Hotel Dieu Hospital. An interesting name for those unfamiliar with the history of the name, stretching back to 1630 and the religious vision of Frenchman Jerome Le Royer, a man who felt God directing him to the New World to found a congregation of Religious Hospitallers. And he fulfilled that direction, establishing (with assistance) the Congregation of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph in 1636, establishing many Hotel Dieu's across Ontario and Quebec. While the St. Catharines Hotel Dieu is much more recent than the ones that preceeded it; it is still based on this same order.

Stumbling across this one was a bit of a lucky break. Zen and I were driving along to another location that he had been to previously, when he spotted the hospital. While nothing about it appeared unusual, he also spied the construction trailers at the base of it. So we made a detour, saw all the construction fencing around it (as well as the workers on site), and with a bit of GoogleFu, had the name of the place. We decided to come back later that evening.

When we returned, Hotel Dieu was quiet, with everyone having headed home for the day. That didn't make it any easier to get in; security cameras remotely monitor the property and a rather busy rehab clinic sits with full view of the hospital just down the street. These, and a few other factors, quickly conspired to end any hope of natural sunlight illuminating our explore of the property. So began the waiting game, sitting in the car nearby scoping out the activity of the neighbourhood.

The sun had set by the time we made our move, finally entering the hospital and discovering that it was thoroughly gutted inside. The demolition had progressed faster than we had expected, leaving us with mostly empty rooms and a few pieces of discarded equipment.

We missed the window of opportunity on this one, sadly.