Gatineau Park Chronicle

The Gatineau Park Chronicle ~ Page 1

The Axe Before the Plow

It is a well-known fact that, for morethan 150 years, economic developmentin Canada’s Capital Region was basedprimarily on the harvesting of trees.Local place names are a constantreminder of this industry’s importanceto the region’s history. Names such asWright (Philemon, Alonzo, Tiberius andothers), Maclaren, Bronson, Sparks,Eddy, Booth, Edwards, Leamy,McMillan,Egan, Low, Hamilton, Hurdman, Crossand Papineau remind us of the entrepre-neurs who profited the most from thisactivity. Other names, much fewer innumber — such as draveurs, portageurs,Joe-Montferrand and allumettières,Martineau and Ryan — recall the tens ofthousands of anonymous workers andsmall manufacturers from far and widewho worked in the logging camps, on thetimber rafts, in the sawmills or the vari-ous manufacturing plants establishedon both sides of the Ottawa River.

From the beginning of the colony in1800, the wood from the surroundingforests was used first to build houses andother infrastructure required for thepioneers’ settlement. Wood was alsoessential for making tools and furniture,heating and cooking. However, theamounts harvested for these uses barelymade a dent in the region’s abundantforest resources. Entrepreneurs soonconsidered exporting lumber to reapadditional profits.

It was in 1806 that Philemon Wright, theleader of the first group of Ottawa Valley

settlers, began efforts to find markets forthewoodharvested in the region.Thiswasthe year that the first timber raft floateddown the approximately 500 kilometresof rivers from Wright’s settlement to theexport port of Québec. It was the begin-ning of an adventure that would producecolossal fortunes — but also unimagin-able misery — and, somewhere betweenthese two extremes, it also provided alivelihood for an entire population.

AMarket forWood

The great abundance of this naturalresource does not adequately explain thefervour with which this industry waspursued and the important role it wouldhave in the country’s development. In

addition to the shortage of productivefarmland, which forced settlers to diver-sify their activities, factors beyond thecolony’s borders drove this push forlumber. American independence and,above all, the Napoleonic wars that ragedacross Europe in the early 19th century— as well as the blockade imposedagainst Great Britain, which cut it offfrom its Baltic markets — promptedEngland to draw on the resources ofits North American colonies. The oaks,red pines, eastern white pines and greatspruces of the Ottawa Valley were cut,squared and shipped to the British Islesto build the ships of the Royal Navy,the very navy that would help todefeat Napoleon and establish the powerof the British Empire for more thana century.

From the mid-19th century onward, andparticularly after 1854, the year that theReciprocity Treaty between Great Britainand the United States was signed, ourneighbours to the south represented anincreasingly important market forCanadian timber. This period alsomarked the start of the decline inexports of squared timber — squaringtimber was an extremely wastefulprocess that left an enormous quantityof unused wood debris in the forest. Theera of sawn timber began when thegovernment of the united Province ofCanada made efforts to regulate andearn some revenue from this industry.

Rapid urbanization in the United Statesfed voraciously on Canada’s forests. Thepopulation of Chicago, for example,increased from 400 inhabitants in 1833to nearly 300,000 in 1870 — a mush-room city, built entirely of wood! Whensome 18,000 buildings burned inChicago’s great fire of 1871, it is mostlikely that wood from tens of thousandsof Ottawa Valley trees went up in smoke.New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,Cleveland and Detroit also grew at asimilarly fast pace.

The Forests and the Trees

It is well established where the trees weregoing, but where did they come from?According to a number of historians whohave studied the history of the regionand the Ottawa Valley lumber industry,while the two sides of the river wereexploited equally, the Wrights and other

T he National Capital Commission (NCC), in collaboration with theFriends of Gatineau Park, presents the second issue of The Gatineau

Park Chronicle, a periodical aimed at increasing awareness of the park’shistory and cultural heritage. The first issue, published in 2007, focusedon the circumstances surrounding the creation of Gatineau Park. In thisissue, the authors paint a picture of the park’s industrial past.

For centuries, the Gatineau Hills were part of the Algonquin lands, andthese people drew from the land what they needed to survive.During the

French regime,the region’s fur-bearing animalswere the focus for trappers,coureurs de bois and merchants. The 19th century saw the area open upto colonization, and the population grew rapidly. The region wasexplored, drilled and exploited for the riches it contained, and entrepre-neurs made use of its forests, water power and even its undergroundresources.

In bygone days, Gatineau Park was part of the scene of Canada’s industrialrevolution. Today, it has become the Capital’s conservation park.

Gatineau Hills Forest Industry1800 to 1938 | Myth or Reality?

by Denis Messier

Introduction

Five men and a tractor, 1920

c h ro n i c l eT h e G at i n e au pa r k

Fall 2009 canadascapital.gc.ca

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Page 2 ~ The Gatineau Park Chronicle

entrepreneurs had, at first, concentratedon the forests on the shores of the RideauRiver and the banks of the Ottawa Riveron the Upper Canada (Ontario) side,before turning to the north shore.

It appears that, except in Hull, it was notuntil the late 1820s, when constructionbegan on the Rideau Canal, that the forestindustry really began on the north sideof the Ottawa River. This activity hadstarted a little earlier, further east, in thePetite Nation and Hawkesbury regions.Beginning around 1830, the GatineauValley became the scene of intenselogging activity. TheWright family bene-fited from its ideal location in Wright’sTown to take control of the valley’simmense wealth.For more than 10 years,theWrights, allied with George Hamiltonof Hawkesbury, exercised a near monop-oly over the entire GatineauValley. In lessthan five years, logging activities extendedas far as Maniwaki,which also illustratesthat the 19th century processes for cuttingand transporting wood kept the industryconfined to the areas along major water-ways. The further the operations wereaway from these rivers, the less profitablethe business became.

Harvesting the Hills?

