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Cultural Clues at Leamy
Lake
Almost 5,000 years ago, when
First Nations traders met to
exchange their goods at the
confluence of the Gatineau,
Rideau and Ottawa Rivers, only
the pine trees loomed in the
distance. Today, the towers,
spires, domes and monuments
of a nation's capital fill the
skyline, and the former wilderness
meeting place has been transformed
into an international, ultra-urban
centre. Kabeshinan, an
archeological excavation and
heritage tourism project of
the Algonguin First Nation Kitigan
Zibi Anishinabeg, the National
Capital Commission, and the
Canadian Museum of Civilization,
has provided a window on the
past in the heart of a modern
metropolis.
The urban dig site, located
in the city of Hull's Leamy
Lake Park, was once a traditional
meeting place and temporary
encampment of the Algonquin.
In the 17th century, it served
as a stopping place for European
fur traders and explorers, and
in the 19th century, anchored
one of the first agricultural
settlements on the Ottawa River.
Far and Wide: The research
potential of the 6,000 square
metre site was first discovered
in 1991, when a Quebec-based
archeologist found artifacts
buried in the sand along the
riverbank. Excavations have
uncovered pottery, tools, copper
and arrowheads, some as many
as 4,500 years old. The findings
suggest that visitors to Leamy
Lake were part of a sophisticated
network of trade that extended
to eastern Quebec and the western
tip of Lake Ontario.
Recent research at the Kabeshinan
site has focused on the sizes
and shapes of Algonquin dwellings,
and the identification of ruins
and artifacts related to the
Euro-Canadian era.
The Kitigan Zibi Anishimabeg
band, a partner in the Kabeshinan
heritage project, is located
130 kilometres north of Ottawa,
near the town of Maniwaki, Quebec.
The 2,400-member band celebrates
its Algonquin heritage each
June with the Kitigan Zibi Annual
Traditional Pow-Wow, and maintains
the Kitigan Zibi Cultural Education
and Display Centre, featuring
Algonquin artifacts, arts and
crafts, and a large selection
of historical photographs. |
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The Valley Irish
Ryan, Murphy, Muldoon. O'Brien, O'Grady, O'Hara,
Boyle, Fitzgerald, Callaghan. The names of
many Ottawa Valley families continue to reflect
an Irish heritage rooted in the immigration
waves of the early 19th century. Attracted
by the economic activities of canal-building,
agriculture and timbering, farmers and landless
tenants from the old-country counties of Cork,
Tipperary, Wicklow, Tyrone, Cavan and Fermangh
poured into the Upper Canadian wilderness.
Today, Irish influence is evident in the unique
"Ottawa Valley Style" that is attributed
to the singing, storytelling, fiddling and
step-dancing traditions of the area.
Of the 3 predominant cultural groups attracted
to the Ottawa Valley in the early 1800's
- the Scots, French-Canadians and Irish
- the Irish formed the majority. Many came
to perform the brutal and back-breaking
task of constructing the Rideau Canal, and
stayed on as farmers when the wage-paying
work was finished. By the mid-19th century,
more than half the population on the Ontario
side of the Ottawa River was of Irish origin;
in some localities, such as Carleton County,
Ontario and Pontiac County, on the Quebec
side, the figure climbed to an overwhelming
75%. The history of communities such as
Ontario's Carp, Renfrew and Fizroy Habour,
and Quebec's Shawville, Bristol and Quyon
is closely related to patterns of Ottawa
Valley Irish immigration.
Cultural observers have suggested that
today's distinctive Valley style is a consequence
of geographical and cultural isolation.
Irish immigration to the area came to an
end in the late 1880's, severing the area's
connection with evolving traditions in the
homeland. Like the English and Irish immigrants
of Newfoundland's isolated outports - whose
18th century culture was effectively frozen
in time - the Irish of the Ottawa Valley
remained largely unaffected by 20th century
home country influences. For many years,
old-time traditions persisted, gradually
blending with Scottish, French-Canadian
and other cultural influences to produce
a distinctive regional character.
Temiskaming Territory
The Ottawa River that sinks into the deep,
narrow waters of Lake Temiskaming (Lac Temisamingue),
about 400 kilometres northwest of the cities
of Ottawa/Hull, is vastly different than
the urbanized waterway that makes its way
past Canada's capital city. Its upper reaches
are characterized by the rugged shorelines,
steep banks and rocky outcroppings of classic
Canadian wilderness. Between Notre Dame-du-Nord
and Témiscaming, northwest of Mattawa,
Lake Temiskaming stretches 128 kilometres
from north to south, forming a natural dividing
line between the provinces of Ontario and
Quebec.
