Burwash Industrial Farm was established in 1914 based on the revolutionary premise that low-risk inmates would benefit from the exercise and skills learned while working outdoors at self-supporting institutions. Burwash Industrial Farm accommodated between 180 and 820 minimum and medium security offenders with sentences of three months to two years less a day. Over time, it grew to occupy 35,000 acres owned and 101,000 acres leased, housing three permanent camp sites, several temporary ones, and a town of prison staff families with a population of 600 to 1,000 people. Prison inmates provided labour to build the entire community and ran an extensive mixed farm, a tailor shop, and a prosperous logging operation. Burwash Industrial Farm was one of the largest reform institutions in 20th-century Ontario. It closed in 1975 because of changes in correctional practices.

Location

4 km south of Estaire (south of Sudbury) on Military Road, which runs west off of Highway 69. Travel to Military Road and drive for approximately 1/4 km, turn left and immediately left again.

Themes

• Buildings and structures
• Communities
• Politics and law