Vincent Papequash

I went to prison, here is that experience: Part VI

Morgan Oliver was remarkably uninteresting during his first couple of weeks at Ford Mountain, and generally flew under the radar. He was a tall Caucasian man with no hair and a thick, long beard. I would have guessed he was in his late thirties.

He was hired to work in Forestry, as many people were. By then I was hired to work in the Carving Shop, because it was November and it was cold out once again. Morgan was placed in Bravo hut, in room 8, which is located right in the middle of the hallway and across from the washrooms.

• I went to prison — here is that experience: Part Six
• I went to prison — here is that experience: Part Five
• I went to prison — here is that experience: Part Four
• I went to prison — here is that experience: Part Three
• I went to prison — here is that experience: Part Two

I’ve said it before, but there were some basic rules I’d learned right away about Ford Mountain: people in prison only seem to ever talk about being in prison, why they’re in prison, why you’re in prison, and other prisoners. People gossiped a lot about each other.

So, when I noticed Morgan I didn’t have to wonder too long in solitude about him. I simply listened to the others talk about him and gathered information through osmosis.

Quantum physics

The first time I spoke to Morgan a few people were picking his brain about big words, because he was apparently an avid Scrabble player. I asked him if he knew what the word valetudinarianism meant, which he did not. However, he was impressed at my explanation of it.

In The Republic, by Plato, Socrates is telling a group of men how they should construct the perfect State. Some people are inherently good at certain jobs, and less so at others. I noticed the word and realized it wasn’t in the dictionary, but I could figure out the meaning just by looking at it.

From Latin, if vale meant highly valued, like in the word valedictorian, then a valetudinarian is a highly valued learner. I asked Morgan if he’d ever seen the movie The Devil Wears Prada (2005).

He said he hadn’t, and I told him I was currently reading the novel it was based off. In the novel, Andy and her father have a tradition of playing Scrabble. Morgan seemed hooked in, I now had his attention, and with that we were all dismissed from the Parade Square for our work duties.

The next time I spoke to Morgan was later on that same week. I overheard him asking one of the Corrections officers for help printing something. I thought it was a bit mysterious, so I made sure to keep an eye on the situation.

Later on I overheard him talking about what he’d had printed to some other guys in the hut, it was the Wikipedia page for Quantum Physics. Justin suggested he talk to me about it, because apparently I was very smart.

I just so happened to be in my room at the time, pouring over the Calculus textbook I’d taken it upon myself to study. I didn’t think it was appropriate to walk out into the hallway to join their conversation, since that would imply I was eavesdropping, but I put a pin in the knowledge I’d gained from the conversation.

The next day I bumped into him after lunch and struck up a conversation with him about Quantum Physics. For some context, in high school I was that kid who watched every single YouTube video about the subject, and read every single Wikipedia page I could find about it.

So, the way he lit up as he talked about it with such enthusiasm was kind of refreshing. I’m not a physicist, nor am I an expert, but I was happy to find somebody else who would have been vaguely interested in the subjects I was currently studying.

I prodded a bit and found out he didn’t really intend on taking a Physics class while here, which was a bit disappointing. It would have been nice to have conversations about the actual equations, rather than simply the ideas, but I figured I’d made a new friend anyhow.

When Matthew left, he abandoned James and I at the dining room table. The tables were arranged in four long rows, and at the table right beside us sat a few of the popular guys from Forestry. There was Justin, and Tory, who both also lived in Bravo hut with me.

Somebody I didn’t really know came and sat next to James and I one day, and I thought he was a bit annoying, and not cool enough to sit with us. To be fair, we are told “there are no reserved seats” by the staff at Ford Mountain.

So, I got up one day and took my chance, and moved over to sit where Morgan Oliver was seated all by himself. Originally, he sat with another friend of mine, Joe, who was hired in the kitchen rather suddenly.

I sat down across from Morgan, who had been sitting by himself for the past three days. I told him that he looked lonely, and tried to talk to him about what I knew we had in common.

This was the beginning of the end – because I think he could sense that my intentions weren’t to be friendly. I was rebounding after Matthew, and even though nobody knew it yet, I could feel the eyes on us. Nothing at Ford Mountain stayed secret for too long.

We made small talk rather nervously, and eventually parted ways. There was half an hour to eat lunch before the 12:30 roll call in the Parade Square, and then it was back to work for the remainder of the day.

