McMaster University campus tour: Gothic halls, labs and Cootes Paradise

McMaster University was founded in Toronto in 1887 with a bequest from the banker and senator William McMaster, and moved in 1930 to Hamilton, at the western end of Lake Ontario. Its campus is tucked into the Westdale neighbourhood, with quiet residential streets on one side and the marshes and woods of Cootes Paradise on the other. It is compact, largely car-free in the middle, and best known for medicine, engineering and science. This guide explains the layout, the main buildings and what the surrounding city offers students.

The shape of the campus

Almost everything sits in one block of about 120 hectares (300 acres), and you can walk across it in a quarter of an hour.

• The historic corner, in the north-east, has the original Gothic buildings of 1930.
• The centre is a pedestrian core with the libraries, the Student Centre, and the science and engineering buildings.
• The south side, along Main Street West, is dominated by the Health Sciences Centre and its hospital.
• The north and west edges hold the residences and athletics facilities, with trails leading down into Cootes Paradise.

Sterling Street, on the east side, is the traditional front door from Westdale; Main Street West is the busy one, with the bus terminal.

The Gothic core

When the university arrived in Hamilton it built a small set of grey-stone buildings in the Collegiate Gothic style then fashionable for North American campuses. University Hall, with its carved archway, and Hamilton Hall beside it are the best known; Edwards Hall and Wallingford Hall were the first residences and still house students. Covered in ivy in summer and set among mature trees, this corner is where most graduation photographs are taken.

Libraries, the museum and the Student Centre

Mills Memorial Library, at the centre of campus, serves the humanities and social sciences, while Thode Library covers science and engineering. McMaster's libraries have one unexpected treasure: the archives of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, acquired in the 1960s, which draw scholars from around the world.

Beside Mills is the McMaster Museum of Art, a small public gallery with a collection far better than its size suggests. Across the plaza, the Student Centre is the everyday meeting place, with food, study space, clubs and services under one roof.

Health sciences and a new way to teach medicine

McMaster's medical school was founded in the 1960s and quickly became known for doing things differently. It pioneered problem-based learning, in which students work through real patient cases in small groups rather than sitting through years of lectures first, and the approach has since been adopted by medical schools around the world. The phrase "evidence-based medicine" was also coined here.

The Health Sciences Centre, a vast concrete building from the early 1970s on Main Street West, combines a teaching hospital with classrooms and laboratories. Newer research buildings stand around it.

Engineering, science and the reactor

The John Hodgins Engineering Building and the science buildings fill the middle of the campus. Among them is something few universities have: a nuclear research reactor. It began operating in 1959, the first at a university in the Commonwealth, and is used for research and to produce isotopes for medicine. Bertram Brockhouse, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1994, taught at McMaster for more than twenty years.

Residences and the Marauders

Many first-year students live in residence. The halls range from the original Gothic buildings to large modern ones, all within a few minutes' walk of classes, and they sit mostly along the northern and western sides of campus. After first year, students tend to move into shared houses in Westdale and the neighbouring streets.

McMaster's teams are the Marauders, in maroon and grey. Ron Joyce Stadium, opened in 2008, is the home of football and soccer, and the athletic centre beside it has the pool, gyms and courts.

Cootes Paradise, Westdale and Hamilton

• Cootes Paradise: a large marsh and nature sanctuary cared for by the Royal Botanical Gardens. Trails start behind the residences, and within five minutes you are in woodland.
• Westdale Village: the neighbourhood's small centre on King Street West, with cafés, restaurants and a restored 1930s cinema.
• The escarpment and its waterfalls: Hamilton lies along the Niagara Escarpment, and more than a hundred waterfalls tumble over it within the city limits. Some of the best known, near the town of Dundas, sometimes require reservations, so look up the current rules.
• Downtown Hamilton: a short bus ride east, with Locke Street and James Street North the liveliest strips for food and art.

Visiting the campus

The grounds are open to walk through, and the historic corner, the central plaza and the edge of Cootes Paradise can be seen comfortably in an hour or two. The university typically offers tours for prospective students; what is available changes through the year, so check its official visitor page for current arrangements.

Getting there and around

• By bus and train: regional GO buses stop at a terminal on campus, and GO trains link Hamilton with Toronto. City buses run along Main Street and King Street to downtown.
• By car: the campus is just off Highway 403. Toronto is about 70 km away, an hour or so in light traffic; Niagara Falls is a similar distance in the other direction.
• By air: Toronto Pearson is the main international airport, and Hamilton has a smaller airport of its own.
• On foot: the centre of campus is closed to most traffic, so walking is the only sensible way around.

Where families usually base themselves

• Downtown Hamilton: the widest choice of hotels, ten to fifteen minutes from campus by car or bus.
• Westdale and Dundas: quieter, with a few smaller places.
• Burlington: across the bay, convenient for the highways.

Families touring several Ontario universities on one trip can combine McMaster with the University of Waterloo, about an hour away, and the University of Toronto.

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Cover photo: User:Saforrest, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons