As the Year 2025 draws to a close, I wanted to post one last article that takes some of the stories from the past and re-imagines them using current Ai imagery. Up until now, I have personally sketched in ink by hand many of the subjects covered in Ottawa Rewind in an attempt to help visualize what that subject matter may have looked like because photos of them do not exist.

Artificial Intelligence, or Ai, has now advanced to the point where I can input my hand drawn sketches and it will re-interpret them as a 3D rendered models. I know Ai is a bit of a contentious issue for many, but I simply see it as another tool in my toolbox to help visualize the past where imagery of it simply does not exist. Like a pen or pencil, it is a tool that still needs a creative mind behind it to guide the process to a finished output. All I wish to do is use this new tool to help visualize a lost history in a way that can be clearly imagined, and in using my already completed sketches, I hope it does that for viewers both young and old, and those familiar, or unfamiliar with my past work.

As always, I thank readers for their continued support over the years, Ottawa Rewind has been a rewarding project for me for over ten years now, and in a retrospective format I have personally picked some of my favourite stories to be re-imagined here. Please enjoy these tales in historically chronological order with new added imagery that was not available to me ten years ago…Have a great year ahead and I look forward to sharing new adventures with you in 2026!

PLEASE NOTE: All these images were imagined by Ai using the input of my original hand drawn sketches from my original articles that can be found using the “search” bar on this website.

–Andrew King, December, 2025

1400s: IROQUOIS VILLAGE “ROEBUCK”

Discovered in 1912, an archaeologist William Witemberg with the Museum of History excavated a peculiar site near Prescott, which he called “Roebuck”. Residents of the property kept finding human skeletons protruding from the grounds, causing locals to question what was buried in Roebuck. The Museum of History was contacted and Witemberg arrived on the scene to investigate. What he and his team uncovered was a centuries-old palisade enclosed village that covered an area of 8 acres.

Archaeological excavations uncovered stone tools such as scrapers and adzes, bone needles and knives, pottery vessels and earthenware pipes and dozens of human skeletons. It seems approximately 500 years ago an Iroquoian agricultural community of about 1600 persons occupied the site. Archaeological excavations suggest that there were approximately 40 communal longhouses 30 metres in length surrounded by a double-walled palisade. The farmers on the site grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and tobacco.

Wintemberg soon discovered a a piece of “carved bone,” that he described as “suspiciously European.” This suspiciously Out Of Place Artifact was then stored away in the museum warehouse where its origin remained a mystery….until 2017 when the new Canadian History Hall required a fresh look at possibly important, but forgotten artifacts in storage. According to former Curator of Central Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of History, Jean-Luc Pilon, the curious bone object was studied in detail and using a small sample taken from the odd cylindrical object it was carbon dated with an accelerator and mass spectrometer. The final results of the dating put the oddity at a date of between 1499 and 1578…and was determined to be a European machine lathed bone needle case for metal sewing needles. But how?

One answer could be that the object was traded between tribes and made its way from the East Coast all the way to Roebuck south of Ottawa. Another theory is that a new European visitor made their way to Roebuck in the mid 1500’s, a castaway from Cartier’s expedition, or perhaps an expeditionary group using smaller boats came into the area and left behind objects of their making. The object was found among other dated Iroquois objects of the time which ruled out it was dropped there at a later time.

Witemburg describes a bustling, but grim time in Canadian history as he and his team uncovered 85 skeletons and noted “The skeletal remains from the graves are undoubtedly remains of the people who inhabited the site.” but does not include the cannibalized, dis-articulated remains of 35 additional individuals. Wintemberg would note that these cannibalized bones “may have been people of the site but it is more likely that most of them are the bones of enemies who had been roasted and eaten.”

1660: DOLLARD’S PALISADED FORT

The May 24th weekend, or Victoria Day for the rest of Canada, is a bit different in Quebec where it is unofficially known as “Fête de Dollard”, in recognition of this character he will soon discuss. In 2003, provincial legislation officially declared the date to be National Patriots’ Day. A central figure of this Quebec patriotism is a young man named Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, a 25-year-old commander of Montreal’s (then called Ville-Marie) garrison. In April of 1660, Dollard requested permission from Governor Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve to take an expedition up the Ottawa River towards present day Ottawa to attack a war party of Iroquois before they could reach Ville-Marie and its few hundred inhabitants. Dollard believed that many Iroquois warriors who were encamped along the Ottawa River were preparing to destroy the French settlements at Ville-Marie, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières.

