Outaouais Heritage WebMagazine

What is heritage? Webster's defines it as "property that is or can be inherited; something handed down from one's ancestors or the past; a characteristic, culture, or tradition."

A VANISHING PAST

Roads
In 1846, a “group of inhabitants residing near the banks of the Gatineau river” sent a petition with 180 signatures to Quebec asking for assistance in the construction of a road going north from Hull for a distance of seventy-five miles (125 kilometres). The request specifically mentioned the need for a bridge over la Pêche River at Wakefield.

The life of settlers in the Gatineau and Pontiac cannot be imagined without the special dimension it gained from the life and lore of the shanties. At the height of the lumber industry – between 1870 and 1900 – there were dozens of camps run by large companies in both the Pontiac and upper Gatineau.

Recent articles by Archie Pennie and Carol Martin in Up the Gatineau! Volumes 21 and 23 have mentioned a connection between Franchot Tone and the Gatineau Fish and Game Club.To many of us old-film buffs, the face of Franchot Tone is a familiar one, but who was grandfather Franchot and what attracted him to Buckingham?The writer’s files on Outaouais mining provide some answers to these questions.

Possibly one of the first enterprises of the MacLaren family on acquiring land from [pioneer] Joseph Irwin was the establishment of a general store. This stood facing the Gatineau River, downstream from the [MacLaren] mill complex.

The rigours of travel in the nineteenth century, with poor or even nonexistent roads, dictated the very slow pace at which a traveller could complete the miles he or she needed to go.Distances of approximately three to five miles were all that these rugged souls could achieve either on foot or with horse and wagon before a stop was needed to rest the horse or the body.

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: