The Buckingham Historical Society has recently published a revised version of its heritage walking tour of the town of Buckingham. The publication, a fold-out pamphlet,is complete with map and full-colour photographs and descriptions of all thirty-four of the heritage sites on the tour. Sites include churches, commercial and other public buildings, industrial buildings, and private residences.
Helen E. Parson (Text reprinted with permission from Up the Gatineau!, Vol. 3)
Philemon Wright and the group of settlers who accompanied him to Hull Township in 1800 intended to farm. Like early colonists in many parts of North America, they believed that once the trees were removed, the land would prove to be excellent for farming. Such hopes were unduly optimistic. Crop yields, satisfactory on freshly cleared fields, soon declined as essential soil nutrients were depleted. Wright surveyed the township into lots and came upon the edge of the Canadian Shield in the third range from the Ottawa River.
Ray and Diana Baillie (Text reprinted with permission from Imprints: Discovering the Face of English Quebec, 2001)
The workers were mostly French-speakers; the craftsmen included many Scandinavians skilled in log construction; and the architect was Harold Lawson. In 1930, they built here the largest log structure in the world.
Bruce Ballantyne (Text reprinted with permission from Up the Gatineau!, Vol. 24)
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.
Norma Geggie (Reprinted with permission from Wakefield Revisited, 2003)
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.
Donald D. Hogarth (Reprinted with permission from Up the Gatineau!, Vol. 24)
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.
Venetia Crawford & Gunda Lambton (Text reprinted with permission from **The Wildest Rivers, the Oldest Hills: Tales of the Gatineau and Pontiac, 1996)
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. “There were ten thousand men working on the Black and Coulonge rivers alone.
Norma Geggie (Text reprinted with permission from Wakefield Revisited, 2003)
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.