Dollard said he could surprise and ambush the Iroquois warriors before they could begin their campaign against New France. After assembling a force of sixteen volunteer riflemen and four Algonquin warriors, including Chief Mituvemeg, the expedition left Montreal in late April of 1660 with several canoes, filled with food, ammunition and weapons.

Fighting the strong current of the Ottawa River, Dollard and his men finally reached their destination in early May, an area thought to be a good place for an ambush of the approaching Iroquois coming downriver from present day Ottawa. At the site he chose there was already an abandoned Algonquin fort built along the river made up of trees planted in a circle, cut down to trunks. Forty Hurons, under Chief Etienne Annahotaha came to this position to assist Dollard with his ambush plans. Dollard wanted to create a strong fortress from which to launch his attack, so he and his men reinforced the old fortification by building a new wooden palisade around the wall of existing tree trunks, but the Iroquois soon arrived before his new fortress could be completed.

The Iroquois approaching from the west came down the Ottawa River and quickly arrived at Dollard’s position, and in reaction Dollard engaged the Iroquois with musket fire. The result was an immediate assault made upon the fort by the Iroquois, but it was repulsed by the Frenchmen inside. The retreating Iroquois took the French canoes they had left on the beach, broke them up and set them on fire, using the burning wreckage to set ablaze Dollard’s new wooden stronghold. The French and their Huron allies were able to resist the attack and in doing so, killed a chief of the Seneca.

In what was a horrific and brutal scene, the French took the corpse of the Seneca chief and placed his head on a sharpened pole of the palisade as a grim warning to the remaining Iroquois. However, the infuriated Iroquois responded by calling in 500 more warriors to the scene. The Hurons loyal to Dollard, now witnessing the huge army of Iroquois in front of them, decided to defect over to the other side, except for the Huron chief, who loyally remained with Dollard.

The Iroquois wanted revenge and got busy building wooden shields called “mantelets” that were able to repel the firing French musket balls. After a week of back and forth harassment, the final battle began, and now armed with their shields, knives and axes, the Iroquois chopped through the fort’s walls and started pouring into Dollard’s wooden stronghold.

Sensing imminent defeat, Dollard then ignited a keg of gunpowder inside the walls of his fort and prepared to hurl it down on the Iroquois attackers, but when the bomb left his hands, it struck the palisade wall, bounced back and exploded in his own fort. With the overwhelming Iroquois forces now inside his walls, Dollard and the defenders were quickly killed in a gruesome skirmish that left only 4 Frenchmen alive, three of them quickly burned alive within the fort, and a fourth being taken prisoner, later tortured and killed. Fearing more intense battle bloodshed ahead, the Iroquois decided to pull back their planned attack and retreated west to Ottawa, deciding it wise not to unleash more havoc in Ville-Marie where the French likely had more muskets and cannons.

Dollard was defeated and the Iroquois achieved their revenge, but the history books say that the young Frenchman managed to scare off the attacking Iroquois, saving Ville-Marie and the rest of New France from imminent bloodshed.

A journal article published in 1960, entitled “The Lost Battleground Of Long Sault” by National Museum of Canada archeologist Thomas E. Lee, who weirdly published his report through the University of Rome. Reading the report, it clearly outlines an extensive archeological dig done by Lee in the 1950s that indeed uncovered a burnt out palisaded fort…BUT, it was on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River. However, all this new historic evidence was soon conveniently submerged underwater, flooded out when the nearby Carillon Dam was built in 1959.

1673: FIRST SHIP ON THE GREAT LAKES

The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, a vast network of lakes that ultimately connects to the the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River. They have been traversed for centuries by those that inhabited its shores, first using dug out canoes stretching back 12,000 years ago. These ancient water dwellers lived and utilized the Great Lakes not only as a source of food, but as a network of highways for them to trade. Around 1000 AD these ancient mariners traded copper nuggets from Lake Superior which made their way down the Mississippi River into Southern Ohio, and even into Florida.

It would not be until the 17th century that the Great Lakes would see its first large sailing vessel on its waters. In July of 1673 Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, better known as Count Frontenac, the Governor of New France, traveled to a place called “Cataraqui”, where the river that bears that name, and the St. Lawrence River meet at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Now called Kingston, it is a strategic location since it is at the confluence of these three waterways where the fur trade could be easily monitored and controlled. Under the advisement of explorer and fur trader René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, this spot was chosen to build a French fort to control the lucrative fur trade in the Great Lakes Basin to the west. La Salle was left in command of the fort in 1673, where he immediately built a wooden fort and a harbour to contain a future fleet of sailing vessels which could control the expansive waters of the Great Lakes.

