Riverview Hospital, Coquitlam BC, Canada: What I have learned since being onsite
Riverview Hospital, Coquitlam BC, Canada
Image taken onsite August 2023 by myself. I believe this is the “West Lawn” building
What have I learned since recording this episode and my visit:
Riverview Hospital was not just another podcast episode topic for me. One of my family members spent time here in the 1960’s. As part of the Crease Clinic program, actually.
For the first time, my podcast episode research would pull in my family members as I asked them what they could remember about the time my grandfather spent on the grounds of Riverview. It brought up a lot of healing for my family, as my elders never really spoke about this time of their lives before. For that reason alone, I am eternally grateful I decided to make Riverview Hospital one of my podcast episodes.
This episode originally came out in 2022. I was lucky enough to be able to drive around onsite a year later in August of 2023 while out in the Coquitlam area visiting family. And this is what my takeaway is:
This is an incredibly foreboding site. The buildings and property appear larger than life once you begin driving around. All of the original buildings from the Essondale years are well worn. Windows are hazy, and many are broken. Though the grounds are still impeccably kept. And this is for a good reason. The Riverview Hospital property is still an active mental health facility. With new buildings onsite that act as day units and long term living.
I was mindful to remain in our vehicle. Security was making themselves very known. I wanted to respect the site as much as possible, even though I was buzzing with energy.
As far as my mediumship sense and what I picked up:
There were layers and layers of conflicting feelings. And these feelings were all intense. I could feel the heaviness of abandonment, resentment, fear, and anxiety. This seemed like it was coming from both the patients and the support workers. The other layer of feelings came from the medical staff. There was a deep sense of undeniable hope, much of that coming from the head doctors and unit nurses. These professionals left behind the feeling that they really felt like what they were doing was right, and unprecedented in mental health care advancement.
Would I say Riverview is haunted?
Hard to say, and that is because I have only been able to spend a couple hours onsite, and in my car at that. Sites like these need multiple visits, over the course of a couple of years to make any kind of official report. One area that might seem unassuming at the onset that I felt would be really worth investigating is where the staff lived onsite. There was some interesting energy I picked up when driving by a couple of these old staff residents' homes. Something even more magnitizing than the main building.
What I suspect, overall, is there are lots of psychic impressions and energetic residues left behind in multiple areas of this property. And many from the days where over 4000 people lived and worked on this massive site. How could there not be? Extreme emotions, and living conditions, were normal here. And for decades. I would be surprised if this site was clean and clear, to be honest.
Though I do believe sites like these should be preserved, physically and energetically, and mainly to serve as a reminder for mankind to do better, I also believe this property could be given new life if the land itself was cured and the buildings renovated to current coding. It was once an innovation in the mental health industry. It feels like the land of Riverview would like a second chance at supporting positive mental health, but in a wholistic way. Some of the new buildings are already offering this new frequency. So I can imagine the transformation is already underway.
-WynneThornley