Asa Meech was the first colonist to settlein the area now known as Gatineau Park.Like many of his contemporaries, hecame from the United States. In 1821,when he began clearing his lot, it wasmainly for farming. Around him, in thehills, the population grew very slowly.Only a few dozen farmers settled aroundMeech, Kingsmere and Mousseau(Harrington) lakes, attempting toscratch enough from the rocky soil tofeed their families. The names of thesesettlers were Dunlop, Murphy, Mulvihill,Daly, Healey, Carroll, Lacharité, Sheehan,Jeff, Mousseau, Harrington, Lauriaultand Barnes. Among them wereAmericans,a number of Irish immigrantsfleeing the impoverished conditions oftheir country and a few FrenchCanadians, driven from the St. LawrenceValley by overpopulation of the land.

But what about the lumber industry inthe hills that today form Gatineau Park?Were trees from these hills on the timberraft of 1806? Had this area ever seen any

logging? It appears that the very natureof the industry, the geomorphology ofthe region, and the wood-cutting andtransportation methods of the eraprovide as many possible answers as thevery few official documents themselves.

Because the limits of timber concessionswere ill defined, and often practicallyignored by developers, it is difficult toverify whether or not the Gatineau Hillswere part of the lumber industry.However, the cutting and transportationmethods used in the 19th century keptlogging teams within a relatively narrowstrip of land which, under ideal circum-stances, never exceeded 10 kilometresand generally remained less than fivekilometres from a waterway. It should beremembered that cutting took placeduring the winter and that the felled,trimmed and squared trees were oftennearly eight metres long and almost a

metre in diameter. These logs were thenmounted on sleds and hauled closer tothe waterways by teams of horses overroads that had previously been wateredand frozen to facilitate the movementof sleds. The steep slope of the hillspresented challenges and certain dangersfor the workers. Since forest resourceswere in abundant supply along theGatineau River and its tributaries, entre-preneurs preferred to avoid venturinginto the higher hills, and concentratedthe work of the loggers on the more

productive adjoining lands. In what isnow Gatineau Park, because of proximityto the water, only the areas around theMeech Creek Valley and the shores ofLa Pêche Lake and the La Pêche Riverwere exploited, according to this model.

While the great logging industryappeared to come to a halt at the foot ofthe hills, this does not mean that theforests covering the hills were free fromcutting. Many pioneers and small entre-preneurs also profited from these nearbyresources,but on a cottage industry scaleand substantially later in the process. Tounderstand the difficulty of this activity,one needs only to imagine the settlers atwork, alone or accompanied by theirsons when they were old enough,equipped with a basic axe or two-handedsaw, struggling through the deep snow.They had to reach the trees they hadselected, cut them down, trim them andhoist them onto a sled, or attach a chainto them and pull them to the closestwaterway or directly to the sawmill. It isnot surprising to hear the saying that, onthe farms, before the invention of thechainsaw in 1933 and its widespread useafter the Second World War, the forestsgrew more quickly than the time it tookto cut them down. However, despite theamount of hard work involved, most ofthe great evergreen trees that were access-ible had been harvested by the end of thecentury.

A few decades later, according to theinterim report of a 1935 study orderedby the Federal District Commission(predecessor of the National CapitalCommission), and conducted by the

Forestry Service of the federalDepartment of the Interior, much of thearea located between Chemin de laMontagne, Chemin de la Mine and thenorthwestern part of Meech Lake hadbeen exploited during the 19th century.Most of the great eastern white pines, redpines and oaks had been felled.To supporttheir observations, the report’s authorsstated, for example, that most of the skitrails used by the Ottawa Ski Club sincethe early 1920s were former loggingroads, some of which had been put back

in service, to the great displeasure of theclub’s members.

At that time, it was the deciduous forests— maple, oak, birch, beech and ash —that were selected for sale on the marketin Hull and Ottawa as firewood. TheGreat Depression, which lasted for morethan six years, increased the demand forthis fuel — much less costly than coaland oil, which those who were unem-ployed could no longer afford.

And yet, in 1935, even considering thefelling of trees for firewood,as well as theclearing that took place to develop roads,establish farms, and build houses andother infrastructure, and including thearea occupied by lakes, still nearly 80percent of the Gatineau Hills territorywas covered with trees. Although thereport pointed out that logging activitywas intensifying in the hills — as wasdramatically witnessed by the cottagersestablished around the lakes since theend of the 19th century — it was evidentthat forests still covered the greater partof the area studied. It seems that thealarm — raised very early on, very loudlyand in very high places by the mostinfluential cottagers — signalled thefast-approaching end of this industry inthe hills and hastened the decision in1938 to create Gatineau Park.

Of Mills and Men

Apart from the landscape itself, the lumberindustry left few visible traces inGatineau Park.Nor is theremuch evidenceof the sawmills that were erected on the

periphery of what is now GatineauPark. Most were constructed without aplan and there were few photographs ofthese structures.

The first known sawmill was built by theBrigham-Chamberlain family, close rela-tives of the Wrights, on Chelsea Creek, inthe late 1820s. Like the flour mill besideit, the sawmill was driven by water powerfromthecreek.Themill hadone,orperhapstwo, saws and remained in operationuntil the 1870s. The sawmill, which

Lumber pile at Paul Dufour’s sawmill, Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham, ca. 1930

The Dufour family, Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham

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supplied the local market, procured itswood from the first settlers who madetheir home at the foot of the hills betweenthe lakes and the river. It probably servedto produce the lumber used to build thefirst houses in the villages of Chelsea andOld Chelsea.Today,only the barn remainson the original site.The farmhouse,thoughtto be the oldest building in Chelsea, hasbeen moved and currently stands close towhat was once one of the region’s firstfarms, which is now the location of theGatineau ParkVisitor Centre.

