Riverview Hospital
A sprawling former provincial psychiatric hospital that operated from 1913 to 2012 and once held nearly 5,000 patients.
No public photograph yet
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Share a photoHistory & haunting lore
Opened in 1913 as the "Hospital for the Mind" and later renamed Essondale and then Riverview, the facility grew into one of Canada's largest psychiatric institutions, employing electroshock therapy and sterilization practices that drew heavy criticism in later decades. Deinstitutionalization steadily emptied its wards from the 1980s onward until the last patients were relocated in 2012.
The abandoned West Lawn building, empty since 1983, has become a favored filming location for productions like The X-Files and Smallville, and former staff and film crews have long swapped stories of footsteps and shadow figures in its corridors, tales generally attributed to the building's decay and echo rather than anything more.
Current site status
Most original buildings are abandoned and closed to unauthorized entry; the grounds now also host the operating Red Fish Healing Centre.