Camp 30: Canada’s WWII POW Camp Hidden in Ruin
Tucked away in the quiet town of Bowmanville, Ontario, lies a place most people drive past without a second thought. Hidden behind overgrown trees and rusting fences lies a site that once held the attention of wartime Canada and the enemy it captured. Known as Camp 30, this former prisoner-of-war camp, which once held over 800 German officers, is now a shadow of its former self. It is notable as it is Canada’s only remaining semi-intact POW camp from the Second World War. Officially designated a National Historic Site, it feels more like a forgotten ghost town than a place of preservation. Its history is astonishing, yet it's been left to slowly collapse into ruin.
I first heard about Camp 30 from my friend Kevin, who lives close to the area. He knew the story well and had done the research ahead of time. So, when I came to visit, we made plans to explore it together. Neither of us expected what we would find, or how deeply the place would get under our skin.
At first glance, Camp 30 doesn’t appear to be much. From the outside, it looks like just another abandoned complex, with boarded windows, crumbling walls, and layers of graffiti tagging every surface. As we crossed the open greenspace and got closer to the structures themselves, we encountered posted notices. The signage was clear: No Trespassing. Video Surveillance in Use. But we weren’t there to cause damage. We came as documentarians and history lovers. Disobeying the posted warnings felt worth the risk. We decided to take a careful, respectful look inside.
We found a window where the boards had already begun to peel away, and with some effort, we pried it open further. Crawling through was awkward, but once inside, the true state of disrepair became fully evident. The old wooden floor boards bowed beneath our weight with each step. The stale, earthy smell of mold replaced the fresh air from outside. We decided to put on our masks as a precaution against the various spores circulating around us. We saw a few children riding their bikes past the building as we put the board back over the window, which we later admitted gave us both a “Stranger Things” vibe.
As we continued into the “upside-down,” the first room we entered had once been a pool area. Now it was a cavernous shell, its tiled edges chipped and blackened by time and neglect. Sections of the pool had fallen away to reveal the basement below. Walking through Camp 30 is an act of constant caution. Every floorboard groans underfoot. The wood is soft in places, warped by water and rot. In some spots, stepping wrong could mean crashing down into the level below. Not wanting to take the shortcut to the basement, we searched around and located a set of stairs.
We descended into the mechanical pump room below, a tight, damp space that once pulsed with the machinery needed to keep the facility running. Light barely made its way inside, so we relied on our flashlights to cut through the darkness, their beams shifting and dancing across the interior. It was here that the real atmosphere of the place took hold.
When your mind is already on high alert, knowing the ground might give way, unsure of what’s around the next corner, the shadows play tricks. Your flashlight hits a broken chair or a hanging cable just right, and for a moment, it’s something else: a figure, a movement, a presence. Every sound feels magnified. A bird trapped in the rafters sounds like footsteps. A gust through a broken pane feels like a whisper. The place messes with you, and it becomes harder to separate reality from imagination.
But that’s something I’ve come to appreciate about these kinds of explorations. When I enter an old or abandoned site, I like to engage my imagination, using whatever historical knowledge I’ve gathered to try and mentally fill in the blanks. What did these rooms look like when they were intact? What sounds would have echoed down these halls when it was full of life and movement? What did the prisoners here think and feel as they carried out their days behind enemy lines in a foreign land?
It’s a kind of mental time travel. The closest we can come, really. But at Camp 30, that process was difficult. The level of decay here is profound. Unlike the ancient stone ruins I’ve explored in other parts of the world, be it castles, temples, or fortresses, this place was built of wood, plaster, and drywall. These materials don’t age gracefully. They collapse. They rot. They become dangerous. And when the layers of human presence have been buried beneath years of vandalism and exposure, it takes real effort to peel them back and imagine what once was.
Still, there are glimmers. A staircase that hasn’t yet fallen. A wall tile still showing its original pattern. Emboldened by the act of exploration, we continued to find unique ways to enter into the various other buildings. Next up was the cafeteria, now filled with debris. The shape of the ceiling and windows offered a little more light than the pool area had, which allowed us a better look into the past. Here, things came alive in my mind. Knowing that in this very place, in the 1940s, high-ranking German officers once walked. In 1942, Prisoners staged a violent uprising against being shackled under a new Allied directive. Canadian guards had to enter with clubs to regain control. The event was dubbed the Battle of Bowmanville, it’s a little-known but dramatic piece of local history.
As we moved from the cafeteria and into the living quarters, daylight gave way to pitch-black corridors. Flashlights revealed fragments of past lives, faded tiles, rusted fixtures, and collapsing staircases. In the tighter spaces, the atmosphere turned eerily oppressive. It wasn’t hard to imagine this being the perfect backdrop to a horror movie. We moved slowly past ominous door after door to explore further into the lower levels, discovering bits of old containers which once held food in the cellar, or small electrical parts long out of use.
It’s tragic that so little of the camp remains intact. Designating it a National Historic Site came too late. Restoration now would be monumental, if even possible. The buildings are collapsing, and nature is reclaiming what’s left. What could have been a powerful, immersive educational site is now mostly forgotten, preserved only in fading photographs.
Places like Camp 30 remind us that not all history is carved in marble or etched in bronze plaques. Sometimes, it’s scrawled in peeling paint and hidden beneath branches and broken glass. It’s easy to overlook. But that makes it no less valuable. In fact, perhaps it’s more so. Camp 30 isn’t just a ruin; it’s a monument to memory. And if it disappears completely, so too may the lessons it holds.