Twenty-five kilometres further north,the Maclaren sawmill of Wakefield is alsoa well-known example of the use ofwater power to process rough timberinto lumber.This sawmill also supplied alocal market and employed only a fewworkers on a seasonal basis.

It appears that the first sawmills in theGatineau Valley were built to saw thehuge logs harvested during the earlyperiod of logging in the valley. Once thesupply of these trees dwindled, thesawmills rapidly became unprofitable,unable to withstand competition fromthe gigantic modern facilities run byentrepreneurs such as Gilmour, Booth orLeamy,which operated hundreds of sawsand annually produced thousands ofkilometres of boards or planks.

A few other sawmills were built in theearly 20th century. Once again, there isvery little written evidence of these facil-ities. A sawmill was built at MousseauLake by William Cameron Edwards, animportant industrialist who started hiscareer in Thurso, before making his for-tune in Ottawa in the lumber and financebusiness. The sawmill was in operationuntil a massive forest fire around 1915destroyed a large part of the Edwardsproperty.His nephew,Lieutenant ColonelCameron Macpherson Edwards, whoinherited his uncle’s properties in 1921,had the sawmill torn down and built asummer residence which, in 1950,became the official summer residence ofCanada’s prime minister.

In Volume 27 of Up the Gatineau!, thehistorical journal of the Gatineau ValleyHistorical Society, Chelsea resident EdRyan recalls that, in the 1930s, his fatherused a sawmill powered by a steamengine to cut logs into lumber on hisKingsmere property. Another sawmillalso operated at Mousseau Lake. Ryan

recalls that sawn timber was floatedto Meech Lake, some as far as what isnow O’Brien Beach. The wood wasretrieved from there in the springtimeand loaded onto wagons for transport tothe Chelsea station, where it was thenshipped by train.

The journal also mentions a mill ownedby Freeman Cross. A member of a largefamily that had been established in theGatineau Valley since the 19th century,Freeman Cross was a pioneer in the useof electrical energy in Canada. In theearly years of the 20th century, Crossbuilt a dam on Meech Creek to feed apower station that ran a sawmill and atoy factory at Farm Point in the MeechCreek Valley. Cross also used the creek tofloat logs harvested around Meech Lakedown to his Farm Point sawmill.

Further to the northwest, near the villageof Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham, at the edgeof what is now the Philippe Lake sectorof Gatineau Park, the Dufour familyoperated a sawmill and a grain mill onthe La Pêche River which, in the early20th century, provided work for dozensof members of this family and othervillagers. This sawmill, like that of the

Legros family established further down-river, was supplied by timber cut in thePhilippe Lake sector, and its productswere sold on the local market.

These sawmills are just a few examplesamong those that existed during thisperiod.A number of other sawmills were

in operation in the territory or on theperiphery of the current park. Like thosementioned here,most operated on waterpower, but some used oil, steam, coal oreven electrical power.

A Charcoal-Making Machine

In 1939, at the same time that GatineauPark was starting to take shape, and asthe approach of the Second World Warbegan to alleviate the effects of theDepression, logging operations increased,and new industrial facilities were estab-lished in the Gatineau Hills.

It was during this era that a charcoal kilnwas built on a forest road that ran alongMousseau Lake toward Philippe Lake, byThomas Gosselin, an entrepreneur fromMasham, and owner of the land. Thekiln,which was manufactured in the cityof Québec,measured approximately fourmetres high by two metres in diameterand weighed some 1,100 kilograms. Itwas made of cast iron and the interiorwas composed of an oven and a shortchimney. The kiln used scrap woodfrom a steam-powered sawmill, locatednearby.The Federal District Commissionacquired this land in 1948 and includedit as part of Gatineau Park. The sawmillwas demolished in 1949. The kiln, whichstill stands on trail 50 in Gatineau Park,is now one of the very few remnantsof the logging industry from thepark’s past.

From Cutting Trees toPreserving Forest

The creation of Gatineau Park in 1938did not put an abrupt end to wood cut-ting in the area. A number of farmerscontinued to harvest wood until the endof the Second World War. The actualcreation of the park was truly an industryin itself. In addition, the first budgetscommitted to establish the park wereallocated as part of a job creation pro-gram and measures intended to alleviatethe situation caused by the Depression.The construction of the parkway network,parking lots, picnic areas andcampgrounds also required the cuttingof thousands of trees and provided work

for many of the region’s loggers. Morerecently, the construction of the accessroad to the Mackenzie King Estate andthe opening of Boulevard desAllumettières in the park have alsomeant the felling of thousands of trees.However, in contrast with past events,this tree cutting has been offset by theplanting of at least twice the number oftrees that were felled.

Gatineau Park was created from severalhundred parcels of land acquired by theFederal District Commission and theNational Capital Commission over aperiod of more than 70 years. Beforebecoming the Capital’s conservationpark, the area experienced close to150 years of more or less intensive use,exploitation and human occupation.Although big industry ignored the areato a certain extent, the former landownersput forth enormous effort and consider-able ingenuity to draw a profit from theforest resources that surrounded themand to compensate for the poor agricul-tural potential of the Gatineau Hills.Perhaps this article will help to preservethe memory of their contribution to theregion’s development.

The Legros sawmill, 1975

Trefflé Ménard and Pierre Mayer’s horses, Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham

Charcoal kiln, trail no. 50, Gatineau Park

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A trail extending Pine Road from itsjunction at the Cross Loop Road intoGatineau Park leads to the“Old Fox FarmRoad,” as some long-time residents stillcall it. Hikers and skiers will find no sign-age with its name, but a branch off trail50 leads to the acreage that ColonelCameron Macpherson Edwards selectedin the 1930s for a fox farm. Thissecluded area in what is now part ofGatineau Park was an ideal setting forthis enterprise.

Fur had been a staple of the earliest tradebetween Europe and NorthAmerica and,throughout the 18th and 19th centuries,trappers exploited the Canadian wilder-ness for a wide variety of animal pelts.Some trapper-farmers who caughtanimals in warm weather kept themalive until winter, when their fur wasprime. The next step was “fur-farming,”a new industry begun around 1890,breeding and raising some of the smallerfur-bearing animals.

In the mid-1930s, Harvey Doraty left hislaw firm in Saskatoon and moved toOttawa with the intention of opening alegal office. However, he met ColonelEdwards, of an influential old Ottawafamily, and decided on a different line ofbusiness. Both men had previouslyraised silver foxes, and Edwards wantedto go into fox farming on a larger scale.The result was a partnership, withEdwards providing financial backingand Doraty agreeing to be the manager.

Edwards had a property near HarringtonLake (Lac Mousseau),with an old home-stead building on it, which seemed idealfor this venture. An isolated, rural site isideal for a fox farm, for several reasons.During the breeding season and justafter the pups are born, foxes tend to beexceedingly sensitive to strange sights,

noises and smells, so a quiet location ispreferred. The animals also have a pun-gent odour, which any near neighbourswould likely find unpleasant. Foxes areomnivorous, but require a large propor-tion of meat in their diet, and farmers ina rural location are potential suppliers ofwaste meat.

The Avion Fur Farm on the Edwardsproperty took its name from the town ofAvion, near Vimy, where ColonelEdwards saw action as commandingofficer of the 38th Battalion of theCanadian Expeditionary Force in theFirst World War. Harvey Doraty, with theassistance of Bob O’Neil, a carpenterfrom Chelsea, renovated and enlargedthe old house, added a workshop, andinstalled rows of kennels for the foxes. InApril 1937, Harvey married Jean Parker,who recalled that, following the ceremony,she changed into her “going-away outfit”of jacket, ski pants and gum-rubberboots, after which the couple walked inrain and mud through the bush to theranch.They lived on the property, raisinga family of three children, while theymanaged the fox farm. Later, they addeda second house to provide housing fora family who worked for them.

Over the next 15 years, the Avion FurFarm took prizes at the fox shows inQuébec City, sold breeding stock toranchers from Nova Scotia to Alberta,and sold their best pelts to Holt, Renfrewand Company. The rest of the pelts wentto the Canadian National Silver FoxBreeders Association in Summerside,Prince Edward Island, to be sold at auc-tion. On one occasion, they received$2,400 for a breeding pair of foxes.

Sales had continued all during theSecond World War, but then fashionsbegan to change, and long-haired furs

were no longer in demand. Some breed-ers went into raising mink, and theDoratys made a start in that direction.However, the creation of Gatineau Parkchanged their plans.The Colonel sold theproperty to the federal government, andthe Doratys knew that any future plansfor fur farming would have to end within10 years. They decided to leave, and dis-posed of the stock and equipment in1952. For Christmas that year, their laston the farm, Jean received a fox fur boa,her only fur memento of that period intheir lives. They left the property early in1953, and moved to Stittsville, Ontario.Harvey had not qualified to practise lawin Ontario, but made use of his legalexpertise as a notary public, as well asworking as an insurance adjuster for anOttawa firm. Jean taught school for a

short time, and then worked onthe annual Canada Year Book forStatistics Canada.

In 1985, members of the Doraty familyrevisited the site of their fur farm, andfound a road running though what hadbeen their backyard, although theirspruce hedge and the maple bushremained. Few traces are left of the oldfox farm, as tall pines have overgrownmuch of the area that was once cleared,and the old road is now closed off as partof the access to the prime minister ofCanada’s summer residence. This spe-cialized industry, which took advantageof the quiet and secluded environmentof Gatineau Park, has gone, leaving littletrace of its former existence withinthe park.

The same geology that makes GatineauPark a stunning panorama, from theEardley Escarpment to the rolling land-scape of the Meech Creek Valley, alsomade the area attractive to miners in the19th and early 20th centuries. There is acertain romance in mines named “Eva”or “Pink,” and their ruins and tailingscan be spotted underneath the denseunderbrush which has, for the most part,reclaimed them. The names recall someof the earliest landowners and entrepre-neurs: Forsythe, Baldwin, Lawless, Pink,Morris, Headley, Eva, Fortin-Gravelle,Laurentide, Wallingford, Cliff, Fleury,Chaput-Payne and McCloskey.

The most commonly mined mineral wasmica. In the 19th century, mica wasvaluable for its use as a heatproof win-dow material and, later, as an electricalinsulator. Mica mined in the park wastransported to Hull, where it was cut andprocessed. However, only a few of themore than 14 known mines in the parkwere actually exploited on what can beconsidered an industrial scale. Many

were little more than surface scratchingsby farmers looking to create anothersource of income. The Fleury mine,opened in 1898 by M.C. Brown ofCantley, was one of the larger mica oper-ations. Twenty tons (18 metric tons)of mica were removed from two pits over30 feet (9 metres) deep; one crystal ofmica was removed from this mine thatreportedly weighedmore than 500 pounds(about 227 kilograms).

Today, the most easily accessed micamine in the area is the Pink Lake MicaMine. This mine was first prospected bythe Kent Brothers of Kingston in 1903.By 1904, the mine was producing mica,which was being shipped along theRideau Canal to Kingston, where it wascut and readied for market. This mineconsists mostly of surface cuts, mostof which were opened (using steam-powered machinery) by 1905. By themid-1910s, the mine had closed down,only to be reopened by the Pink’s LakeMining Company at the end of 1945.This company even ran a tunnel from

The Old Fox Farmin Gatineau Park

by Carol Martin

The Mines ofGatineau Park

by Dr. Shawn Graham

Pair of foxes, Avion Fur Farm

The Moss Mine, during the Second World War

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the edge of the lake to the earlier surfacepits, but this was the last gasp for themine. It was closed by 1946, all theequipment was removed, and now only akeen eye can spot the earlier diggings.

