Neil Faulkner (Reprinted with permission from Up the Gatineau!, Vol. 23)
The Gatineau River has always been an important transportation route. It was well known to the Indigenous peoples of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence valleys and it was used extensively as a highway for seasonal travel. It was only in the early 1800s that permanent settlement occurred in the Gatineau Valley. Beginning with the American Philemon Wright’s settlement of Hull in 1800, colonization gradually extended north.
Diane Aldred (Text reprinted with permission from **The Aylmer Road - An Illustrated History / Le chemin d'Aylmer - une histoire illustrée)
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.
Janet McDiarmid (Reprinted with permission from Up the Gatineau!, Vol. 27)
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.
Ray and Diana Baillie (Text reprinted with permission from Imprints: Discovering the Face of English Quebec, 2001)
This is one of Chelsea’s four original hotels, all of which were operated by Irishmen in the late 19th century. Built c.1870, it was destroyed by fire in 1900 and rebuilt the next year. It was named for one of its original owners, Johnny Dunn, a former log driver. [Until recently, it was] still an operating hotel in this recreational area north of Hull.
Ray and Diana Baillie (Text reprinted with permission from Imprints: Discovering the Face of English Quebec, 2001)
Wakefield, set along a beautiful section of the Gatineau River, has become a getaway place for Ottawa M.P.s. This old house and work shed were built by Robert Earle, a prominent entrepreneur and builder in Wakefield, in the 1880s. Robert let his brother Arthur take over the house as the latter had a larger family.
Ray and Diana Baillie (Text reprinted with permission from Imprints: Discovering the Face of English Quebec, 2001)
The E. B. Eddy match factory was set up in 1851 on the site of Philemon Wright’s early settlement (circa 1800) called Wrightsville (Hull). Wright built a saw mill and a grist mill here, and was the first to construct a timber and lumber raft which would sail down the Ottawa River past Montreal to Quebec City.
In 1914, Portage-du-Fort suffered a disastrous fire. Many of the buildings that survived the conflagration were built of solid stone. Perhaps the most imposing of them is the Reid House, built in 1899 by Patrick Ratchford, a stonemason from Portage-du-Fort, for businessman George Emmerson Reid.
One of Wakefield’s most splendid Victorian landmarks is also a bed and breakfast. Now known as Les Trois Érables, the house was for many years referred to as the “Doctors” or the “Geggie” home, after two prominent local doctors who lived there in turn.
Ray and Diana Baillie (Text reprinted with permission from Imprints: Discovering the Face of English Quebec, 2001)
In the 18th century, Portage-du-Fort was well established as a fur-trading post. The unnavigable part of the Ottawa River here required a 12-kilometre portage.* This village became the commercial centre of the area with the coming of the steamboat. In 1914, a terrible fire destroyed 80% of the buildings in the village. The stone buildings, this one among them, survived.
