputation for being haunted, fueled by its traumatic past, and became a symbol for urban explorers before its current redevelopment into a residential complex.
The ongoing redevelopment and recent class-action lawsuit settlement highlight the struggle between urban renewal and acknowledging historical trauma, with a private developer funding a search for unmarked graves where the federal government refused, leaving unanswered questions about those who died there.

In Edmonton's Inglewood neighbourhood, the Charles Camsell Hospital, long known as one of Alberta's most haunted buildings due to its harrowing past, is being redeveloped into Inglewood Lofts.1,3 This transformation, including new windows and townhouses, offers a fresh residential opportunity.2 The Camsell is seen as a physical archive of Canada's history, reflecting religious education, war, a segregated healthcare system, and the tension between historical memory and urban renewal. Its story traces the nation's grappling with its conscience.

Part I: Foundations of Faith, War, and Medicine (1914–1945)

In Edmonton's Inglewood neighbourhood, the Charles Camsell Hospital, infamous for its haunted reputation rooted in a harrowing past, is currently being redeveloped into Inglewood Lofts.1, 3 This project, which includes new windows and townhouses, represents a significant residential opportunity.2 The Camsell building is considered a historical repository, embodying Canada's complex narrative concerning religious education, war, a segregated healthcare system, and the delicate balance between preserving historical memory and fostering urban renewal. Its ongoing story mirrors the nation's journey in confronting its own conscience.

The site's origins trace back to 1914 with the construction of the Francis Xavier Academy, a Jesuit boys' college that served Edmonton's Franco-Albertan community for nearly three decades.5, 6 Its tranquil purpose shifted dramatically with World War II; the vacant college was purchased by the Canadian military in 1942 and leased to the U.S. military as a holding centre for Alaska Highway personnel.5, 7 This period saw significant expansion, including redwood barracks and a hallway dubbed the 'Burma Road'.5 In 1944, upon the termination of the U.S. lease, the site became the Edmonton Military Hospital, marking its initial use as a medical facility.5 This progression from an educational institution to a military base and then to a hospital was driven by large-scale geopolitical forces, demonstrating how national and international events can profoundly reshape local landscapes and setting the stage for the building's subsequent, more notorious, chapter.

Table 1: A Century of Transformation: The Charles Camsell Hospital Site Timeline

Year(s)	Name/Function	Controlling Body/Operator	Key Events
1913–1942	Francis Xavier Academy (Jesuit College)	Jesuit Order	Founded to serve the Franco-Albertan community.5
1942–1944	U.S. Army Holding Centre	Canadian Military (leased to U.S. Military)	Housed personnel building the Alaska Highway.5
1944–1945	Edmonton Military Hospital	Canadian Military	Served as a military hospital after the U.S. lease ended.5
1946–1967	Charles Camsell Indian Hospital	Federal Gov't (Indian Health Services)	Operated as a segregated TB sanatorium for Indigenous peoples.5
1967–1980	The Charles Camsell Hospital	Federal Gov't (until 1973), then Provincial	New building opens (1967); transitions to a general hospital (1973).5
1980–1996	Charles Camsell Provincial General Hospital	Provincial Gov't (Metro-Edmonton Hospital District)	Served the general Edmonton population.5
1996	Official Closure	Provincial Gov't	Hospital operations cease.5
1996–c. 2016	Abandoned Site	Private Owners	Sat vacant, became a site of local lore and urban exploration.3
c. 2016–Present	Camsell Residential Redevelopment	Five Oaks Inc. / Dub Architects	Undergoes extensive remediation and redevelopment into a residential complex.1

Part II: The Charles Camsell Indian Hospital: A Nexus of Segregation and Suffering (1946–1973)

A System Born of Fear and Segregation

In 1945, the facility was transferred to the newly constituted Indian Health Services (IHS), a branch of the federal Department of National Health and Welfare.5 Its new purpose was to serve as a tuberculosis sanatorium for First Nations and Inuit patients. Officially opened in August 1946 and named after Dr. Charles Camsell, a prominent geologist and former Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources, it was the first and would become the largest of Canada’s 29 federally operated "Indian hospitals".5 By 1950, it housed 500 beds, dwarfing all other similar institutions.5

The creation of this segregated hospital system was not an act of benevolence. It was born from deep-seated colonial anxieties about Indigenous peoples and their perceived threat to the health of the non-Indigenous population.16 Public health officials propagated the idea of a separate and more virulent "Indian TB," a racialized concept that ignored the true causes of the epidemic: the devastating impacts of colonialism, including forced relocation, poverty, malnutrition, and overcrowded housing on reserves.10 The Indian hospitals were designed as a method of segregation and restriction, a system that ran parallel to and was intimately connected with the residential school system.9

The Journey to Camsell: Forced Removal and Family Separation

To populate the Camsell's wards, the government conducted 'X-ray Tours' across western provinces, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, often forcibly removing individuals, including young children with no visible illness, from their homes when tuberculosis was detected or suspected.3,10 Those taken experienced terrifying and bewildering journeys south by air or on ships like the C.G.S. C.D. Howe, receiving no explanation for their removal or potential return, a practice that tore families apart, causing perpetual uncertainty and grief.10,24 Patients typically stayed for two and a half years, though many were institutionalized longer, losing years of their lives to the state.24