In terms of economic value, the moreimportant and longest-lived mines in thepark were the iron mines in the PinkLake sector, and the Moss Mine in theOnslow/La Pêche Lake area.

The Iron of Gatineau Park

The discovery of iron in the GatineauHills is connected with the first surveysand settlement of the area. In 1801, JohnMacTaggart, who was surveying the areafor Philemon Wright, noticed the needlein his compass swinging wildly about ashe traversed a certain portion of lot11 range 7, in what was later known asWest Hull Township. The reason, ofcourse, was that the high iron content inthe rock was interfering with the Earth’smagnetic field. MacTaggart and Wrightwere not able to exploit this discoveryuntil 1826, when they formed the HullMining Company, and dispatched acolonist to occupy the lot. This was littlemore than a claim-staking exercise, andthe mining that did take place was smallscale at that time. Tiberius Wright soldthe rights to this Hull Iron Mine toForsyth and Company of Pennsylvaniain 1854 (thus renaming the mine as theForsyth Mine).The ore was of such qual-ity that the company exhibited a ton ofore from this mine at the 1855 ParisInternational Exposition. Productionincreased dramatically. Between 1854and 1860, about 15,000 tons (13,600metric tons) were shipped, and 13 menworked at the mine.Ore was taken out ofthe hillside (near where the modernhydroelectricpylons cross through theparkfrom Hull to Aylmer) to the little villageof Ironside, where it was loaded ontobarges for the journey along the RideauCanal toKingston.InKingston,the orewastransshipped onto lakers, which trans-ported it to Cleveland and the iron mills.

A fire in 1870 destroyed the village ofIronside and the infrastructure there forpreprocessing the ore. At this time,

Alanson Baldwin purchased the mine, aswell as some neighbouring propertieswhich also had promise for iron mining.The Baldwin mine produced roughly3,000 tons (2,721 metric tons) of oreduring the 1870s.Various legal difficultiesbeset Baldwin, and the ownership of thevarious mines in the area (the Forsyth,the Baldwin, and the Lawless) passedthrough a succession of hands over thenext 50 years. Production continued,intermittently, during that time too, butnever again at the same pace or with thesame economic impact as during those20 years in the mid-19th century.

The Moss Mine: Biggestin theWorld!

In the far western corner of GatineauPark, there are several mine pits, under-ground tunnels, building foundationsand crumbling structures standing assilent witnesses to an important episodeof our industrial heritage. Nearly 100years ago, this area of North OnslowTownship was the epicentre for one ofthe biggest mines of its type in theworld. Well over 100 men worked andtoiled in the pits of the WoodMolybdenite Mine, with their familiesliving above the underground shafts. At

the time, the mining camp was one of thelargest towns west of Aylmer. There wereover 40 buildings, and more than 300people living at the mine site during theFirstWorldWar, the mine’s greatest periodof prosperity.

Molybdenite comes from the Greek wordmeaning “lead.” Indeed, the first ownerof the land thought that he had foundlead while target shooting at cans on anoutcrop of rock behind the family farm.The odd stray bullet would chip flakesoff the rock. Examining these chips, theowner noticed a bluish coloured metal.Anearby mine on the Ontario side of theOttawa River was mining lead, so hethought he might have found a leaddeposit. The chips were sent to theDominion government for testing, andwere found to contain 15 percent molyb-denum disulfide (MoS2). The men fromthe Galetta mine tried to stake a claim,but discovered that the farmer had the

mineral rights. Negotiations ensued, andsoon a new company was formed.HenryWood of Denver, Colorado, a pioneer indeveloping economical ways of extractingmolybdenum from ore (achieving 80percent efficiency), was brought in todevelop this mine site. It was soon pro-ducing at full capacity.Molybdenite has ahigh melting temperature, so it was usedin alloys with steel to strengthen arma-ments. The miners processed 150 tons(136 metric tons) of ore daily. Over thelifetime of the mine, nearly 250,000 tons(226,795 metric tons) of ore were milled,1,000,000 pounds (453,600 kilograms)of concentrates were created, and 25,000tons (22,680 metric tons) of waste rockwere mined. All of this was transportedby horse power to the PPJ Railroad,several kilometres to the south.

The value of molybdenum during theFirst World War was over $2,000/ton,and the mine earned back the cost ofopening it within the first few months.With the worldwide depression follow-ing the end of the war, the price for thecommodity dropped, and the mineclosed. The mine changed hands — andnames — several times over the next 20years. It was reopened with a skeletonstaff during the boom times of the1920s, but closed with the onset of the

Great Depression.The SecondWorldWarsaw a resumption of production at nearlythe same level of intensity as during theprevious war. However, once the UnitedStates joined the war effort in 1942,cheaper sources of molybdenum couldbe exploited via open-pit mining, andthe mine in Onslow closed down.

The mine was never known officially asthe “Moss Mine,” but perhaps the originof that name comes from the processionof crates of mineral, drawn by horsesdown the long road to the train station,each one with the chemical formula“MoS2” written on it. Even as recently asthe 1960s, there still stood some struc-tures on the site but, after the mine wasclosed, most of the buildings were soldand dismantled (much of modernQuyon’s building stock has its origins inthe mine buildings), the equipment wasshipped away, and the forest was allowedto reclaim the site. The ruins stand in

mute testimony to the men who workedin the deeps,making their own contribu-tions to the Allied war effort with everyswing of the hammer.

Moonshine and theMoss Mine

The SecondWorldWar touched everyone— in countless ways.On the home front,a daily reminder was the need forrationing. Ration books containedcoupons for a variety of daily goods.Oneof thesewas alcohol; it was not unheard-offor teetotallers to sell their alcoholcoupons on the black market, or tradethem for other goods. Some workers atthe mine had other ways of meeting thisdemand for alcohol.