The first of these ships built in 1673 by LaSalle at Fort Frontenac was constructed at what is now the intersection of Ontario Street and Barrack Street in Kingston, ON. This would have been the very first sailing vessel built and launched on the Great Lakes, (if you don’t believe that Vikings had already ventured down the St. Lawrence and sailed here 600 years earlier). The rapids at LaChine in Montreal had prevented any large sailing vessels to pass south into Lake Ontario, so new ships would have to be built at Fort Frontenac if they wanted to sail the Great Lakes.

This first boat constructed is said to have been called “Frontenac” after the Governor of New France, and was a sloop type vessel of about 10 tonnes, with a single mast. It would be this vessel that would carry two men, LaMotte and Hennepin to Niagara where they would establish a construction site to build the bigger LeGriffon launched near Niagara, Ontario in 1679.

1692: FORT SENNEVILLE

This fort is the westernmost stone fortification built by the French on the Ottawa River when they constructed a protective string of 30 outlying forts to repel the Iroquois threat to the expansion of French settlements. Originally the fort was constructed of wood in 1671 and was attacked by the Iroquois in 1687, a year after a fortified stone mill was built on the site that also served as a watchtower overlooking the Ottawa River. The initial attack was repulsed, but the Iroquois returned in greater force in 1691 when they successfully attacked and burned the wooden fort to the ground.

Governor-General Frontenac then ordered the construction of a stronger, more substantial fort, and in 1692 Fort Senneville was constructed using thick stone walls and corner tower bastions, cannon ports, musket ports, and extensive swivel wall guns. Fort Senneville on the Ottawa River was the “most substantial castle-like fort” near Montreal.

This new fortress was never attacked again. It remained a stronghold on the easternmost end of the Ottawa River near where it meets the St. Lawrence River, a strategic location for shipping and fur trading operations.

This imposing castle-like French fortress was ceded to the British in 1763 after the fall of New France and it remained an unused outpost. However, in 1776 during the American Revolutionary War, the fort was doomed. Benedict Arnold leading his Continental Army troops in military maneuvers during the Battle Of The Cedars took over the fort and burned it to the ground as they retreated back to the United States. Arnold successfully destroyed the fort before he switched sides and joined the British around 1780.

The ruined Fort Senneville was purchased in 1865 as a summer residence by the former prime minister of Canada and mayor of Montreal, John Abbott. The property then changed hands again in 1898 to Edward Clouston, the General Manager of the Bank Of Montreal. Since then the property has been privately owned and the hidden stone fortress remains cloaked under trees on the shores of the Ottawa River. It was designated in 2003 by Quebec for historical significance by classifying it as a “site historique” . Archaeological research and repairs funded by the Ministry of Culture and Communications has helped preserve what remains, and in 2009 it became a National Historic Site.

1706: SULPICIAN FORT RUINS

An island near Montreal off the main highway is called “Ile-Aux-Tourtes” and it has turned up some incredible information that indicates a unique history to this island. It seems archeological investigations between the 1990s and 2000s revealed that there are stone ruins hidden amidst the forest in addition to evidence that it was occupied 6000 years ago. It was notably used as a burial site as bleached bones were found buried in a pit covered with flat stacked stones in a funerary ritual associated with the Lower Woodland period (3000 to 2400 years ago). Also found were ceramic shards and stone tools belonging to a variety of prehistoric periods. 

Fast forwarding through time, it was also discovered that this was a commercial area linked to the fur trade, and most remarkably the remains of built stone structures that indicate a presence sometime in the early 1700s.  The first building on the island was built by Breslay in 1706 which was a stone house which also served as a chapel. A stone church was built later in 1710, and then the palisaded “fort” promised to help protect the Indigenous people. These foundations were uncovered in the archaeological investigations.

The Sulpicians abandoned the fort for reasons unknown sometime in the 1720s and then nature took over and it remained a hidden piece of history for centuries. Until the end of the 19th century, Île aux Tourtes had several owners, but none seems to have settled there. The original stone buildings quickly fell into disrepair. In 1958, a gas pipeline crossing the island from east to west was constructed and in 1961 the construction of the Île aux Tourtes highway and bridge to Montreal likely disturbed the archaeological remains on the southern part of the island.

From a well travelled highway, to 6000 year old prehistoric tools, burial grounds, and a 300 year old French Sulpician fort with possible other hidden archaeological treasures, this curious island provides a fascinating glimpse at a hidden history that begs further investigation. 