By the end of the day, I had been invited into a newly formed clique. Morgan, Justin, and Tory were going to be playing Scrabble in the library later on in the day. I wasn’t really a huge Scrabble fan, but I was really into attractive guys who seemed smart, so I figured I could reschedule my Calculus studies for another time.

Scrabble and other games

My plans for Morgan were instantly thwarted by an inconvenience in the form of another individual. His name was Liam, another Indigenous man, although younger than me. He also happened to have glasses, except he was much sillier and uninhibited.

During our first night of Scrabble, he proved to be quite bad at spelling and required help from pretty much everyone at the table. This caused him to actually win, despite not being any good at it (he tried to play several non-words, for which he was severely made fun of).

Unfortunately, it seems Morgan found this endearing, and they quickly became close friends. So, I found myself competing for Morgan’s attention, when only a week before he wasn’t on anybody’s radar.

Our Scrabble sessions turned into nightly occurrences, and I found myself trying to play sexually suggestive words to get Morgan’s attention. This flipped Tory, for whatever reason, and he started to play absurdly homoerotic words for the fun of it.

He was having a great time! Everyone was actually having a lot of fun with it, except for me. I thought it would be a good opportunity to show Morgan how intelligent I was, and I kept losing to Liam, who wasn’t very bright.

After a few weeks of this, I decided to withdraw from playing Scrabble with them because it was taking a toll on my mental health. Nobody really knew why, and so when Tory and I started working together in the Carving Shop, I told him everything.

I told him about Matthew, and everything that happened between him and I. He was completely shocked, saying he never would have guessed that. And, I told him about my new feelings for Morgan.

We were sitting with a couple of other guys, one of whom said he actually knew Morgan in real life. They spent some time living in the same city, and he said he met his former girlfriend. This piqued my curiosity.

He told me that Morgan’s ex was “a lot to handle,” it seemed. She was apparently very confrontational, and loud, and they always seemed to argue. It made me wonder if that’s the kind of person Morgan would be attracted to – which was terrible for me, since I’d been working on myself and didn’t want to be the drama anymore.

I told Tory I would come back to play Scrabble as long as Liam wasn’t there, and he said he would arrange it. So, that night we all went to the library to play and Liam wasn’t there.

By then Morgan started to suspect something was up, although he didn’t quite know what it was just then. James had moved away from the table, where I’d abandoned him, and had come to join Morgan and I.

One day I was in the hut and I went to Morgan’s room and knocked on the door. He answered, and I told him we needed to talk. He agreed, and put on his jacket and we went outside.

It was dark out, and we walked along the only path we were really allowed to go at night. From the huts into Parade Square and past the gazebo, up to Holloway House, and back. I told him everything, about the jealousy I experience, and Matthew, and Jessie, and finally, him.

He assured me he was not gay, nor was he interested in Liam whatsoever. They were just friends, but he appreciated me telling him. He told me he figured something was up when people started making jokes about the size of his ****.

When our walk was finished, he asked me if I wanted to learn a card game. I agreed, and we set up a table outside his room in the hallway and played cards. Everyone in the hut made fun of us, as most of them were in on it by then. Morgan didn’t really care.

The stars

Things were like this for the next few weeks, with Liam coming back into the picture and me unable to be with them together. It reminded me of Jessie and Marcus all over again. So, I stopped speaking to Liam and we ended up sharing custody of Morgan.

One day at school I saw an Astrophysics textbook that I’d always meant to borrow from the teacher. I never got around to it, because I told myself I would work my way up to it. I asked if I could photocopy a few pages, and he agreed.

So, by the time work was over I showed Morgan my plan. We would go out at night, when the sky was clear, and we would try to see if we could spot the Andromeda Galaxy. He was stoked about it, at first.

Over the course of several nights we kept trying, but it was either too cloudy, or there was too much light pollution from the ice crystals in the air (it was January by then). Eventually he got frustrated with it all, and I was frustrated because I just wanted to spend time with him.

He got moody, and stopped talking to me for a week. I wasn’t going to chase him down or follow him around like everyone else seemed to lately. He had his own cult following, and I was too proud to be like them.

He knocked on my door one day and asked me if I was still mad at him. I told him I hadn’t been mad with him in the first place, he just randomly stopped talking to me so I decided he must have needed the space. He denied this, and went on telling me whatever it was he came to bother me about.

He was put in charge of The Word of the Day, an activity we did at the morning hut meetings where a resident would pick a word out of the dictionary and try to get us to guess the word or the definition. He used this opportunity to be passive-aggressive towards me, and chose words about obsession, and delusion.

