![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() There are four different tunnel systems under the York University campus. The water drainage tunnels and sewage tunnels aren't very tempting to the explorer, nor do they go anywhere special. Slightly more interesting are the pedestrian tunnels, which burrow beneath a large part of the campus and connect most of the different colleges and lecture halls. These pedestrian tunnels are fairly chaotically laid out and are very nicely decorated with graffiti - unfortunately, the pedestrian tunnels are open to the public and therefore not very interesting.
Steam tunnels are poorly lit, dirty, cramped, dangerous and uncomfortably hot. The bad news is they are strictly off-limits. Generally, school administration will manage to outlaw their use without ever admitting to their existence. Students caught in the tunnels are threatened with expulsion and non-students are threatened with serious fines. In spite of this, in colleges and universities across North America it has long been a popular student pastime to descend into the tunnel network and explore. Also known as "Utility Tunnels" or "Engineering Tunnels," the tunnels are most commonly referred to as steam tunnels because their primary function is to transport extremely high-temperature steam from a central boiler to all the buildings of the campus. The tunnels also conduct cold air, electrical wires, telephone lines, network connections and natural gas.
There are several different methods of entering the steam tunnels at York, but the safest and most reliable entrance can be found in the pedestrian tunnels near the main block of colleges (Vanier, Founders, Winters and McLaughlin). Look for a large brown metal door with healthy amounts of graffiti covering it - the graffiti in these tunnels changes from week to week, but as of May 3/97 the door was marked with a blue and silver pattern. In any case, you should be able to find the door if you just listen for the sound of heavy machinery on the other side. The door isn't locked, but it is very firmly wedged shut, so collect your strength, yell "Tentanda Via," and body slam the door with all your might. The door will crack open with an ungodly amount of noise and you'll stumble through into the fairly comfortable and well-lit tunnels under the colleges. This is another reason why the Vanier entrance is a good one - this is probably the safest and easiest to navigate part of the tunnels.
|
![]()
Some of the tunnels, particularly the unlit tunnels, seemed to go on forever. The tunnels are miles long, but I think the fact that they are so narrow and uniform makes them seem even longer. Pablo and I voyaged up one such never-ending tunnel in our quest to find the Physical Plant Building (also known in tunnel parlance as the CUB, or Central Utilities Building). The Physical Plant Building, which lies in the far eastern end of the campus away from all the colleges and lecture halls, is the capital of the tunnel system. This is the building where all the steam and cold air and love is generated and pumped out through the tunnels to the rest of the campus.
|
![]() ![]() Upon returning to "The Crossroads", we decided to check out the areas the imaginative scribe had dubbed the "Ice Caves" and the "Tar Pits", to be found in the tunnels under Winters College and McLaughlin College. We hoped these underground tourist traps would be a little more interesting than Founders College's "Lover's Lane and the Holy Steps", which was the name our guide had donned upon a plain cement hallway with four cement steps. We found the tunnels leading to Winters to be smaller than most of the tunnels, perhaps six feet tall by four feet wide. Almost all the tunnels in this area were kept in complete darkness. In some cases these tunnels had overhead lights which were turned off, but in other areas there appeared to be no overhead lighting whatsoever. We were armed with weak little flashlights but these did not provide anywhere near enough light for us to see where we were going or how much further the tunnel stretched ahead. Descending ladders and stairs into the darkness is a real challenge. Tunneling can be quite nerve-wracking, but the psychological stimulation is really what makes it so attractive. You're constantly travelling further and further into the forbidden and the unknown.
On our way back, we turned off into McLaughlin's lit tunnel in search of the tourist attraction that put the McLaughlin tunnels on the map. It didn't take very long before we stumbled upon the "Tar Pits": some pools of dirty water in the floor of the main hallway. Shortly after tearing ourselves away from this spectacle, we stumbled upon an attraction which we were |
![]() Upon returning to "The Crossroads," we decided to investigate the final fork of the tunnel system, the one which headed off towards the far west end of campus, where we were promised the glories of the "Rat Tunnels," "Down Under" and an extremely tempting site known as "Echo Valley." This was a very long walk, broken up only by the clever (and not-so-clever) graffiti of explorers past. We found graffiti dating back to 1979, when someone had spray painted "The Clash" at the end of the main tunnel. We also found a few dozen mechanical rooms connected to the tunnels at various points, often at the top of flights of stairs. These were all unlocked.
In any case, we were too thirsty to wait and see, as by this time we'd been tunnel running for almost two hours. As we wandered further and further to the west, we caught a whiff of chlorine up ahead and our poor heat-stroked minds danced with visions of swimming pools. Pablo reasoned that the area underneath the Tait Pool might possibly be a little cooler than the main tunnels, and I agreed, secretly hoping that perhaps there would be a leak in the roof and I could drink the cold, poisonous, refreshing pool water as it poured down. (Hours of nothing but walking and crawling in heat and dust can make one extremely desperate for drink. If the Physical Plant were to put a Coke machine down here somewhere I'm sure they could easily get away with charging $10 a can.) We followed our noses towards the scent of chlorine for some distance, and though the tunnels did indeed cool off, it was just another case of dirty floorwater everywhere and not a drop to drink. We concluded that we would just grab a quick peek at the remaining tourist attractions and then call it a night.
Unfortunately, this area of the tunnels wasn't anywhere near as well traveled or as well-marked as the central and eastern tunnels, which made them more difficult to navigate. We never did find the "Rat Tunnels" or "Down Under," and only after considerable exploration did we manage to locate "Echo Valley": a plain cement tunnel in which someone once imagined that they had heard an echo. We tried to recreate the phenomenon but simply could not force the tunnel to echo, so we began the long journey back to freedom.
This article originally appeared in Infiltration 4 (June 1997), together with an interview with Ben Hines on college tunnels in southern California and an article by Rhiannon Ashlin about the tunnels at her Seventh-Day Adventists college. The full, paper version of Infiltration can be ordered for $2 cash (US or Cnd) from Infiltration, PO Box 13, Station E, Toronto, Ontario, M6H 4E1, Canada. Please toss any comments, queries or contributions to Ninjalicious. |