Every mine needed a chemist to test theore and, during the war, some enterpris-ing workers drew the chemist into ascheme to distill alcohol in a secureroom in the laboratory. They colouredthe alcohol with tea and flavoured it withessences that could be had from theration books. The alcohol was strictly forthe coterie’s private consumption, asthere would be enormous trouble withthe police if the alcohol was sold.Nevertheless, word got around and soon

“the Provincials”were in the area, askingif any bootleggerswere about.They visitedthe mine, and were directed to speak to aman who “knew a thing or two” aboutlife in the area. He in turn directed themto an old man, whom they questionedas follows.

“Who is making the moonshine around

here?” they asked.

“What’s it worth t’ye?” said he.

“Ten dollars.” (A good sum in those days!)

“Give it t’me and I’ll tell ye alright,”

said the old man.

They gave him the money, and the

old man said,

“God makes the moon shine, and

I’ll give ye a tip: He makes the sun

shine too!”

(Story recounted by Edward Mulligan in theShawville Equity, December 10, 1986.)



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Who wouldn’t be impressed by the sightof this stately building of stone, woodand brick on the shore of the La PêcheRiver near the beautiful village ofWakefield? Situated at the northeasternend of Gatineau Park, this building is thelast remaining vestige of the large indus-trial complex formerly located at thissite. It all began around 1838 with theconstruction of a gristmill by WilliamFairbairn, followed by the expansion ofthe site with the addition of other indus-trial buildings erected by the Maclarens.

William Fairbairn was born in Scotlandin 1790. His father sent him toManchester to learn the trade of mill-wright. He married, left for Canada in1817 and finally settled in the newlyestablished village of Wakefield in 1834.In 1838, he sent a petition to theGovernor of Lower Canada and UpperCanada seeking permission to erect agristmill on the La Pêche River at astrategic point situated near the conflu-ence of the La Pêche and Gatineau rivers,at the site of a 10-metre falls. The three-and-a-half-storey stone structure wasbuilt in the Georgian style. The mill mayhave begun operating in 1838. The millwas not a large-scale business operation;its purpose was to produce flour for thelocal market. In 1844,William Fairbairnsold the mill to fellow Scots, brothersJames and John Maclaren, for 300 pounds.

According to the 1851 census, the millhad three employees at that time, includ-ing a head miller. The 1861 censusreveals that the Maclaren brothers wereoperating an oat mill, which was likelypart of the flour mill. Two employeesoversaw the operation of the oat mill,and one additional employee worked atthe flour mill. As of 1861, the Maclarensfurther expanded their business activitieswith the construction of a woollen milland a brick-making plant. John Maclarenlived inWakefield and managed the village

business, James Maclaren and Company.Upon the death of James Maclaren in1892, his son Alexander took over themanagement of the company’s industrialbuildings in Wakefield.

On June 25, 1877, a fire destroyed theflour and woollen mills. Both buildingswere rebuilt. Between 1897 and 1908, themill was enlarged, and rollers replacedthe old millstones. At the time, the millhad four separators and six sets of doublerollers. The tool shed, as well as the shedhousing the control equipment, nowadjoined the flour mill. This mill wasable to produce fine,white flour of betterquality.During the same period, a gener-ator coupled with turbines producedelectricity to light the various buildingsand even the Maclarens’ general store inthe village a few dozen metres below.

A second fire ravaged the industrial sitein 1910, this time destroying all thebuildings, warehouses and sheds, as wellas the employee housing. Only the flourmill was rebuilt and enlarged, doublingits production capacity. This buildingcan still be admired today: it has beenconverted into a four-star hotel and spa,serving visitors to Gatineau Park.

Alexander Maclaren died in 1939, andthe mill was sold a few years later to J. P.Henderson.He converted part of the millinto apartments. In the 1950s,Henderson rented the building to broth-ers Kenneth and Ernest Young, whobegan producing feed. Finally, in 1962,the National Capital Commission boughtthe mill and allowed the Young brothersto work there until their retirementin 1980.

The Sawmill

At its peak of development, theWakefieldindustrial complex included a sawmill in

addition to the gristmill and woollenmill. Little information is availableconcerning its history, its activities orits demise.

After brothers James and John Maclarenpurchased the gristmill from WilliamFairbairn in 1844, they built a sawmill onthe left bank of the La Pêche River, facingthe gristmill. The building was situatedeither next to it or just above the dam onthe river. The exact date when thesawmill was built is unknown, sometimebetween the late 1840s and early 1850s.It is even possible that the sawmill wasonce destroyed by a fire which occurreda few years after its construction. An1897 fire insurance policy indicates thatthe building had one-and-a-half storeysat that time.As they had done when pur-chasing the mill, the Maclaren brothersborrowed the necessary funds from theirfather, David Maclaren.

According to the 1861 census, twoemployees worked at the sawmill. Withincome from the sawmill, John andJames were able to expand their activi-ties and, after 1861, built a woollen milland a brick kiln. James Maclaren wasparticularly interested in the lumberindustry,as hewas involved in purchasingwood to supply the Wakefield sawmill. Itis most likely that the Maclaren sawmillin Wakefield remained a small businessmeeting local demand. In the 1850s,James Maclaren relied on other, muchlarger sawmills to meet the increasingdemand of the larger markets for con-struction lumber.

By 1908, that is, before the terrible fire of1910 that would reduce the variousbuildings of the industrial complex tocinders, the sawmill was no longer on theWakefield insurance policy. The buildingtherefore disappeared sometimebetween 1897 and 1908. This sawmilloperation represented only a tiny source

The Wakefield Millby Fabian Mugny

The Wakefield Mill

of income within the Maclaren com-pany’s commercial empire.

TheWoollen Mill

The woollen mill was built between thelate 1850s and early 1860s. Expandingtheir business by establishing this newindustry seemed the next logical step forbrothers James and John Maclaren, whohad already owned the gristmill inthe little community of Wakefieldsince 1844.

