Situated on the Ottawa River approximately 18 kilometres northwest of downtown Ottawa lies a small island with such a haunting past it truly should be called, the Island Of The Dead.

What lies beneath the sands of this small, one acre island is a solemn reminder of our area’s turbulent ancient past, and reminds us of those that were here long before us. Dozens of buried skeletons, weapons and a mysterious inscribed stone tell a story of violence, ritual and what I believe is a place of extreme archeological importance.

This seemingly innocuous sand island one kilometre offshore is often visited, but rarely those that step foot upon its shore fully comprehend what lurks below.

LIGHT THE WAY

Our story begins with my recent research into the history of the Ottawa River, a history that I’ve recounted before through articles written about centuries old ruins, forgotten French forts, trading posts, shipwrecks and other incredible historical evidence that the Ottawa River was once an important conduit of goods and people. It was when I was researching the old lighthouses of the Ottawa River that I came across a most intriguing document from 1899 called the “Ottawa Field Naturalist” with an article within its pages entitled “Archeology of Lac Deschenes” by a T.W. Edwin Sowter.

Sowter was the first archeologist of the Ottawa Valley, and upon his 1899 expedition to what was called “Lighthouse Island”, he made a most intriguing find: an ancient burial ground.

Now called “Aylmer Island” Lighthouse Island is approximately one acre in size and made up of an assortment of sand, boulders and gravel placed there by the last glacial event thousands of years ago. What was discovered by Sowter and others was abundant evidence of individuals wrapped in birch bark and buried 2-3ft below the surface in a what was described in his journal as being in a “recumbent” position which was unusual, because the known indigenous burial practice had the dead buried in a prostrate position.

Sowter mentions in his article that many more skeletons were found during construction of a lighthouse on the island which lead him to believe the island was a communal burying ground for more than one race of people. Sowter thought this since the burials he found did not align with any known local rituals.

A large pit was then uncovered that showed dozens of bones thrown haphazardly thrown into it rather than bodies carefully placed. Also unearthed were iron axes, knives, flints, and porcelain beads. Sowter hypothesized that such a large burial pit full of so many bones was likely the site of an Indigenous Huron tradition called the “Feast Of The Dead”.

FEAST OF THE DEAD

The Huron Feast of the Dead was a mortuary custom of the Wyandot people who resided in what is today central Ontario. The Wyandot were Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of North America, and speakers of an Iroquoian language. The custom of burying their dead involved the disinterment of deceased relatives from their initial individual graves followed by their reburial in a final communal grave. This ritual was both for mourning and celebration, and was documented by the Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf who was invited in in the spring of 1636 to a large Feast of the Dead on a beach near Midland, Ontario.

Mass reburials of their dead involved transporting remains to a new location outside their villages every ten years or so, sometimes many kilometres away from their villages. Bodies would be taken out of their initial graves with the remains cleaned in preparation for reburial at this new location, such as the one theorized to be at Aylmer Island. However, one key element to this theory throws a wrench into the pit, that being the Huron never resided near the Ottawa River.

Sowter claims that the Huron may have been given sanctuary in the vicinity of Ottawa by the resident Algonquin people after they were defeated in other regions. The human remains uncovered in 1899 from these mass burials still reside at the Canadian Museum Of History and their origins I would guess still remain a mystery.

TOOLS IN TIME

In 1898, a year earlier than Sowter’s visit, an old lighthouse was being demolished on the island to build a newer lighthouse and construction worker unearthed a most peculiar find. It was the skeleton of an individual found buried in a reclined seated position. Along with the skeleton many artifacts were found including a 2 pound iron axe, a knife with an intricate inlaid copper vine motif on its handle, and two other knives. A bone harpoon and fishing net needle, a copper kettle with an iron handle, a bar of wrought iron, sheets of lead, shell beads, and also human hair wrapped in birch bark.

These items were sent to an archeologist in Toronto by the name of David Boyle who said the tools were of European origin, but no maker’s marks were evident so their purpose remains a mystery, perhaps used for woodworking according to Sowter and Boyle.

Boyle suggests the copper kettle was also of European make, with the woven fabric made from human hair or animal fur.

The skeleton found in this unusual seated position was examined and it was determined that the individual met his death by taking an arrow in the lower back. A bone arrowhead had pierced the lower spine vertebrae, paralyzing the unfortunate victim who was found centuries later on the island.

STONE SLAB

In addition to the array of skeletons, tools and other artifacts unearthed on the island, an unusual stone slab was found that was inscribed with “JPOT”. What this indicates is perhaps a grave marker of one of the skeletons, but it was never determined which skeleton it belonged to. Was this inscribed stone showing the initials of someone buried here? If not, JPOT seems like a bizarre name to be carved into a stone. Perhaps one day the stone can be recovered from wherever it now rests and studied further to determine its origins and meaning.