I wasn’t going to give into his games, I didn’t spend the past year and a half working on myself just to cave into it all again. If he wanted to tell me something, he knew where I lived, right down the hall from him. So, I didn’t acknowledge his words and we didn’t speak.

By then James had been released, and Morgan moved tables, so I moved back to sit with Tory and Justin. I had been working on a plan to start working in the kitchen again, so that I could ditch Morgan before he ditched me, but I wasn’t rehired until a couple of days after James left.

Then Morgan and I made up again, suddenly, and we were back to playing Scrabble like nothing ever happened. I asked him if he would come for a walk with me later, and he agreed.

I told him that I just wanted us to be able to hang out together without things being weird. He said that we were hanging out right now, and told me that I was the only person he went for walks with. I disagreed, because I actually did see him out on walks with other people before.

He justified this as him being out by himself and then joined by other people, including Liam. I said that this sounded like gas lighting, and that I wasn’t falling for it, so who was he trying to convince?

He agreed to disagree, and I could tell I’d pissed him off again. So, the next few days he didn’t speak to me again. I didn’t say anything for a while, and finally I caved in again.

I asked him at his door if he was mad at me, and he said he wasn’t. I pressed harder, saying he definitely was, and when this turned into an argument I decided to be the cooler head and to walk away from it.

I went to the gym, a routine of mine on most nights I was at Ford Mountain. Liam was there with his new friend, a boy more his age, I thought. Morgan was in his forties, and I didn’t really think he had much in common with Liam.

I ignored Liam and his new friend and Morgan came storming in. I was at the bench press, lying down and found him towering over me. He told me we needed to talk whenever I had time, and I sat up and said I had time now. So, with that, we both walked out of the gym, leaving Liam puzzled.

We walked in the darkness, and he told me about his ex, who used to do exactly what I had just done. She would tell him how he was supposed to feel, and make accusations without listening to him.

He admitted that he had been mad by the time I walked away, but claimed that he wasn’t mad at me to begin with. I didn’t argue the point anymore, I accepted his apology and I told him my side of it.

He said he’d been at a 12 on a scale of one to ten by the time I left. I told him he may have anger issues, and that I have never been a 12 at anyone here. I said that it was okay to be mad, but I wondered if maybe he was projecting feelings of his ex onto me.

We walked around for 45 minutes before we’d cooled off, and I couldn’t figure out if I was where I wanted to be with Morgan. On the one hand – he definitely didn’t treat me like anybody else, but that was the downside.

He was right, he made a lot of accommodations for me, I was special in a weirdly platonic way to him. But the other side of that was that I was only ever going to be his gay friend, never one of the guys. He would never be fully comfortable with treating me like the others, there would always be connotations to everything we did.

So, the next time that he got moody with me I let him withdraw for a week again, and then he blamed it all on me again. I found him in his room and knocked on his door before my afternoon shift in the kitchen.

I told him that it was the last time we’d speak. I said that we clearly couldn’t be friends, because he would never think of me that way. He disagreed, and I said that I was setting a firm boundary. I never wanted to be his friend, I just wanted something else from him that he wasn’t going to give me, so we should just stop pretending and trying.

By dinner time everyone in camp had heard about our “breakup.” I found myself walking around that evening by myself, laughing at the absurdity of it all. I had less than a month left of this, and I was so done with it all.

I was tired of everyone knowing everywhere I was, and who I was with. I was tired of people talking about me like I was some sort of celebrity. I just wanted to leave here and wear my own clothes and fade away into anonymity again.

Out of everyone, Morgan was exactly like a lot of my own ex-boyfriends, unsurprisingly. I felt like this was some sort of cosmic punishment for my crime, it wasn’t the fact I was technically in prison. It was having to face this same demon over and over again, and being forced to walk away from him without getting the honeymoon phase that came with all the other guys I dated.

The End.

I had taken to walking with Liam and his friend, who had been hired on the RLC council. This time I wasn’t after power, or popularity, I was just lonely after my “breakup” from Morgan and Liam seemed to understand. We made amends and walked for three hours.

After a few nights, I couldn’t sustain this, because I don’t usually go for three hour walks. In my absence, Morgan began walking with Liam to get back at me. I didn’t care anymore, I was tired of this place. I wanted to go home.

One night I was paralyzed with anger, and I went to the doctor the following morning to tell him about my anxiety. He prescribed me SSRIs, which were supposed to help me.

There was an unintended side-effect, which I described to one of the Corrections Officers (who I’d always had a crush on) as feeling like I was micro-dosing ecstasy. It kind of makes sense, since SSRIs work by increasing available serotonin in the brain.

