The retirement plan for Vern Thibedeau and wife Sheila included the purchase of a fifth wheel trailer and truck.

The couple decided to hit the road and experience some travel after Vern ended a 26-year-career with Correctional Service Canada in 1999 where he worked in a variety of federal prisons and positions from front line officer to senior correctional officer in maximum security.

Rolling around in his mind also was an idea that he’d like to try to write down some of his experiences as a correctional officer both for personal reasons, and to give readers an accurate glimpse into a world that most people know little about and certainly don’t want to enter.

“I wanted to write down, from my point of view, some of what I went through during my career,” Vern said. “People have asinine ideas about what goes on in prisons, mostly from movies and the media. I thought if they read it, they might get a better idea of what correctional staff do.”

Vern said his friends and former colleagues encouraged him to follow through, and the result is the publication of his first book, titled, The Door a 300-page personal memoir describing his career working inside some of Canada’s most dangerous prisons. Published a little over a year ago, the book is available online at any number of book sites including Indigo, and can be ordered also on his website: www.vernthibedeauthedoor.com.

Although this was his first attempt at writing something serious, Vern said he was surprised at how well the work went, once underway. “Actually, it was relatively easy. That sort of surprised me. I thought I’d end up wrestling with it and not finishing.”

Vern said during revision, in fact, he edited about one-quarter of what he originally had written from the final draft.

The result is a memoir chronicling many of his most vivid memories from a career Vern began in 1973 almost as a “fluke”, until his retirement in 1999 working in many of Canada’s most hostile penitentiaries.

Vern said book sales are brisk, and thus far response from readers and the media has been very positive.

He pointed out that, much as with writing, his decision to become a correctional officer was more spontaneous than a planned career direction. Previously he had worked in a variety of jobs including a three-year stint in the Canadian Army stationed in Calgary and Germany.

Vern was born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1941 in the early part of the Second World War. His father, Roy, enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was sent to Europe. The pilot officer and tail gunner were killed on a bombing mission over Europe in 1944. Vern said his father was trapped in the turret and was the only crew member to perish when the bomber was shot down.

Of his father, Vern said, “I don’t remember him at all, but I do have lots of pictures.”

His mother, he added, would later remarry to a “great man”, and they had an excellent marriage and life together.

Vern attended Francis H. Clergue Elementary School until Grade 8, but he made what he said was an “unusual” decision even back then to quit and not go to high school. “I wasn’t a very good student. I daydreamed a lot,” he explained.

Instead, he took a job at age 16 with Great Lakes Frosted Foods where he worked for two years before enlisting in the army.

In 1962, he returned to Sault Ste. Marie where he met Sheila, and within six months they were married. Sheila was born in England, he said, the daughter of a war bride, but she was raised in the Sault too after the war.

Around that time, Vern said he realized that if he was going to “cut it” in the workforce he had to go back to school. He would get his high school diploma with the assistance of Manpower, and enrolled at Algoma College. Upon completion, he enrolled at North Bay Teachers College where he graduated with a teaching degree. “I got my teaching certificate, but I never did end up teaching,” he said. He explained that he and his wife had the first two of three children at the time, and a large debt from school to pay back.

Instead Vern opted for a job with Ellwood Construction to help pay off some of the debt and keep food on the table.

Two years later, on a whim, he attended an employment interview in the Sault with personnel from the Federal Correctional system. Ten days later, he received a letter offering him a frontline job at Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. “Sheila and I talked about it, and decided ‘Why not? It will be something different.’”

As a rookie guard in his early thirties, Vern had decided to do everything by the book, but his first year proved anyway to be a baptism by fire. After six months on the job, he was with officers involved in a routine escort of about six inmates by van to a nearby hospital for appointments. One of the prisoners, however, had hatched an escape plan. He had a concealed small automatic handgun, and he fired a bullet through the window, to “get our attention”, Vern said.

The guards were taken hostage, and driven to Ottawa where they were tied up and left. Vern said no one was killed during the incident, but a police officer was shot in the arm before the prisoners were recaptured.

Less than a year later, while still at Collins Bay Penitentiary, Vern was assaulted by an inmate and “punched out”. He added that when he fell he struck his head on the concrete floor and ended up in hospital for repairs.

Those and other tense situations in his career are described throughout the book, but Vern stressed that he also set out to debunk some of the misconceptions the public have about the penitentiary system.

One of those, he said, is the notion, popularized by movies, that escape attempts are very common occurrences. Although escapes or failed escapes do occur, they are not as frequent as many people imagine.

Vern said the preventive measures of correctional officers combined with new technology have made prison escapes much more difficult for inmates.

A second misconception some members of the public share is the idea that officers‘ duties are fairly easy because prisoners remain in their cells the majority of the time. “People think inmates are locked up in their cells and only get out to eat,” he said. “That’s not the case. Prisoners have a lot of freedom inside.”

Vern went on to say that because all the inmates in Federal pens are in for more than two years, they learn the ins and outs of life on the inside. He said that frontline officers had to be always on the lookout for stills or hidden weapons while on duty.

A third myth that he guessed also is perpetuated by popular culture is the idea that guards often are physically abusive of prisoners. He said that in 26 years in the job, he only witnessed one occasion where an officer lost his composure and overreacted during a physical confrontation with a prisoner.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that one of the mental strains of the job was knowing, and hearing on a daily basis how much he and his colleagues were disliked by the majority of inmates.

“Being around people that don’t like you, insult you, is very hard. I think it wears you down after a while,” he said. “I still have a bit of a hangover from it. When you are with staff, either in the prison or outside, you have the habit of watching each other’s back.”

He said the situation was even more stressful in maximum facilities like Kingston Penitentiary, with its beefed up security, and notorious inmates like serial killer Clifford Olson. Vern spent seven years in secure handling at Kingston Pen and admitted he was relieved when he was transferred out.

Looking back, he said the career path he chose was stressful at times for him and his family, but he does not regret his choice.

“I can’t say I always enjoyed it, but I preferred the type of work to going into say an office and doing this or that every day,” he said. “When a corrections officer goes into work it might start off like an average day. You never know though what might happen in the next hour. There might be a fire or a big fight. I kind of liked the excitement and unpredictability of the job. I was successful at it, and I hope I made some difference in a couple of lives, but it’s hard to say.”

Regarding his latest venture as a published writer, he said he as adopted the writerly habit of carrying around a notebook to jot down ideas as they appear to him. “I have been encouraged to maybe fictionalize some of the material in the book that got edited out,” he said. “I’m tossing the idea around. I’m really thinking about it.”