Stony Mountain Institution

Development In the years immediately following Canada's Confederation in 1867, several new institutions were established in Canada, joining the existing Kingston Penitentiary (est. 1835): the establishment of the Manitoba Penitentiary (renamed Stony Mountain Institution in 1972) was commissioned by the nascent Government of Canada in 1872, Lands were expropriated in 1872 at Stony Mountain, Manitoba, some from Lower Fort Garry, where Sir Garnet Wolseley’s expeditionary force had been stationed as part of the effort to quell the first Red River Rebellion of 1869-70. One of the members of that force, Samuel Lawrence Bedson (1842–91), did not return east following the Rebellion, but went on to become the first Warden of the new Penitentiary. On 15 August 1877, with Lord Dufferin (the Governor General of Canada) and his wife Hariot Georgina presiding, the Manitoba Penitentiary was officially opened. 14 inmates, including a female "lunatic," comprised the original prison population transferred from Fort Garry. The original prison building was soon joined by a number of other buildings, as a period of rapid growth commenced. Structures such as stables, schoolhouse, staff quarters, hospital, chapels, forge, and slaughterhouse were built. By 1885, some 44 cells were in use. Growth tended to be decentralized and the buildings came to occupy a large area. Stony Mountain Institution is a clustered site, housing maximum, medium and minimum security inmates. There are seven operational units within the clustered facility, offering various levels of supervision, including healing units for Indigenous inmates (named NI-MIIKANA at the medium security site and AANIIKEKANA at the minimum security site). This new wing became the only maximum-security unit in Manitoba. About 40 new positions were created with the addition of the maximum-security wing. The maximum unit at Stony Mountain Institution was completed and inmates were placed there in 2014. ==Notable inmates ==

• After the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Chiefs Big Bear, One Arrow, and Poundmaker were all wrongfully convicted of treason and were imprisoned in the Stony Mountain Penitentiary. Here their health deteriorated rapidly and upon being released due to poor health, died shortly thereafter. • Kenneth Leishman (aka "The Flying Bandit") pled guilty in 1958 to two bank robberies, and was given a 12-year sentence to be served at Stony Mountain Penitentiary, near his family in Winnipeg. He was released on parole towards the end of 1961, after just 3.5 years, and was described by Stony’s warden as a ‘model prisoner’. • Thomas Sophonow was wrongfully convicted in 1981 of the murder of Barbara Stoppel; he was acquitted on appeal in 1985, and conclusively exonerated by DNA evidence in 2000. On the 18 April 1983, he was transferred from the Winnipeg Remand Centre to Stony Mountain Penitentiary, where he remained until 25 July 1983. For that entire period, he was kept in segregation, meaning that he was in a cell that measured for 23 hours a day, every day. While this may have been for his own protection, the conditions were harsh. During the one-hour per day that he was let out of his cell for exercise and a shower, there was no allotted place of exercise; he obtained his exercise outside in a narrow courtyard alone, apart from prison guards. • James Driskell was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Perry Harder in 1991, and served a total of 12 years in Stony Mountain Institution for first-degree murder. In 2005, the Manitoba Department of Justice entered a stay of proceedings and called for a public inquiry, which ended Driskell's conviction without exonerating him. The results of that inquiry were released to the public on 15 February 2007. • Ernest Cashel was briefly imprisoned at Stony Mountain for theft, until he was transported back to Calgary to face murder charges. His subsequent escape from custody was called "the greatest blow the Mounties had received in all their experience." • Thomas Hogan, an Ojibway artist, served time for attempted robbery in the 1970s • Robert B. Russell, one of the leaders during the Winnipeg General Strike, served a two-year sentence at the Manitoba Penitentiary. • Danny Wolfe, the leader of the Indian Posse spent much of his life at Stony Mountain. ==Books==