That night I came out of the washroom at bedtime, shirtless because it was after dark. Tory was loitering at Morgan’s doorway, something that seemed to be very popular ever since I told everyone I had a crush on him.

Tory dragged me over just as Morgan was taking off his shirt, and my eyes widened. I was so high I might have said something silly. Tory laughed and had to walk away. Morgan and I lingered on each other before he closed the door and I went away.

I awoke the next morning and realized I’d just broken my own boundary, but I was going to be more diligent now. I wasn’t going to let Morgan sweet talk his way back into my life. I only had a few more weeks left, I was almost free.

One night I was out walking by myself and Morgan happened to be walking in the opposite direction, and we inevitably met. He said something to me, and I caved in like a house of cards and we started walking again.

The next week I had re-established my boundary and wasn’t speaking to him again. I was working in the kitchen pretty well every day now, because the kitchen staff had the privilege of eating before the other residents. So, I wouldn’t have to sit with any of them if I just worked every day.

Joe and I talked about his friend Morgan, they met at “Wilkie,” as it was colloquially known. Formally, it was Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Center. It was the same place Jessie Jacobs was dragged out of when he first met me, and where most of the residents at Ford Mountain were located before being sent to the good place.

Joe was my sounding board, the realist. He said that Morgan was straight, but whenever I would get annoying he would play along and give me stupid suggestions on how to win him over. I think Joe was entertained by all the absurdity.

My birthday came around in February, and although I’d told Morgan about it, he spent the entire day with Liam. So, when Liam was released a couple of days later, I didn’t really feel bad for him. Morgan quickly latched onto Liam’s old friends, which I thought was smart, since I would be leaving on the same day as Justin, and Tory would be leaving shortly after.

To be honest, none of us had played Scrabble in a long time. Justin and Tory spent their last few days together out on the benches in front of the huts, and I sat with them a couple of times. It was finally here – I was going home.

Justin told us he was going to step down as Hut Rep, and I asked him not to do it until the very, very end. I knew that people were talking about electing Morgan as the next hut leader, and I didn’t want to spend a single day under his rule.

So, Justin stepped down the week before we were set to be released, and Morgan was elected as the Hut Rep. Everybody needs a Saviour, I guess, and everyone certainly flocked to him like he was Jesus.

Morgan wouldn’t get to conduct his first hut meeting until Tuesday morning, the exact same day that Justin and I would be released. So, that weekend went slowly, and I started packing up my room. I returned the dozens of books that had accumulated on my shelf.

I had a water colour painting I’d spent much of the summer of 2025 working on. It depicts me while I was working at CBC Ottawa. That night I attended a concert event at the Notre Dame Cathedral and Basilica in Ottawa, ON. I carefully placed it in an envelope and into the tote bag I would carry out.

The day finally arrived, and I awoke that morning and didn’t have breakfast. I cleaned my room and ensured I had everything packed. I was paged down to the Administration Building just before the morning room inspection, and thus, I was spared having to sit through Morgan’s first day as Hut Rep.

I was given a blue bag, which contained everything I was wearing when I was taken into custody in October 2024. I told everyone about my sparkly shoes, my favourite items because they were so quintessentially me.

I undressed, shedding the red prison attire and putting on my black suit and Oscar de la Renta tie. I swung the door open and revealed my true form to the BC Corrections staff, all of whom I’d grown to respect. They complimented me, and I thanked them.

And just like that, they let me go. The BC Corrections officer I felt I most related to walked me out. Her last name was McDonald, a blonde woman with glasses, with a reputation for being a little curt with people.

I thought she was just professional, and valued ethics. I thought she was friendly enough. In many ways, she looked like the female version of me when I worked at CBC, I always thought. The other guys didn’t see it, but they did think she was “hot.” I’m gay, so my brain doesn’t work that way.

I waved to Justin, who had been called down right after me. We’d joked that we would be comfortable changing in front of each other (we really would have), but it was single-file here! I was going to miss him being released, as somebody from my church had come to pick me up.

Although it was the end of my time incarcerated at the strange, outdoor facility that was a prison, but disguised as a cult in the mountains, I knew it wasn’t the end for me. It was like Jessie Jacobs told me all those months ago – I live my life in a gilded cage.

All names of inmates and staff have been changed for privacy reasons. Names of organizations and public figures are unchanged. Although presented as a narrative, this is my account of true events. As a former journalist, I wanted to write about my experience after being incarcerated.