In 1805, England was in the midst of a war with Napoleon. A French blockade of the Scandinavian countries denied Britain access to its source of timber. Even after the British naval victory at Trafalgar, Napoleon continued to control continental Europe.
The railway changed much of the valley’s history, as did the paddle-steamers on the Ottawa River. Bridges and dams came next. Until bridges spanned the rivers, the only way to cross was by scow, and only in summer. Just as the steam-operated vessels which plied the Ottawa River between the mid-1830s and the mid-1940s could only operate in summer, so the ferries crossing larger and smaller rivers in the region were also entirely dependent on the season.
Hull was wracked by several major fires in the 1870s and 1880s. The worst by far, however, was the “Great Fire” of 1900. The following description of that devastating event, printed in the book, Hull 1800-1875, is by an actual eyewitness:
As the occupation of settlers shifted from farming and working in the shanties to working in whatever industry opened up – often at a considerable distance – the pattern of settlement changed as well. New buildings went up near railways and good roads. Whole stretches of land, cleared but unprofitable, were left by those who had claimed them.
Poltimore is a picturesque village situated in a valley between the Gatineau and Lièvre Rivers, 32 km north of Gatineau, Quebec and 8 km north of St. Pierre de Wakefield on Route 307. A winding, undulating stretch of road rolls briefly to it before proceeding north to its terminal, Val des Bois.
No topographical feature so dominated the landscape and the economy of this area as did the Chaudière Falls. Their presence on the river determined the locations of the cities of Ottawa, Hull and Aylmer, and made necessary the building of the Aylmer Road that bypassed them. The falls fueled the industrial explosion of the mid-1800s by providing the water power for the vast complex of lumber and grist mills that grew up at their foot. They generated the electricity that drove the railroads and factories in the area after 1885.
In 1829, Ruggles Wright designed and erected the first timber slide at the Chaudière, by cutting a canal on the Hull shore from above the falls to a point on the river below the falls. The canal, which created “Wright Island,” allowed floated timber to bypass the falls undamaged.
Hot ashes thrown into dry grass in the early afternoon of August 10, 1921, are said to have ignited the fire which started beside Holt’s livery stables, located on the south side of Main Street, just east of Bancroft.
Summering in the Gatineau has been a pastime for more than a century although, sadly, there is no known record of the first cottage that was built in the valley.