ISLAND OF MYSTERY

Throughout the turbulent and often violent history of the Ottawa River, it seems that Aylmer Island is a unique place that was perhaps specifically chosen for its special location. It faces both the rising and setting sun for those interred there. Many ancient burial rituals and sites incorporate the sun’s position into their location and I would suspect Aylmer Island was no exception, that that is my theory alone and one that was to be tested.

I have not been able to uncover any further details about the Island Of the Dead since Mr. Sowter’s expedition in 1899, so it remains unclear if any further excavations revealed more clues to this mysterious sanctuary in the middle of the Ottawa River. How many other artifacts lie waiting to be discovered beneath the sands of time, and how many other souls rest there? With such intriguing clues discovered over one hundred years ago, I am sure much more fascinating evidence awaits to be found by trained archeologists and Indigenous ambassadors. Perhaps future study can help unravel the mystery of this enigmatic island so close to the Nation’s Capital.

It would seem with such important history behind it that this island would be studied further and later protected from being disturbed. Until that time let us respectfully let those buried there lie in peace on their aptly named, Island Of The Dead.

Andrew King, March 2024

SOURCES

US INTERNET ARCHIVES: https://ia804701.us.archive.org/5/items/canadianfieldnat13otta/canadianfieldnat13otta.pdf

https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/sowter/amilabelse.html

https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/sowter/1900/sowter1900e.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Huron_Feast_of_the_Dead

Google Maps

Apple Maps

https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/957782bf-847c-4644-a757-e383c0057995

We take them for granted nowadays, a means of conveyance from one level to another but at one time an escalator and an elevator were marvels of engineering that were celebrated like a magical ride.

Prior to the arrival of the elevator and escalator, we would use stairs to climb up to a higher level, or to go down into the lower levels of an establishment. That all changed in 1854 when Elisha Otis introduced his “safety elevator” and demonstrated it at the New York exposition in the Crystal Palace through a dramatic, death-defying presentation.

The Equitable Life Building, completed in 1870 in New York City, is thought to be the first office building with passenger elevators and retail department stores soon followed.

OTTAWA

It is not exactly known what building housed the first public elevator in Ottawa, but it most likely was installed in the Charles Ogilvy department store in 1907. Charles Ogilvy opened his famed department store at 126 Rideau in August of 1907 and installed a new elevating device by Otis-Fensom, a Hamilton company, the same elevating device that Timothy Eaton had installed in his Toronto department store in 1886.

Ogilvy’s ground floor had a men’s wear department, silks, gloves, hosiery, underwear, ladies’ neckwear, ribbons, laces, and embroidery. Customers could visit the second by staircase or by taking the new elevator up to the second floor to “Ladies Wear”.

Ogilvy’s prosperity as a department store declined in the 80s and by 1992 it had closed operations with the department store being demolished in 2013 for the Rideau Centre expansion project, and eliminating what was probably Ottawa’s oldest public elevator.

THE ESCALATOR

After the elevator’s success, the escalator came onto the scene in March of 1892 when Jesse W. Reno patented his “Endless Conveyor”. In 1896 the first working escalator (called the “inclined elevator”) was installed at Coney Island, New York City in 1896.

Later that year another one was installed on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and in Boston some of these escalators were still in use until the 1990s.

It wouldn’t be until 1899 that the first commercial escalator was introduced, which won first prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle created by the Otis Company and subsequently placed in department stores in both France and England.

Otis holds the trademark rights to the word “escalator” so competitor companies call their versions the “Motorstair”, while Westinghouse calls their model an “Electric Stairway”.

Department stores like Macy’s in New York City installed their escalators in 1927 and are still in use, but where would Ottawa’s first escalator be and when was it installed?

UP ESCALATOR

According to an Ottawa Citizen article from September 14th, 1950, the very first escalator in the Nation’s Capital was installed in a store called “METROPOLITAN” which is now the Indigo Store at Rideau Centre. Heralded as the a “modern escalator for shopping comfort and convenience”

Sadly, Ottawa’s first escalator would be disappear from history when construction began on what would become the “Rideau Centre Mall” and the Metropolitan was torn down to be replaced by the 1980s mall version of the Rideau Centre. It would have been located where the current Indigo store is at Rideau Centre.

With Ottawa’s first escalator entering service in 1950 at the Metropolitan, the competition across the street at Freiman’s Department Store got in on the escalator action and had their very own escalator installed a year later in 1951 when a Westinghouse Electric Stairway was installed to service floors one to three, then later an Otis Escalator installed to access Floors 4 and 5.

This would make it the SECOND oldest escalator in Ottawa, but what was after these trailblazing customer conveyances? Well, Freiman’s opened a second location at Westgate Mall and also installed an escalator there in 1955, making it the THIRD oldest escalator in Ottawa.

But do Ottawa’s oldest escalators still exist and are they in operation? The wonderful website of Urbsite says the original Westinghouse Electric Stairway was still operating in 2015 at the Hudson’s Bay Store that took over Freiman’s department store in 1973.