1759: SUBMERGED FORT LEVIS

This island fortress submerged in the St. Lawrence River off Prescott, Ontario was the final stronghold for French forces during the Seven Years War with Britain in 1760. It was flooded out in 1959 along with countless other islands during the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Today only a small portion of the island is visible above water. Most of it, including the fort area lies underwater.

Called “Isle Royale” by the French in 1759, a decision was made to build a fortification on the 800 foot island in the middle of the St. Lawrence to repel any invading British ships making their way up the river from Kingston. Abandoning a previous fort near Ogdensburg the French built the island fortress as a last ditch effort against the advancing British ships trying to take Montreal. Armed with cannons, a moat, ramparts, palisades and other fortress features, it was called FORT LEVIS. The island army even grew a their own vegetables in a garden on the east end of the island.

Originally to be built of stone, plans changed due to time restraints and Fort Levis was built out of wood and measured about 350 square with bastions in each of the corners. A loading dock area for supplies was on the north shore facing the Canadian side of the river. French Commander Pierre Pouchot took command of the island fort and prepared to defend what was soon to be a short lived fortress. It didn’t take the British long to begin their advance up the St. Lawrence River in their gunboats towards capturing Montreal so the fort was put into immediate action. French lookouts near Alexandria Bay saw two approaching British gunships, the Mohawk and Onondaga, and raced back to the fort and braced for impending attack.

The two British ships got lost in the maze of the Thousands Islands for a week, giving the French time to prepare for battle. The British ships managed to capture a French gunboat along the way, hoisting a British flag and re-naming it the Williamson and adding it to its fleet of now three ships to take on the newly constructed Fort Levis ahead. Surrounding the island fortress were other islands, now held by the British with cannons stationed and aimed at the French fort. Under the command of Major-General Amherst, the three British ships arrived at Fort Levis on August 19 1760 and a fierce Battle Of The Thousand Islands began.

The island fortress threw everything it had against the looming British trio of ships, blasting the newly captured Williamson 48 times with cannon fire. Amherst called a ceasefire and retreated for the night. At dawn the fort once again rained cannon fire upon the British ships while also repelling invading troops trying to storm the shores of the island. During the skirmish the fort managed to sink both the Williamson and the Onondaga to the bottom of the St. Lawrence. The island fort did not let up its defensive attack and Commander Pouchot pummeled the remaining ship, the Mohawk, with cannon fire, sinking it also. Three ships sunk. The British had nothing left to attack the fort with except their island cannons surrounding Fort Levis.

Surprised at the unbelievable tenacity of the island fort to protect itself from all angles, Amherst gave the go-ahead to switch the cannons to “hotshot”, balls of fire that would set ablaze whatever they impacted. British hotshot rained down on Fort Levis, and with the fort on fire and having exhausted all their ammo, Pouchot finally surrendered the besieged island to the British. Originally armed with 300 soldiers, the French lost 275 men during the battle. The British lost 26 men. The fierce week long island battle was to be a decisive and final fight between French & British troops on the continent. The island fort was rebuilt and renamed Fort William Augustus under the British, with Amherst carrying on to join other British troops that surrounded Montreal. On September 6, 1760 Montréal was surrendered by New France’s governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil which brought an end to the French empire in Canada. The island fort was the last stronghold for the French and its loss to the British signalled the end to the war.

It is unclear what happened to the fort between 1760 and 1950 when the St. Lawrence Seaway began construction.  A study of aerial images produced in 1954 reveals the outline of the fort ruins were still visible on the island before it was submerged. Whatever remained of the original fort slowly slipped underwater in 1959 when flood waters raised levels for the new seaway.

1812: OTTAWA’S OLDEST RUINS

After the nomadic indigenous people harmoniously lived in the region of the Nation’s Capital for centuries, the first to build a permanent structure here was an American by the name of Philomen Wright, who in 1800 built a cabin over in Gatineau (ruins are on NCC property, unmarked…that story here). Next to arise was a shanty trading post operated by Jehiel Collins near the Chaudiere Falls in 1809. Nothing remains of this cabin, property now owned by the NCC. In 1810 Ira Honeywell built a log cabin in Nepean. Nothing remains of this cabin either, just an NCC plaque hidden off Woodroffe Ave. near the Ottawa River that vaguely tells us of Honeywell’s cabin nearby.  Next to arrive was Braddish Billings who built his place in 1812 at what is now the intersection of Bank St. and Riverside Drive. A cabin was built by Billings along with some farm buildings. These would become the first permanent structures built in Ottawa after the Collins and Honeywell cabins.

