Continued interest in Oakalla Prison and the documentary

One of the Burnaby newspapers has decided that the 20th anniversary of the closing of Oakalla Prison was worth a story. Wanda Chow, staff reporter with THE NEWSLEADER phoned last week and asked me for names and numbers of ex-staff and ex-inmates who might be willing to discuss their time at Oakalla prison during its last decade of operations. I was happy to oblige. Ms. Chow's article, OAKALLA MEMORIES, graces the front page of the February 4, 2011 edition of the paper is [here].
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J. Michael "Mikey" Yates, author of LINE SCREW (McClelland & Stewart) 1993, strikes a pose for photographer Mario Bartel, near Deer Lake, Burnaby. The old prison was completely demolished 20 years ago, to make way for a massive condominium development.

I was pleased that J. Michael Yates made the front page. Mikey is not only my favorite "Oakie" but his book LINE SCREW, written after leaving B.C. Corrections, is the best account of the prison published so far. That comment is not meant to in any way diminish other books, such as Earl Andersen's narrative history of the prison (which is indispensable), but simply to acknowledge that Yates is a cut above in terms of his prose and analysis of the Oakalla experience - on both sides of the bars. Of course most of the names in LINE SCREW are pseudonyms, but let's lay the blame at the feet of M&S's lawyers, where it belongs.

Ms. Chow also included a few paragraphs on our ongoing project. The Oakalla documentary is a labour of love, like child rearing, but I trust will not consume so many of my remaining years. One final note, as I am a stickler for accuracy. I am quoted as saying "300,000" inmates and staff worked inside of Oakalla fences during its nearly 80 years of operation. Yes, I said it. Ms. Chow is accurate, as usual. But the number was 130,000 according to a 1991 press handout. My only excuse is that my poor brain was still befuddled by Kinmen Kaoliang, a fiery Taiwanese liquor. I made merry the night before the interview at a late-night Chinese New Year party. The stuff is very potent, and I still recall a few parties in Taiwan where I consumed a litre or more of it, combined with Shaoshing Wine. It usually took 10 - 12 hours to recover, and my throat always felt like it had been cut.

Oakalla Prison - metaphors

Students used to come to me when they were sweating a tough term paper. A few years ago the phone calls were so frequent that I thought my number was written on shit house walls at U.B.C. Most were Chinese students who would petition me for help, always refusing to reveal where they got my number. Through the burning line I could feel them writhing in agony as they read the assignment instructions into my sweaty ear. If I found the question interesting I would help, even if my day job was draining my energy.
My favorite questions were in film, art and architecture and I am prone to claim that I took U.B.C. Film Studies for free. A stretch perhaps, but I fielded hard balls from as far away as the University of Lethbridge. I have no time to take student calls today, but I retain fond memories of some intriguing research topics.
For reasons which escape me, legions of newcomers to our culture simply refuse to think in terms of metaphor, and it shows in their writing. Fortunately news reporters need metaphor to shape their stories. A case in point is an interview in today's paper which we did on Thursday. Wanda Chow does a good job in describing my research for the Oakalla prison documentary, employing the 'peeling layers of an onion' metaphor. Another article about the project, published a few months back, used the 'pieces of a jigsaw puzzle' metaphor which is also appropriate. Of course these apply to the research, but do not pertain to the script for "The Ghosts of Oakalla" ... yet another metaphor. Ms. Chow's article can be found in today's edition of the Burnaby NEWS LEADER, or read online here.


Ron Jack, director of OAKALLA, displays an example of prison artifacts which surface during the research for THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA.

OAKALLA - telling a prison's story

An important milestone was reached this week in the pre-production phase of our film THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA. - I have finished editing a ten minute short entitled simply OAKALLA, which draws from interviews I conducted with former prison staff and authorities on the old penitentiary. Copies of the preview DVD will go out next week to key resource people and supporters of our project as this film will need to continue drawing from their energy and goodwill as we progress into 2010.

The initial round of interviews went very well and I am pleased to include three expert voices in this first film. Viewers get a big taste of conditions which existed at Oakalla and which often made the institution boil over. There is also an examination of the contentious relationship of a the infamous prison complex and its "long suffering" host city - Burnaby. It was essential for me to research and achieve a thorough grounding in people and events before I develop a script of depth, which must explore some of the most divisive social and political issues in British Columbia history - to set the stage for old ghosts to appear and tell their stories.

Participants in this first OAKALLA video include:

Earl Andersen was a guard at Oakalla in the 1980s and now serves as an NCO on the Vancouver police force. He was on staff during the New Year 1988 mass escape and is the author of the most complete history of Oakalla, which is entitled A HARD PLACE TO DO TIME.

Derek Corrigan was a corrections officer who later became a lawyer, by way of UBC Law School. He was a Burnaby Alderman at the time of the 1988 breakout and was an aggressive Civic spokesman on the issue of shutting Oakalla down. He is currently Mayor of Burnaby and is still the loudest voice opposing any form of Provincial Remand facility in his city.

Tom Gooden is Assistant Curator at the Burnaby Village Museum, and is an authority on Oakalla property and its surviving artifacts. The village, which is frequently used as a period set by the movie industry, is a "living history" museum on the shore of Deer Lake, adjacent to the former Oakalla prison property.

THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA is being shot in HD video but I recently spoke to a filmmaker who dimly recalls a student project being shot about twenty years ago... she thought in VHS format. If anyone could turn that dangle into hard information, I would certainly appreciate an email. I am eager to source footage from Oakalla's entire lifespan 1912-1991, be it silent celluloid or amateur VHS tape, especially anything taken "inside".

