“My favourite pastime is sneaking into abandoned buildings”

Urban exploration is the study of the parts of a civilization that are typically unseen. Put another way, it’s the art of infiltrating any space you’re not supposed to be in. That can include climbing onto rooftops or going into sewers, storm drains and abandoned buildings to look around. I got into urban exploration in 2012, when a friend told me about an abandoned and supposedly haunted house in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Looking around online, I found forums where people posted pictures of the buildings they’d snuck into. I started by going into abandoned farmhouses in Milton, then worked my way up to old factories and hospitals. It was fun and surreal to be in a huge space all alone, plus the fear of getting caught upped the exhilaration factor.

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Urban exploration is illegal, but the repercussions vary. Daytime trespassing in Ontario carries a fine, same as a speeding ticket. After 9 p.m., it’s considered “prowling,” which is criminal, but I’m not there to steal or vandalize. The handful of times I’ve been caught, I’ve simply been asked to leave. Cops and security guards tend to calm down when they realize I’m just there to take pictures.

I’ve sometimes encountered animals or people living in places I’m exploring, but I’ve never felt truly unsafe. When my gut says to get out of there, I do. My most recent adventure was at a factory in ­Hamilton—I won’t say where—full of scrappers, people who steal copper wiring from buildings slated for demolition. I picked up a metal bar for protection, just in case, but my best defence was ­friendliness—I struck up a conversation with everyone I met, and they left me alone.

Street cred among urban explorers comes from going into places no one’s been. My biggest get was the Canadian Niagara Power hydro plant in Niagara Falls. It’s a tourist attraction now, but it was abandoned for several years. In 2018, I got in through an open window. It extended a couple hundred feet underground, through multiple levels of slippery catwalks, pipes and ladders. At the very bottom is the tailrace—the old brick tunnel that takes the water back to the river. To get to it, I had to cross a huge drop via a rickety ladder in the pitch black. I followed the tunnel more than 600 metres to its end, at the foot of the roaring falls.

After the hydro plant was renovated in 2021 and opened to the public, I came back as a regular tourist. It was neat to see how it had changed since I’d been there—they’d laid concrete in the tunnel and fixed the cracks and the loose bricks. They’d also added an elevator. But the coolest thing was that I had a secret. Unlike everyone else in the room, I’d already been there.