Billings made his cabin of round logs with no windows with an opening without a door. Billings was likely attracted to the riverfront site because of its close proximity to the Rideau River, its abundant timber, its creek, and its fertile soil. Along with building a sawmill, he began clearing the land and planted potatoes, hay, corn, and turnips. He also continued lumbering for Philemon Wright. His ventures proved successful and in 1829 he built a substantial estate on the hill above his original cabin, what we now know as the Billings Estate Museum, owned and operated by the City Of Ottawa.

With his new big estate house, the original cabin structures Billings built in 1812 fell into disrepair, neglected and falling to ruin. A Methodist church was constructed next to one of Billings cabins, a wooden structure, that one book says is Billings first house, with a stone chimney that remained on site until 1960 when the NCC demolished it, and the church, for a new Riverside Drive. Taking stones from this old cabin, they built a small wall out of it, which is what we now see at the side of the road.

1819: OTTAWA’S FIRST PUB, FIRTH’S TAVERN

Once called Bytown, this city had a place of great merriment, a place where thirsty labourers and travelers alike would gather to relax and have fun…it was Ottawa’s first pub, a place called Firth’s Tavern. The Nation’s Capital has all but forgotten where this entertainment mecca was located and if we want to remind oursleves that fun is not forgotten here, maybe we should not forget where fun began. Let’s find where we once  relaxed, partied and had fun.

Originally the “Chaudiere Inn” owned by Miss Dalmahoy, a brazen Scottish woman who soon married Isaac Firth. Together they opened the area’s first watering hole, “Firth’s Tavern” in 1819. Thirsty travelers, fur traders, voyageurs and military personnel of the time all gathered at this new pub where beer and food could be had. Originally a log cabin structure, the Firth’s expanded their tavern operation to include a two storey hotel, stables and barn structures to accommodate the town’s growing population.

Wild nights of partying beside the rushing waters of the nearby Chaudiere Falls entertained a mix of people from all walks of life…decorated military captains drank among grit covered mill workers and soaked raftsmen of the lumber trade. It was a place where stories were told, songs were sung and the vibrancy of what was to become the Nation’s Capital was born.

The pub was almost closed when Lebreton who purchased the lands nearby tried to evict the Firth’s but Governor General Dalhousie, knowing the importance it had in the community, came to the rescue and saved Firth’s Tavern from closing. The Firth’s operated the pub until 1832, but future owners of the tavern stopped serving in 1836. The tavern then closed around 1860 and was soon forgotten as Ottawa’s landscape evolved and development covered any remains of this once important gathering place.

1821: PINHEY POINT TEMPLAR CHURCH

The ruins are part of a unique plot of land called “Horaceville” located twenty minutes north of Ottawa, a place one man built for a family he raised there. The buildings that still remain in both ruin and restorative state reveal an interesting past connected with an order of Knights from a time of the Crusades.

Hamnett Kirkes Pinhey arrived in Canada from England in 1820 to create a community according to his beliefs and wishes for an aristocratic village that was unattainable for him back in England. As the King’s messenger during the Napoleonic Wars, Pinhey was granted land in Upper Canada that he would use to build his personal empire. Traveling by boat up the Ottawa River, Pinhey picked a hillside location with a sheltered bay about twenty kilometres north of what was then Bytown to create his Utopian vision.

Arriving at the site, Pinhey and his companion erected a small log cabin to live in until his possessions and family joined him a year later in 1821. After establishing his business and family on the site, Pinhey built a village that included a stately stone manor, mills, barns, and eventually a church. He would call the place “Horaceville”, after his eldest son Horace Pinhey. Establishing himself as a man of prominence, he entered politics as a member of the Canadian Legislature. Pinhey died in 1857 but left behind an interesting legacy and a strange connection to a medieval Order of knights known as the Knights Hospitaller.

Built by Pinhey in 1827, the stone church displays a unique style of architecture that resembles that of a medieval English church. Pinhey designed it himself based on sketches from his notebook. Symmetrically constructed with unique “ogee” arch windows and doors and a prominent square tower with pyramid roof, similar to the Knights Hospitaller churches and their motifs. A tomb of a medieval era Knight Hospitaller in England has the exact same ogee arch incorporated into the box tomb. Upon his death in 1857, Pinhey was buried in a “box tomb” on the west end of the church. The church fell into ruins sometime at the turn of the 20th century after it was abandoned in the late 1800s. It remains the oldest standing church within the City of Ottawa and is now a part of the Anglican Parish of March which maintains this unique hidden site.(NOTE: The church is on private property and I had permission to study it in detail. DO NOT TRESPASS) It has recently been given Heritage Designation as outlined by the Ontario Heritage Act but is not part of the City Of Ottawa’s Pinhey’s Point Historic Site and remains inaccessible to the general public. There is no official mention of Pinhey’s connection to this ancient order of Knights.