In 1877, the woollen mill was destroyedby fire,but was later rebuilt.This businessproduced bolts of fabric used for makingsuits and blankets. Residents of theregion could purchase the fabric in theMaclarens’ general store in Wakefield, orplace an order to have suits made by thetailor employed at the store.

Each of the activities at the woollen milloccupied a different floor of the building:weaving, on the ground floor; wool card-ing equipment, on the first floor andspinning, on the second. At the turnof the 20th century, the dye house wasconnected directly to the spinning mill.Water power drove the various loomsand spinning machines. Around 1907,electricity began to be used for lightingthe building. At that time, the millemployed approximately 25 people,mainly women.

During a second fire, on May 18, 1910,all of the buildings that made up theindustrial complex were destroyed. Thefire began in the spinning mill, and waslikely started by a match or perhaps anail falling into the batting machine,which operated at 5,000 revolutions perminute. The fire spread very rapidlybecause of the oil-saturated wool, firstinside the building and then throughoutthe entire Maclaren industrial complex,destroying the gristmill, sheds and ware-houses, along with the employee housinglocated a few metres below the spinningmill along the La Pêche River. The totalamount of damages was estimated at$50,000 to $60,000.

The spinning mill was never rebuilt,putting 30 people,mainly female workers,out of work. It is not hard to imagine theconsequences of the loss of so many jobsfor a small village such as Wakefield.

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Whether you walk, cycle, snowshoe orski, exploring Gatineau Park is an experi-ence that never fails to thrust the visitordeep into a peaceful, thought-provokingnatural panorama. On occasion, at abend in the trail, visitors may stumbleupon a building, object or facility thatpiques their curiosity because of itsunusual shape or seemingly strangelocation.

This is true of the Carbide Willson ruins.Located on Meech Creek, only metresfrom“Little Meech Lake”at the source ofthe creek, these ruins bear witness to theindustrial past of the Gatineau Hills.They are what remain of the dreams ofone of Canada’s most energetic and pro-lific early 20th century inventors andindustrialists, Thomas Leopold Willson.

Farm Boy to Industrial Baron

Thomas L. Willson was born in 1860 athis father’s farm in Princeton, Ontario. Itwas in Hamilton, an important steeltown, that he attended secondary schooland apprenticed with a local blacksmith.At a very early age, he demonstrated anuncommon scientific ingenuity andcuriosity that prompted him to develop ahost of industrial processes, for which heobtained more than 70 patents inCanada and the United States.

However,Willson is most famous for hisdiscovery of a process to produce cal-cium carbide through carbon electrolysis.In 1895, when he was only 35 years old,Willson helped found a company thatlater became the multinational corpora-tion Union Carbide.

ChangingWater Into Light

One of the chief calcium carbide applica-tions that Thomas Willson succeeded indeveloping involved the affordable pro-duction of acetylene, a gas that, whenburned, emits an extremely bright light,and that, at the time, was highly prizedfor domestic and industrial lighting,prior to a massive shift to electricity. Toproduce this gas,Willson simply broughtcalcium carbide pellets into contact withwater. Cities, trains, factories and evenwaterways were soon lit with acetyleneproduced by this process.

A Prominent Ottawa CitizenMoves to the Gatineau Hills

In 1901, it was a prosperous ThomasWillson who moved into a house onMetcalfe Street in Ottawa — close to theseat of federal political power, and at theheart of a major industrial and financial

centre, not far from Chaudières Falls, apowerful and inexhaustible supply ofhydroelectric energy. Soon thereafter, hebuilt a calcium carbide plant on VictoriaIsland to supply the central Canadianmarket.

In 1905, like many prominent citizensin the Capital, Thomas Willson lookedto the Gatineau Hills. He purchased a400-acre estate on the southeast shore ofMeech Lake, where he built his summerresidence in 1907.

The Willson House is located on apromontory overlooking Meech Lake. Itis built in the Queen Anne Revival style,a style of architecture that was commonin Britain in the late 19th century.Situated on the highest point of the cliffon the lake, the house is constructed ofmaterials native to the region, the pinkgranite and timber having come from thesite itself. The house’s rustic appearanceblends perfectly with its environment.

The two-and-a-half-storey house has11 bedrooms and seven fireplaces withfour chimneys. It is surrounded by severaloutbuildings — including a garage,employee quarters, a chapel and an air-craft hangar — built on an estate ofmore than 180 hectares of rolling,woodedlandscape. The property is accessedthrough a massive gate of wrought ironand cut pink granite, leading to a broadwinding laneway, lined with electriclampposts, also made of cut stone.

The Industrial RevolutionComes to the Gatineau Hills

Thomas Willson’s scientific interestswere not confined to calcium carbideand acetylene production. He was alsopassionate about hydroelectricity, theemerging pulp and paper industry,improving the telephone, and auto-mobiles. In fact, he was the first Ottawaresident to own a car. He built factories

from St. Catharines, Ontario, toShawinigan, Quebec. He travelled to theSaguenay, where he recognized theregion’s vast hydroelectric potential. Hepurchased immense forest properties, towhich he hoped to attract hydroelectricand pulp and paper companies.

In 1905, he built a highly sophisticatedlaboratory in the basement of hisMetcalfe Street residence in Ottawa.There, he conducted a multitude ofexperiments prior to focusing on thedevelopment of superphosphate-basedchemical fertilizer. Despite its sophisti-cation, the Metcalfe Street laboratory didnot allow him to produce sufficient vol-umes of the fertilizer to demonstrate theprofitability of this enterprise. He there-fore turned to his Meech Lake propertyto provide facilities suited to his projects.