The Ghosts of Oakalla

Documentary film students from Langara College have just finished shooting individual graduate films in HD Video, with the added experience of working as crew on other projects. Now begins the truly daunting final leg of their journey of creative discovery - two long weeks of cutting and polishing their stories in the Mac Lab.

My own project is Oakalla, a ten minute rendering of a painful story which has diminished with the passage of time. Oakalla was an experiment in prison reform which degenerated into a hated warehouse of society's mistakes and failures. The entire complex fell to the wrecker's ball years ago, and now only exists as artifacts in museum storage and as bitter or ironic memories held by thousands of people in our province. Oakalla was notorious for what occured inside its decaying walls, but also for a decades-long drama performed by politicians determined to eject the crumbling facility from a beautiful and much coveted urban landscape. Many have a story to tell, and fortunately for me, they often speak well.

Following completion of the Doc Course I plan to begin production of a longer version of Ghosts, in which I will develop some of the themes which continue to fascinate me, as well as give voice unresolved issues from Oakalla's past which several marginalized groups are eager to have return to the public's consciousness. Oakalla history is very deep and incredibly complex. You can dive into it as deeply as your lungs and imagination will bear. As a busy crossroad for the risen and the fallen, Oakalla hosted a more representative sampling of our people than any other public instiution - the desperate poor, the career criminals, political activists, illegal migrants, the sexual transgressors, misguided youth, religious zealots, outlaw financiers, and so many more. The film seeks to uncover compelling stories which have contemporary currency, and which need to be valued.
Crew photo for Oakalla, filmed in Burnaby, B.C. from July 14-16. The crew, L. to R. was: Alejandro Zuluago (Camera B), Andres Salas (Sound & Prod. Stills), Ron Jack (Writer/Director), Greg Masuda (Camera A), Sameer Khan (Lighting & Grip).

Oakalla lands harbour many ghosts, and some refuse to remain buried. We witnessed the most recent example in the run-up to the recent B.C. Provincial election when there was was a spirited tussle over the issue of the government plan to site a remand centre in the now decommissioned Youth Detention facility across the street from the B.C.I.T. campus on Willingdon. One Vancouver Blog, CityCaucus.com ran a focus piece on February 10 entitled "Remember Oakalla?" which attempted to skewer Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan. The mayor's wife was on the ballot, offering to represent the newly drawn provincial riding which includes the massive condo complex built on the old Oakala Prison property. The NDP succeeded in turning out the vote in Deer Lake and Mrs. Corrigan crushed the sitting Liberal, who was never truly comfortable speaking to an ill defined Law and Order issue.

Derek Corrigan worked as a guard at Oakalla in the 1970s, and as an experienced lawyer and probation officer, he was positioned to become a guiding voice on City Council at the time of the New Year's Day mass escape at Oakalla (1988), which offered a golden opportunity for an effective campaign to have it closed down. In an interview conducted for the film the savvy political warrior offered insightful remarks and a few salty memories about Oakalla and its necessary fate. His voice and others will add authority to the principle themes of my film.

Over the years, thousands of weapons were improvised by the inmates in Oakalla Prison, and the Burnaby Village Museum has a representative sampling. Here L. to R. are four of the most common types: 1. a shank made by patiently wearing an edge onto a piece of scrap steel 2. a shiv made by melting a metal point into a plastic toothbrush handle 3. a fork stolen from the mess hall and modified 4. a crude variation on brass knuckles - using steel nails, wood scrap and twine.

Documenting memories of Oakalla prison 1912-1991

It is the common verdict that all prisons and jails are dangerous, frightening places and most of our communities simply will not consider hosting one. Yet there have been fewer than a half dozen prisons in all of Canadian history which truly deserve to be labeled "infamous". American penal history has its Alcatraz, its Leavenworth, Sing Sing, Folsom, San Quentin and many more. In Canada the most feared prison was the "super-maximum" called Millhaven, built outside of Kingston, Ontario. Here on the Pacific Coast no prison was more "infamous" than Oakalla, in Burnaby.

The statistics for Oakalla hint at the horror and decades of unrelenting pain. There were 44 official executions (hangings) ... 890 escapes between 1940-1990 and a score of full scale riots. There were also dozens of suicides and a few thousand suicide attempts, during the prison's last decades of operation.
A 1987 aerial photo of the main hall of the Oakalla prison complex in Burnaby, B.C., near Vancouver. Oakalla was completely demolished in 1992 at the insistence of the municipal government, and replaced by 531 "luxury" condo townhouses and rental apartments. It has been suggested that the ghosts of the men executed at Oakalla still haunt the hillside property. Research for THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA has uncovered many extraordinary and compelling stories of its desperate inmates.

There have been just a handful of books published about Oakalla Prison and Earl Andersen's HARD PLACE TO DO TIME (1993) is probably the best of the bunch. Ironically, given the fact that Oakalla was always in the news, there have been no documentary films produced on its history or its incredible inmate population. Well we are now addressing that lack of foresight because time is running out. The survivors are dying off and living memory has become dull. Pre-production is underway and we will have an HD video short ready for viewing by mid-August. Any person or group with an interest in viewing THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA should send me their contact information.

The isolation unit of the infamous Oakalla Prison in Burnaby, B.C. The institution had a fascinating and deeply troubled history. It housed a Who's Who of British Columbia criminals and political prisoners.