All these clues seemingly lead to a definite conclusion that Pinhey was, or was trying to be part of an ancient Order of Knights, but this could be all just coincidence. Not one to rely on coincidences, I dug deeper to in my research which revealed a book from 1857 at the New York Public Library entitled “Synoptical Sketch Of the Illustrious & Sovereign Order Of Knights Hospitallers of St. John Of Jerusalem and the Venerable Langue Of England” which comprehensively lists all members of the Order of Knights from its inception in 1099 to 1857.

Within its pages, on page 75, listed is the following:

“The Honourable Hamnett Pinhey, of Horaceville, Canada, Member of the Canadian Legislature, and one of the Governors Of Christ’s Hospital, London. El. K.J.J.”

1838: FORTRESS OTTAWA

After Queen Victoria chose Bytown as the capital of Canada in 1859, a strategic hill overlooking the Ottawa River was selected to be the site of the Parliament buildings. This area soon became the government precinct we know today. A drawing in the collections of Library and Archives of Canada, however, offers a glimpse of a very different vision for the nation’s capital, a city that, in an alternate reality, might have become known as Fortress Ottawa.

Plans were drawn up for an ambitious canal that would cut from Montreal to Kingston via the Ottawa River, providing a secure route and deterring any future American invasions along the St. Lawrence. Construction of the Rideau Canal began in 1826 and was completed in 1832. It still operates today, emptying into the Ottawa River beside Parliament Hill.

Tensions between Britain and America were renewed with the Rebellion of Upper Canada, which began in 1837 (the same year as the Rebellion of Lower Canada) and spurred fears that the new canal could be susceptible to American attack. Orders were given in 1838 to build wooden guardhouses along the canal, and to plan the construction of a massive stone fortress at a strategic location in Bytown.

John Burrows, overseer of works in the British Ordnance department’s engineering office, drew the first sketch of the fortress in 1838, but the plan had been originally envisioned by canal builder Col. John By, who wanted to create a series of defensive structures to protect the waterway once it opened.

For Bytown he called for a fortress stretching almost a kilometre from the Ottawa River to what now is Queen Street, and from the canal in the east to Bank Street in the south, covering what was then known as Barrack Hill and the site of a small military outpost.

This original drawing is catalogued at the Library and Archives of Canada as “Plan of By Town Showing the Proposed Fortifications Land taken from Mr. Sparks, Lot No. C in Connecticut C., Also Crown Reserve O” and labelled “Citadel Hill.” It is signed by Maj. Daniel Bolton, who replaced Col. By as canal superintendent and for whom Major’s Hill Park was later named. It was, in fact, Burrows who owned the land before selling it to Sparks.

Mapped out with defensive moats, trenches and cannon placements, Bytown’s sprawling stone fortification on the hill was a typical 19th century “star fort,” similar to Fort George in Halifax, also known as Citadel Hill, and the Citadelle de Québec in Quebec City. The “star fort” layout style evolved during the era of gunpowder and cannons and was perfected by Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a French engineer who studied 16th century forts designed by the Knights of Malta. A star fort built by the order with trenches and angled walls withstood a month-long siege by the Ottoman Empire. This layout remained the standard in fort design until the 20th century.

Ottawa’s planned fortress would have also integrated a water-filled moat trench to the south, where Laurier Street is now, to impede an attack. On the northern side, the natural limestone cliffs along the Ottawa River would have served as a defensive measure. Access and resupply points were at the canal near the Sappers Bridge, and a zigzagging trench with six-metre-high stone walls would have run parallel to Queen Street. Parliament Hill, with its gently sloping banks to the south, was called a “glacis” positioned in front of the main trench so that the walls were almost totally hidden from horizontal artillery attack, preventing point-blank enemy fire.

After the rebellions were quashed and the threat of an attack from the United States fizzled out by the mid-1850s, Canada abandoned plans to fortify Bytown.

In 1856, the Rideau Canal system was relinquished to civilian control, and three years later Bytown was selected as the capital of the Province of Canada. The grand plans for Ottawa’s massive stone fortress were shelved and the area that would have been Citadel Hill became the scene of a different kind of battle, that of politics.