In 1911, Willson erected a dam andexperimental electrical station at thesource of Meech Creek. His project ser-iously angered waterfront cottagers, whosaw water levels rise nearly two metresand some of their buildings disappearbeneath the surface of the water.Willson’s popularity declined sharply;however, the grumblings failed to deterthe inventor from his projects. The elec-trical station provided enough power tosupply an impressive phosphoric acidcondenser, the first of its kind in theworld.

These facilities, still in the experimentalstage, required huge capital investment,funds that Willson also needed badly forhis projects in the Saguenay.Nevertheless,he opted to put everything into phos-phate production, mortgaging all of hisassets.Unable to repay his debts,Willsonwas plunged into bankruptcy, losing allof his properties along with the rights toall of his patents. He spent the last twoyears of his life striving to rebuild a busi-ness in Newfoundland. Thomas Willsondied in New York in 1915 after sufferinga heart attack.

A Unique Role for the Manor

A few years after Thomas Willson’sdeath, the property was sold toArchibaldJ. Freiman, a prosperous Ottawa busi-nessman. Born in Lithuania, Freimanran a large department store on RideauStreet in Ottawa. He lived in the formerWillson home from 1923 until just beforethe Second World War, in 1938.

From 1938 to 1979, the house was ownedby the family of Joseph Gilhouly, anOttawa dentist. In 1979, the NationalCapital Commission acquired the prop-erty and integrated it into Gatineau Park.The building was unoccupied for awhile,then renovated and converted into a gov-ernment conference centre. It was leasedto PublicWorks andGovernment ServicesCanada, which has managed the housesince then. The house is now a site forgovernment meetings and conferencesfor small groups of up to 30 people.

In April 1987, Willson House was thescene of one of the most famous federal–provincial conferences in Canadian history.It was in this house that the famous“Meech Lake Accord” was negotiated,marking a significant point in the consti-tutional history of Canada.

If Thomas Willson had decided to settleinOttawa to be closer to the seat of politicalpower, he most certainly never imaginedthat it would one day come to his ownhouse in the heart of the Gatineau Hills.

Willson’s Legacy

Today,theWillson estate is protectedby theFederal Heritage Buildings ReviewOffice,which has evaluated the estate’s build-ings as“classified”— the highest level ofheritage recognition. This recognition isjustified by the quality of architecture,the historical integrity of the buildingsand the national significance of ThomasLeopold Willson.

By contrast, the Meech Lake industrialfacilities are in ruin, a reflection ofThomas “Carbide” Willson’s shattereddreams. However, what remains speakseloquently of a dramatic period of eco-nomic development that brought Canadainto the western industrial revolution.The Gatineau Hills played a part in thisrevolution,as home to Thomas“Carbide”Willson, an inventor and industrialistwhose efforts and energy helped to laythe groundwork for the industrial core ofthe Canadian economy.

Modern Industry onthe Shores of Meech Lake

by Denis Messier

Carbide Willson’s acid condenser tower, dam, footbridge and generating station, July 13, 1917

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For more than a century, the WakefieldMill remained in the hands of theMaclaren family, who used it mainly toproduce flour. However, by the start ofthe Second World War, the mill wassold and partially dismantled. It laterchanged hands several times.

In the early 1960s, the National CapitalCommission (NCC),which had begun anextensive program to protect the heritageof Canada’s Capital Region, purchasedtheWakefield Mill to rescue it from demo-lition and maintain its vocation.The NCCcontinued to lease the mill to brothersKenneth and Ernest Young, who, since1950, had been operating a small manu-facturing plant that produced animal

feed. The mill ceased operations whenthe Youngs retired in 1980.

At that time, the NCC decided to restorea portion of the building, and convert itinto an interpretation centre about theindustrial history of this part of theGatineau Valley. In partnership with theGatineau Valley Historical Society, themill helped to recount nearly 150 years ofhistory in the region. The NCC evenmanaged to reinstate the building’s voca-tion as a gristmill, much to the delightof its visitors.

Since a considerable portion of themachinery and equipment had been dis-mantled, a model was commissioned to

demonstrate how the mill operated. TheNCC called upon one of its employees,Keith Rideout, an extremely talentedarchitectural technician, who built themodel of the Wakefield Mill that, fornearly 10 years, fascinated students andvisitors taking part in the interpretiveactivities.

The mill interpretation program con-cluded in 1990.Both the building and themodel remained in limbo for severalyears.A decade later, the venerable build-ing found a new vocation, when the NCCentered a public–private partnership torehabilitate the Wakefield gristmill. Thebuilding underwent a major transforma-tion. The structure that had witnessedmore than a century and a half of theindustrial history of the Gatineau Hillsand Gatineau Valley stepped firmly intothe age of leisure. The mill became aninn,which very quickly gained an enviablereputation among high-quality accom-modations facilities.

The model remained in storage andgradually deteriorated.However, in 2008,in cooperation with the Friends ofGatineau Park and the operators of theWakefield Mill Inn and Spa, a fundrais-ing campaign was organized to help theNCC finance the restoration of themodel. Once again, the NCC called uponKeith Rideout, the same employee whohad built the mill model nearly 30 years

before. Rideout performed the delicateprocess of cleaning, repairing andrebuilding the reproductions of the land-scape design around the building model.The water supply mechanism — whichhad so well illustrated how the mill oper-ated on water power — was removed,since the moisture it produced hadcaused the model to deteriorate. Afterseveral months of detailed work, themodel was returned to Gatineau Park,renewed, resized and adapted to theneeds of various types of users. Formany years to come, it will reflect a pageof history of the Gatineau Hills andGatineau Valley.

The Wakefield Mill: Interpreting theIndustrial History of Gatineau Park

by Denis Messier

For more informationabout Gatineau Park,

visitcanadascapital.gc.ca .

Model of the Wakefield Mill, as restored in 2008

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Model of the Wakefield Mill

W91-3/2-2009E-PDF 978-1-100-13972-2

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