Life and Death in the Wards: Testimony and Trauma

The Charles Camsell Indian Hospital was plagued by chronic underfunding, overcrowding, and severe understaffing, operating out of crumbling, infested military barracks.16,27 Despite alarms raised by the Indian Association of Alberta in 1949 regarding children and the elderly sharing wards with infectious TB patients, concerns were dismissed with the bureaucratic rationale that patients were better off in the hospital, echoing justifications for residential schools.27,19 Medical treatments were often brutal and experimental, with Indigenous patients enduring painful surgeries like pneumothorax (as suffered by Doreen Callihoo, who lost a lung after 11 years of treatment) and awake lung resections (recounted by Dave Melting Tallow), while non-Indigenous patients received less invasive therapies.16,26,27 Children were frequently immobilized in full-body casts, leading survivors such as Victor Alan Bruno to describe the hospital as a "torture chamber."3,28

Beyond physical pain, patients experienced profound psychological and emotional distress due to the loss of language, culture, and family connections; children were particularly vulnerable.14,31 To enforce confinement, the Indian Act was amended in 1953, criminalizing the refusal of hospitalization or early discharge and empowering the RCMP to arrest and return patients, effectively transforming the medical facility into a prison.21

The Lost and the Unaccounted For

Many patients admitted to the Charles Camsell Hospital never returned home after dying there, as the federal government refused to cover the costs of transporting their bodies back to remote communities, a financial burden most families couldn't afford.,14 Consequently, these individuals were buried in unmarked graves in nearby cemeteries, including those at the St. Albert Indian Residential School or on the Enoch Cree Nation's Winterburn cemetery.3

Families were frequently not informed of the death or burial location, creating a lasting legacy of unresolved grief and unanswered questions.3 Marilyn Buffalo, a Cree advocate, recounts her stepfather's traumatic experience as a student at the Edmonton Residential School, where he was forced to dig graves for Camsell patients, highlighting the deep and interconnected colonial suffering shared by both institutions.14

Part III: The Provincial Years: A Shift in Purpose (1973–1996)

By the mid-1960s, the antiquated Jesuit college and its barracks were deemed unfit for modern medical care, leading to the construction of a new Charles Camsell Hospital, which opened on October 10, 1967.5 This marked a fundamental shift in its purpose; with the tuberculosis epidemic waning due to new antibiotic treatments and more healthcare facilities opening in the North, the Camsell's original mission became obsolete.22,5 Consequently, in 1973, it transitioned into a general treatment hospital.5

On December 1, 1980, the federal government transferred the hospital and its 585 staff to provincial jurisdiction, becoming part of the Metro-Edmonton Hospital District No. 106.5 For the next decade and a half, as the Charles Camsell Provincial General Hospital, it served the general Edmonton population, including operating an emergency room.5 However, its public life was short-lived; it merged with the Royal Alexandra Hospital on January 1, 1993.5 The last emergency room patient was treated on March 9, 1994, and the hospital officially closed on March 31, 1996, partly due to extensive asbestos contamination from its mid-century construction.5,33 Its closure, like its creation, was driven by medical progress and bureaucratic reorganization.

Part IV: An Afterlife of Ghosts and Gentrification (1996–Present)

The Abandoned Years and the Rise of a Legend

For nearly twenty years after its closure, the Charles Camsell Hospital sat vacant and decaying in the heart of the Inglewood neighbourhood. It became a notorious local "eyesore," its windows boarded up and its grounds overgrown.11 This physical dereliction, combined with its dark and largely untold history, fueled its transformation into a site of local lore. It gained a reputation as one of Edmonton’s most haunted places, a magnet for urban explorers, paranormal investigators, and anyone drawn to its chilling mystique.3 The abandoned wards even served as a filming location for the 2004 movie White Coats.33 The stories of ghostly figures in the windows and disembodied screams were, for many, a supernatural interpretation of a very real and unresolved historical trauma.3

Reckoning with a Painful Past

During its abandonment, efforts began to uncover the Charles Camsell Hospital's history, notably through the "Ghosts of Camsell" blog and a documentary that collected and shared survivor stories, raising awareness of the Indian hospital system's forgotten past.9 This public awareness ran parallel to a legal battle, culminating in a $1.1 billion class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 against the federal government on behalf of 29 Indian hospitals' survivors, including representative plaintiff Ann Hardy, a Métis woman who was institutionalized at Camsell as a child.29 The lawsuit, settled in early 2025, addressed allegations of widespread abuse, medical experimentation, and forced confinement, with the settlement providing individual compensation, a $150 million healing fund, and over $235 million for commemoration, education, and locating unmarked burial sites.14

Rebirth and Remembrance: The Redevelopment

The Charles Camsell Hospital's redevelopment into a residential complex, led by Gene Dub and Five Oaks Inc., faced over a decade of delays, primarily due to millions of dollars in asbestos contamination that required six to seven years for removal.11 The ambitious plan for nearly 600 units, including condos, townhouses, and a seniors' residence, has been largely welcomed, though some neighbors worry about increased traffic and density.11 Crucially, the redevelopment directly addressed the hospital's dark past when developer Gene Dub funded a $200,000 search for unmarked graves using ground-penetrating radar and excavation, an act of corporate responsibility contrasting with the federal government's refusal to fund such investigations at former Indian hospital sites.37,38 While no human remains were found on the immediate hospital grounds, the news left Indigenous communities with bittersweet relief and a persistent question: "Now to find where the bodies did go to. Where did they go?"39,38

A Structure of Memory

The Charles Camsell site's evolution—from college to military base, segregated sanatorium, public hospital, haunted ruin, and now residential development—mirrors a century of Canadian history, raising questions about society's approach to memorializing, erasing, or commodifying landscapes of trauma. The private developer's decision to fund the search for graves highlights a troubling trend where responsibility for historical injustices falls to private entities rather than the state. The Camsell, more than just a building, is a structure of memory, compelling ongoing dialogue about Canada's colonial past, public health, reconciliation, and how history remains present in our cities; its true "ghosts" are the enduring memories and intergenerational trauma of survivors, and the unresolved questions haunting the nation's conscience.