Temiskaming's communities - Témiscaming,
Fabre, and Ville-Marie on the Quebec shore,
and Cobalt, Haileybury and New Liskeard
in Ontario - have been shaped by the frontier
flavour of the Canadian hinterland's resource
economy:
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The
Peter Robinson Settlers
Thousands of Ottawa Valley families
can trace their heritage to
a group of 19th century Irish
immigrants who came to the area
as part of a British government
plan to alleviate widespread
Irish poverty. In 1823, Peter
Robinson, a Canadian-born veteran
of the War of 1812 and well-connected
Member of the Upper Canada Assembly,
was charged with the task of
bringing almost 200 Irish families
to the Bathurst District of
the Ottawa Valley. Most of the
emigrants were chosen from the
area north of the Blackwater
River in Cork County, with a
few hailing from Limerick, Tipperary,
Clare and Waterford. Only the
strongest were selected to receive
the government's grant of transatlantic
fare, land, shelter, tools and
food for the first several months.
Almost 500 people - Phelans,
Quinns, Sweenys, Barrys, Hennessys,
Keefes, Noonans and many more
- sailed to Upper Canada aboard
the Hebe and the Stakesby,
settling on farms in Lanark
and Carleton Counties and laying
the foundations for an era of
Irish immigration that would
last for several decades.
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• At Mission Point, just south of
Ville Marie, near the northern end
of the Lake, visitors can tour the Fort
Temiscamingue National Historic Site.
Costumed guides play the parts of Algonquin
and French fur traders, merchants and missionaries
who passed through the site of the former
Hudson's Bay Company outpost. On the Temiskaming
Pioneer Route (Route des Pionniers du
TÌmiscamingue), heritage sites such as La
Maison du Colon, Ville Marie's first
homestead, trace the settlement and development
of the eastern Temiskaming frontier.
• Far from the farmlands of southern
Ontario, the communities of New Liskeard
and Haileybury, at the northern tip
of Lake Temiskaming, serve as service centres
to a productive pocket of rich agricultural
land, known as the "Little Claybelt." In
an area dominated by mining and forestry,
the beef and dairy farms of northern Temiskaming
are both an economic and cultural anomaly.
The Haileybury Heritage Museum in
Haileybury commemorates the founding of
the town by Charles Farr in 1889, and the
Great Fire of 1922 that destroyed most of
its housing and infrastructure. Visitors
to the Museum may be surprised to find a
restored Toronto streetcar, one of 87 such
vehicles used as temporary shelter following
the disaster.
• Just west of Lake Temiskaming, below
Haileybury, the illustrious mining town
of Cobalt celebrates its boomtown
background at the Northern Ontario Mining
Museum, where the artifacts and memorabilia
of mining life are exhibited along with
the world's largest display of native silver.
Follow the Heritage Silver Trail
through some of Cobalt's most famous silver
mining sites, and find out how the lucky
swing of a prospector's hammer brought 12,000
people, 100 mines, an opera house and a
stock exchange to the Northern Ontario wilderness
of the early 1900's.
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Ottawa
Valley Fiddling and Step-dancing
While Nova Scotia's Cape
Breton culture is famous for
its Celtic brand of fast-paced
fiddling and fancy footwork,
the Ottawa Valley has developed
its own distinctive category
of old-time music and dance.
In contrast to Cape Breton step-dancers,
who keep their feet close to
the floor and their arms straight
to their sides, Ottawa Valley
dancers step high, and incorporate
arm movements in their choreography.
Valley step-dancing is fast,
energetic and fluid, requiring
great coordination of legs,
feet and ankles.
Where there
are step-dancers, there are
also fiddlers, playing jigs
and reels. Get a feel for the
Ottawa Valley style at the Annual
Old Time Fiddling and Step Dancing
Championships, held each
year on Labour Day Weekend in
the Upper Ottawa Valley community
of Pembroke, Ontario.
Set your own feet tapping to
talented fiddlers and dancers
of every age, and be sure not
to miss the Saturday evening
"playdowns," when the championship
tempo reaches a fever pitch.
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Seigneury Settlements
At Manoir Papineau National Historic
Site near the small community of Montebello,
Quebec, an ornate Italianate teahouse, with
glassed-in walls and balustraded rooftop
terrace, sits improbably amid the pine trees
on a height of land overlooking the Ottawa
River. Behind the teahouse, the palatial
manor house of 19th century Lower Canada
politician and rebel Louis-Joseph Papineau
rises, dream-like, from a small woodland
clearing. Given the incongruity of the site,
visitors may well imagine how fanciful the
mansion must have appeared when it was first
built in 1847.
