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In: Between Darkness & Light
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Once the Royal Connaught Hotel was among the jewels of the Hamilton Urban Exploration scene, this stunning early 20th Century Hotel had a glamourous past. It ended its life as a slum hotel with only a shade of its former glory. A good urban exploration event often includes a trip to the Royal Connaught. The rooftop offered stunning views of the city’s skyline, especially the industrial zones by the lake. However, when it comes to locations, the hotel was dull from a photographic standpoint. Still, it offered up a rich history that traced back to the city’s glory days to the slump and is nowRead More →

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When it comes to camera systems, I have only switched systems once. There was a brief attempt to go with Sony E-Mount, but it never got very far. That one switch has always been from Minolta SR-Mount to Nikon F-Mount. Now I have since added systems like the Minolta A-Mount and Canon EF-Mount, but these have always been secondary. As I mentioned in a previous entry, the Nikon F80 is the camera that got me into the autofocus world of the Nikon F-Mount and eventually into the manual focus world of the F-Mount as well. Last month, I wrote about my entry into the digitalRead More →

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If there was a symbol of Hamilton’s rise, fall, and rebirth, that symbol downtown would be the Lister Block. It also was one of the jewels of the Hamilton Urban Exploration scene and could make for a fun night of exploration, which, depending on access, would see an easy group including the Lyric Theatre, Tivoli, Royal Connaught and then Lister Block. After getting out, I grabbed slices from National Pizza. But those days are long gone, Lister and Connaught being restored, Lyric long gone, and Tivoli is sealed demolished. Among all the places I explored, Lister Block is one that I was around when itRead More →

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If there is one thing that I didn’t get enough of when exploring it was old industry, massive sprawling complexes that were built up slowly over their life span. And Flintkote was one that I only visited twice, but it certainly matched what I wanted in an old location. Buildings that were slowly being absorbed back into nature. You had to know what to look for when trying to check the spot out as it was mostly hidden by trees with only a rusted water tower and brick smoke stack sticking up behind a rusted fence. For almost every site I’ve featured in this series,Read More →

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In: 1812:Revisited
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Napoleon had been exiled, to begin with, and the first British reinforcements were starting to arrive on the other side of the Atlantic, bringing with them not only highly trained and effective troops but a steady corps of officers hand-selected by Lord Wellington to take charge and get a great deal of hurt to the Americans. One such officer, Major-General Robert Ross, was dispatched to the Imperial Fortress on Bermuda to coordinate a series of attacks along the eastern seaboard of the United States with Vice-Admiral George Cochrane to distract and pull American resources away from Upper and Lower Canada to respond to the threat.Read More →

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I often mix up Tower Automotive with National Rubber, two former industrial locations in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto. Today, the Junction is home to galleries, craft breweries, condo lofts, and other gentrified options, and it once was Toronto’s hotbed for industry. Founded along a significant trade path for indigenous peoples and growing into a railway junction starting in 1884, what we know as the Junction was a town in its own right until amalgamation into the City of Toronto in 1909. The Tower building became part of the skyline. While it stands out as a beautiful example of early 20th-century architecture, it is farRead More →

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I love a good industrial location, but the former Metal Tech Foundry in Woodstock along the Canadian Pacific tracks was filthy. I always came out wishing I had brought coveralls. But that would have drawn too much attention to the surprisingly residential neighborhood and the semi-active train station near by. This massive location was mostly empty but offered something big and exciting in the city that didn’t involve a former police station or piles of tyres. Formed as the Eureka Planter Company in 1905, the founders took advantage of the offer of a free plot of land from the Canadian Pacific Railway near their stationRead More →

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The Bernarr MacFadden Physical Culture Hotel has gone by many names over its long history and the building that still stands in Dansville today is not even the original. Better known to the local exploration community as the Castle on the Hill, this certainly was an interesting spot to explore from the beautiful views to the strange books found scattered throughout the property. As a Canadian I still managed to get here three times, once in fancy dress, and always enjoyed the quiet easy nature of the trip despite being a local sore spot. Despite the name, the Castle on the Hill in Dansville hadRead More →

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The loss of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock had been keenly felt through the first part of 1813; while Major-General Henry Proctor had defended the British line in the west, the losses at York and Niagara had dealt a major blow to the British morale. It also did not help that almost every major ship-to-ship engagement had resulted in an American victory. And now with York still rebuilding and nearly the entire Niagara peninsula under American control and Chauncy back in Sacketts Harbor protecting Lake Ontario, the British needed victory to ensure that the whole of Upper Canada be preserved. Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe was reassignedRead More →

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My history with Consumer’s Glass starts somewhere other than Hamilton, but rather my hometown of Milton. One of the earliest abandoned locations I ‘discovered’ after getting a hot tip was the former Milton plant, but that was among the final Consumer’s Glass plants constructed and among the first to be torn down. The Milton works, completed in the late 1970s and became operational in 1980, was a local landmark, the tall silos standing over a small industrial section and easily seen when heading east on the 401 approaching Highway 25. The Hamilton works, however, were far more interesting, not only larger but older, much olderRead More →