Kingston Penitentiary tour tickets go on sale today

CTV News Channel: Kingston Pen tour opening St. Lawrence Park Commission CEO Darren Dalgleish says web traffic has been enormous ahead of the prison tour's ticket sale opening.

One of Canada’s most infamous prisons is reopening its doors.

Shuttered in 2013 after nearly two centuries of use, the former maximum security Kingston Penitentiary is offering guided tours. Tickets, which go on sale on Monday at 3pm at www.kingstonpentour.com, cost $25. The 90-minute tours, which run from June 16 to Oct. 31, will take you behind the historic facility’s dreary stone walls to meet former guards and see cell blocks, inmate workshops and recreational grounds.

“Kingston Pen is a landmark site in Kingston and we can feel the excitement in the community as they anticipate the start of the tours,” Kingston mayor Bryan Paterson said in a press release. “We know from previous experience these tickets are going to go quickly as people from around the world come to see this important part of history.”

Opened in 1835, 32 years before Canadian Confederation, the facility has been home to some of Canada’s most notorious criminals, including former Canadian Forces colonel Russel Williams, Ontario killer and rapist Paul Bernardo, and Clifford Olsen, “The Beast of British Columbia,” who was convicted of murdering 11 children and young adults in the early 1980s.

“This prison has been home to some of the most notorious criminals, so people are very curious to walk in the footsteps of some of those folks,” St. Lawrence Parks Commission CEO Darren Dalgleish told CTV News Channel on Monday. The building itself, he added, is also a major draw. “It is spectacular 1830s architecture: stonework and brickwork.”

In 2014, the last time public tours were offered, all 18,000 tickets sold out in an hour. Tours of the National Historic Site, which run from 9am to 7:40pm, are being operated in a partnership between the City of Kingston, Correctional Service of Canada and the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. Local-only Tuesdays will cost $20.