1860: BEACON HILL LIGHTHOUSE

A few hundred metres north of the shore near Beacon Hill lie the remains of one of the Ottawa River’s lost lighthouses. Constructed in 1860 between the gaps of the the Ducks Islands near the provincial border, the lighthouse structure was built as a navigational aid to warn sailors of the dangerous reef of rocks known as “Green Shoal”. Navigating ships on the Ottawa River was a relatively new adventure in the mid-19th century, but with the construction of the Rideau Canal in 1832 and the Carillon Canal in 1833, the Ottawa River became a busy shipping and tourist route between Ottawa, Lake Ontario and Montreal before the advent of area rail travel.

The waterway was busy with steamships plying the waves between cities, but a number of shoals and islands created hazards for the vessels and required the need for warning lights to mark their location. The government at the time gave the order for the construction of approximately 30 lighthouses on the Ottawa River to assist in the safe passage of growing river traffic. Pre-Confederation Canadian lighthouses were usually built of stone or brick, but with the need to build so many new structures in time, the newly formed Department of Marine and Fisheries required cheaper and faster lighthouse construction techniques.

Built as four sided tapering wooden clapboard towers, these structures had the advantage of being cheap to build, and in some cases could be relocated if the site needed attention. The water hazard known as Green Shoal would seen see the construction of such a beacon structure in 1860 on a conical pedestal sheathed in iron boiler plates, riveted together like some kind of Jules Verne rocket to withstand the strong river current and sheets of crushing ice carried downstream. Atop this iron clad pedestal was placed a 4 sided white wooden pyramidal tower 21 feet in height. Using a standard design used for many of the Ottawa River lighthouses, the structure housed a fixed light that was initially fueled by Kerosene, a fuel invented by the Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner in 1846. The Green Shoal light was visible to passing ships from a distance of nine miles and eventually was rebuilt in 1900 when it was most likely converted to using an electric lamp.

The beacon remained in operation for more than a hundred years, being dismantled and replaced by an automated light marker sometime in the 1970s. It was at this time that a new suburb was being developed nearby, and from atop the hill on what is now Naskapi Drive, the neighbourhood got its name from the old beacon that was visible on the river below.

1860: ROYAL SHIPWRECK IN THE OTTAWA RIVER

In 1860 the Prince of Wales, future King of England, travelled along the Ottawa River aboard the steamship “Ann Sisson”. It was lost beneath the waves in 1871. Ottawa had recently been selected by Queen Victoria as the permanent capital of the Province of Canada, yet the Queen would never visit Canada as it was said she despised traveling on water due to seasickness. Instead, she sent her son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in her place to make the first official royal visit to Canada in 1860.

After a whirlwind tour of Ottawa with residents and businesses giving Edward the “Royal Treatment”, the future King boarded the 139 foot side-wheeler steamship Anne Sisson in Aylmer to tour the young prince up the Ottawa River. This steamship was outfitted for the royal journey, its usual lumber ship duties altered when passenger accommodations were added. Owned by Brewster & Mulholland, from Montreal, they outfitted the ship for the Prince and his entourage to venture north on the river.

The Prince left Aylmer and steamed away in the royally appointed ship and as  evening approached, the royal party decided to stay overnight in Quyon, Quebec. The next day she docked in Pontiac and boarded a horse railway there to take Edward on the remainder of his Ottawa Valley Tour.

The royal steam ship then returned to its duties as a lumber steamer, later strengthened, then became a passenger steamer in 1863 transporting passengers between Aylmer/Ottawa and Pontiac under the Union Forwarding and Railway Company. Records show in 1871 the once regal ship was stripped and abandoned in the Ottawa River, its location unknown.

Mike Kaulbars and his research on the whereabouts of the Ann Sisson lead to a mention in “The Carleton Saga”, a book by Harry and Olive Walker, where it was said a lighthouse keeper at Britannia by the name of Robert Winthrop, navigated in a boat around what he said was the wreck of a “famous boat of the Ottawa Valley fleet, the Ann Sissons”.

The ship was apparently beached and burned near the lighthouse. Kaulbars also uncovered information that a wreck was found in Britannia waters during the summer of 1962, but it was misidentified as the steamship Albert, which was almost identical to the Ann Sisson in both construction and size. Yet that ship, Albert, was recorded to be dissembled in Quyon in 1917, so it could not be in Britannia Bay. Kaulbars later found out it was indeed identified as the Anne Sisson, but no further information on its location could be determined.

