I like a good prison escape movie. It’s the ultimate in perseverance, ingenuity, and taking a chance where there is an infinitesimal window of opportunity — like taking 19 years to chisel a tunnel with a rock hammer to escape in the Shawshank redemption or smuggling digging tools disguised as odd-shaped fancy pastries to break Monsieur Gustave H. out of prison so he could return to the Grand Budapest Hotel. And that’s the extent of my familiarity with prisons!

But it happened to be the first place Karl stopped when he arrived in Dorchester, New Brunswick, where he had a personal tour scheduled of the newly opened penitentiary with Mr. William J. MacLeod, Chief Steward.

The Dorchester Penitentiary opened in 1880, and at the time of Karls visit, the penitentiary held 307 inmates (301 males and six females). The sentence was to be served in a penitentiary if the confinement sentence was more than two years. The female inmates had been found guilty of the following crimes: manslaughter, wounding with intent, assault with intent, and larceny. As for the men, the majority had committed crimes of larceny, breaking, entering and stealing, arson, receiving stolen goods, and wounding with intent. Also, a few men were convicted for miscellaneous crimes, including; injury to a horse, killing a cow, killing an ox, horse stealing, robbery, and obstructing the railway train!

During those times, an inmate’s life was less about serving time but more about being of service. Dorchester Penitentiary sat on 619 acres of land, and although a few of the buildings were open, it was the first of many phases of work planned. The land was to be cleared, additional buildings constructed, crops planted, and other maintenance and farming tasks. All of the inmates were identified by their occupations and employed appropriately while serving their sentence. Although the majority were general labourers, other occupations identified included; tinsmiths, stonecutters, harness makers, barbers, carpenters and shoemakers.

So in my quest to follow Karl, I paid a visit — not as a guest I might add — to the Dorchester Penitentiary. Today, it’s the second oldest federal corrections facility (second to the now-closed Kingston Penitentiary) and categorized as a medium-security institution with a capacity for 400 inmates.

I thought it was wise to stop first at the commissionaires’ small security shack located on the property’s periphery. I popped into the office and had a quick chat with the commissionaire, letting him know my intention — park the car, set-up my tripod and take some photos of the penitentiary. Nope, not a good idea, he advised; there are armed correctional officers watching everything and would be suspicious of that kind of activity. Instead, he suggested that perhaps better suited to my mission would be a visit to the local Dorchester museum. Right, I thought, good advice.

Keillor House Museum is a former Georgian mansion restored to how it would have been in the mid-nineteenth century with the furniture, china and other artifacts. Adjacent to the mansion is the coach house which is Canada’s first prison museum with a collection of items from daily life in the Dorchester Penitentiary including shoes made by those inmates visited by Karl.

I’m sure if the current inmates of the Dorchester Penitentiary had been guilty of the same type of crimes as when Karl visited — obstructing a railway train or killing an ox — I may have persevered to get access for a tour. But this GlobeTrotter knows her limitations and given the choice would prefer to continue her education about prisons from a comfy chair in the movie theatre.

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