The Manoir Papineau, with its chapel, granary
and other outbuildings, was once part of
a large estate, or "seigneury," extending
about 8 kilometres along the northern shore
of the lower Ottawa River (about halfway
between present-day Ottawa and Montreal).
The Seigneury de la Petite Nation, named
for the Algonquin Nation of the area, was
granted to the Bishop Laval of Quebec in
1674. Laval passed ownership to the Seminaire
du Quebec, and in the early 1800's, the
vast land tract was purchased by Joseph
Papineau, a Montreal lawyer who obtained
the property for a nominal price in reward
for his services to he Seminary.
Few of the settlers that Joseph Papineau
attracted to his wilderness world ever penetrated
the Laurentian land of lakes and forests
that stretched inland from the river. But
they did establish prosperous farms and
businesses along the riverbank of the seigneury,
giving rise to the contemporary Quebec towns
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Tour
the Pembroke Heritage Murals
Dressed in their Sunday best,
a pioneer family poses in front
of their newly-constructed log
cabin. White-haired and distinguished,
a timber baron surveys his wilderness
empire, and on the river, cleverly-designed
"pointer" boats maneuver
their way through Ottawa River
log jams. The explorers, steamboats,
railways, culture, characters
and catastrophes of the Upper
Ottawa Valley are portrayed
on a panoramic scale in the
city of Pembroke (population
15,000), on the Ottawa River
about 160 kilometres northwest
of the Ottawa. Since 1990, more
than 2 dozen large-scale paintings
have been created on the walls
of Pembroke's downtown buildings,
portraying the regions' heritage
and culture in a dramatic and
colourful fashion. |
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Papineauville, Plaisance and Montebello.
Stretched along the floor of the Ottawa
Valley, where the waterway itself maintains
an expansive, slow-moving and delta-like
quality, these small rural towns hint at
the Lower anadian flavour of rural St. Lawrence
Valley communities further to the east.
Festival Fever
Take the cultural measure of the Ottawa
Valley region with a glance at the area's
festivals and special events:
National Capital Region:
• Annual Odawa Pow Wow
• Canadian Canoe & Kayak Festival
• Bytown Days (Byward Market, downtown
Ottawa)
• Canadian Tulip Festival
• Carnival of Culture
• Cisco Systems Bluesfest
• CKCU Ottawa Folk Festival
• Nortel Networks Dragon Boat Race
Festival
• Ottawa Fringe Festival, Franco-Ontarian
Festival
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Tiny Temiskaming Art Gallery
Locally known as "T.A.G.,"
the small but sophisticated
Temiskaming Art Gallery (Musée
des Beaux Arts Témiscamingue),
housed with the Public Library
of the town of Haileybury, on
the northwest side of Lake Temiskaming,
has become a cultural jewel
of the North, exhibiting the
work of both local artists and
well-known Canadian painters.
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• Ottawa International Jazz Festival
• Canada Dance Festival
• Ottawa International Writer's Festival
• Lebanorama
• Italian Week
• Winterlude
Ottawa Valley East:
• Alfred County Music Festival
(Hawkesbury)
• Wendover County Music Festival (Rockland)
Ottawa Valley West:
• Valley Bluegrass Festival (Deep River)
ð Valleyfest (Renfrew)
• Voyageur Days (Mattawa)
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Visit
the Manoir Papineau National
Historic Site
Louis-Joseph Papineau, Speaker
of the Assembly of Lower Canada
and leader of the Lower Canadian
Rebellion of 1837, was a political
radical who resisted the elitism
of the British colonial government.
But his architectural tastes
were anything but plebian, and
his considerable wealth, obtained
from timber concessions on his
vast Seigneury de la Petite
Nation, was conspicuously displayed
in the manor house that he built
for his family near Montebello,
on the banks of the Ottawa River.
From May to September, the stately
home, with its Greek Revival,
Regency and Queen Anne Revival
influences, is open to the public.
Principal rooms include the
elegant "Yellow Room"
and "Blue Room" salons,
the tastefully decorated master
bedroom and the intriguing 3-storey
Library Tower. The home is located
near the village of Montebello,
Quebec, on the grounds of the
Chateau Montebello resort, a
luxurious log chateau built
in 1930 following the sale of
the Papineau estate to a private
club. |
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