One of the greatest resources I use for my research in historical studies is the amazing “Geo Ottawa” map program provided online by the City Of Ottawa. Using aerial photographs from 1928 onwards, it can give an accurate representation of what the city looked like from the air over the years. Using this, I was able to find the earliest aerial photo for the Britannia region, which happened to be 1958. Scanning this old aerial photograph, I noticed a curious  looking shape under the waves. Zooming in on the shadowy shape offshore, it looked remarkably like the outline of a ship.

Using the scale of the map and comparing the its size to the approximate 140 foot length of the Ann Sisson, it seemed to be a perfect match. Overlaying that 1958 position with a current 2018 aerial map did not show any evidence that the shipwreck was still there, so I decided that an exploration in person was necessary to see if anything remains today.

Locking in the GPS coordinates of where the wreck was supposed to be, I also  downloaded an app on my cell phone that tracks the users GPS position and displays the coordinates so you can walk around to your desired position. I trudged out into the waters of Britannia Bay towards my GPS target, and there in the shallow waters, obscured by sand, lay the wreck of the Anne Sisson.

Lying underwater, out of view hidden for decades, the ship’s charred wood revealed its fate of being burned and left to sink into the sand. The old paddle wheeler lies concealed by the shifting sands of time and waves of the Great River. A sad end, for a once important steamship.

1915: THE LOST RIDEAU YARD

A piece of Ottawa history hidden for over 100 years off Hunt Club Road was redeveloped recently to make room for a new hotel and restaurants. It was grand vision for a new concept in Ottawa living called “Rideau Yard” and it was the nucleus of a town that never was. Part of this grand scheme for a new “resort town” south of downtown Ottawa was a large railway roundhouse, which was built and its remnants quietly survived for over a hundred years until the new Sandman Hotel was built over its ruins.

Constructed by the Canadian Northern Railway company, “Rideau Yard” opened with great expectations of handling both freight and passenger rail traffic passing between Quebec and Vancouver on the newly constructed TransContinental Rail line. This grand, new station south of Ottawa along present day Hunt Club Road near Antares Drive was an ambitious development that housed an 80-foot turntable and a 15-stall roundhouse, where steam locomotives were serviced. Later re-named “Federal Yard”, it was to be the epicentre for Ottawa’s newest suburb, which boasted a summer hotel and residential streets mapped out close to the Rideau River.

Yet this vision of a new town south of Ottawa never came to fruition and eventually fell into financial troubles. Canadian Northern Railway shut down Rideau Yard and the dreams of their south Ottawa development came to an end in 1922. The hotel was being used by railway employees instead of visiting passengers, and the roundhouse and other auxiliary buildings were demolished some time around 1930. Their ruins became cloaked in overgrowth up until 2017 when it was finally buried to make way for a new hotel and and development.

1970: OTTAWA’S NUCLEAR REACTOR

The year was 1970 and the Atomic Energy Canada Limited, or AECL, was placing a SLOWPOKE-2 class nuclear reactor at Tunney’s Pasture. According to The Canadian Society For Mechanical Engineers documents, this nuclear reactor was installed in Tunney’s Pasture at 20 Goldenrod Avenue. It was constructed as a commercial testing reactor to determine its feasibility. This nuclear reactor was in full operation after it reached critical mass in 1971 until 1984 when it was then moved to another test site located in Kanata, later decommissioned in 1992.

The reactor, nicknamed SLOWPOKE, (an acronym for Safe LOW-POwer Kritical Experiment) which used 93% enriched uranium. The reactor core sits in a pool of regular light-water, 2.5 m diameter by 18 feet deep, which provided cooling. The reactor built at Tunney’s Pasture achieved “Critical Mass” or the point at which a nuclear reaction is self-sustaining on May 1 1971 and continued operating until 1984.

The oddly shaped circular concrete bunker that remains on the shore of the Ottawa River directly opposite the old nuclear reactor site was built at the same time as the reactor in 1969-70. It was built to facilitate the increased “cooling” needs of Tunney’s Pasture, one of them you could speculate being the addition of a small nuclear reactor.

The pumping station bunker and pipeline were finished in 1970 and the reactor began operating a year later. Whether or not the bunker pipeline bringing cooling water to Tunney’s Pasture was directly related to the addition of a nuclear reactor remains speculation but it is interesting to note the proximity and similar timeline of both projects.

You can follow the intake cooling water pipe by tracing a path that follows a series of manhole covers that lead from the river to the Tunney’s Pasture site. The buildings where the nuclear reactor once existed have since been demolished, and it is currently an empty gravel parking lot.

Andrew King, December 2025