Heading out this past weekend to see if Ottawa’s oldest escalator was still there I went to the newly renovated Hudson’s Bay store at the Rideau Centre hoping to see the original 1951 escalator. The Hudson’s Bay store that now exists in the space of the original Freiman’s Store did indeed have the original installation of escalators but I was saddened to see the original had been recently replaced with a modern KONA escalator for the floors 1 to 3 that used to be serviced by the old Westinghouse. Ottawa’s oldest escalator was no more.

BUT wait!

As I went up to Floor 4 in the Hudson’s Bay store I noticed the original 1950s Otis Escalator was still there! Yes! The original old base plates marked “OTIS” are still there with likely updated internal mechanics, but the original Freiman’s department store escalator was still operating as it had 73 years ago!

I must have looked like a fool to the staff who were watching me ride up and down the escalators not realizing this was Ottawa’s oldest surviving escalator. Clickety Clack the old escalator whirred as it took customers up and down between floors, proudly carrying on a little known piece of Capital History.

So we have learned that the FIRST escalator, the one from 1950 at the Metropolitan is now gone, but the SECOND oldest from 1951 at Freiman’s is still operating within the Hudson’s Bay store. But what about the THIRD oldest escalator in Ottawa, the one at Freiman’s Westgate Mall location? An investigative checkup was in order.

WESTGATE

Westgate Shopping Centre opened May 12, 1955, and is considered Ottawa’s first shopping centre. The anchor of the mall was the Freiman’s department store, owned by Lawrence Freiman who already operated the department store on Rideau Street with its brand new escalators.

In advertising for its grand opening, Freiman’s new Westgate store boasted that it had parking for over 1200 cars, weather-protected shopping and music for its customers as well as an “escalator to our beautiful home furnishings level”. That escalator from 1955 would make it Ottawa’s THIRD Oldest escalator.

Upon entering what would have been Freiman’s at Westgate is the eastern most entrance to the mall and the escalators that had been there since 1955 are now boarded up and concealed by an advertising wall.

Sadly, it seems the Ottawa’s third oldest escalators were functioning up until 2020 or so, and were an enduring legacy to the Freiman’s store that used to occupy the space around them. With Westgate Mall facing imminent destruction for more condos, we will lose not only Ottawa’s first shopping centre, but another facet of escalator history.

It seems that Ottawa’s department stores have suffered the ups and downs of society and retail markets, just like the escalators that used to expedite customers between their shopping floors. Before it too is demolished, I recommend riding Ottawa’s oldest surviving escalator from the Freiman’s days between floors 4 and 5 at the Hudson’s Bay store in the Rideau Centre. Until then, watch your step…

Andrew King, February 5th, 2024

SOURCES

http://urbsite.blogspot.com/2015/05/metropolitan-stores.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freimans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate_Shopping_Centre_(Ottawa)

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Lost Ottawa

There is a curious island one and a half hours east of Ottawa that many of us have crossed on AutoRoute 40 heading to Montreal. 

I’ve always been interested in this island, as it is situated at a historically strategic position where the Ottawa River meets the St.Lawrence River, a short distance from Montreal. It is called “Ile-Aux-Tourtes” and it seems to be a likely candidate for some interesting history being at a position where these two major waterways converge. 

In a previous post I studied a point of land nearby where there are ruins of a 1600s French stone fort built across fromI le-Aux-Tourtes at Senneville.

That Story: https://ottawarewind.com/2015/02/19/hidden-fortress-17th-century-fort-on-the-ottawa-river/…

A quick Google search of key words “archeology” and “Ile-Aux-Tourtes” turned up some incredible information that does indeed indicate 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.  

Stone piles suggest a foundation for a wooden palisaded fort that contained other buildings as well. But what was it? A search of old maps of this area turned up an interesting drawing of some kind of fort on the island, which would substantiate the unearthed stone ruins on the island, but who constructed such a structure and when?

To find out we have to look back on the history of the area when such a structure would have been built and by whom. The first group of Europeans to develop the land around Montreal were the Sulpicians in the 1600s. The Sulpicians played a major role in the founding of the city of Montreal, where they engaged in missionary activities, trained priests and constructed the Saint-Sulpice Seminary founded in 1657 by the Society of Priests of Saint Sulpice, who have been the sole owner of the building since its creation. 

Construction began in 1684 by François Dollier de Casson, superior of the Sulpicians, and was completed in 1687. The Sulpicians of Montreal in the 1600s were from France and served as missionaries, judges, explorers, schoolteachers, social workers, supervisors of convents, canal builders, urban planners, colonization agents, and entrepreneurs. 

Their seminary in Montreal was constructed with the aid of a Master Mason and carpenter, Etienne Trudeau, the patronymic ancestor of the Trudeau family & Canadian Prime Ministers Pierre and Justin Trudeau.

The Sulpicians also built a stone fort in 1685, at the base of Mount Royal later abandoning it. It was almost completely destroyed in the 1850s to build the current college on the site. Only the two towers remain of this 340 year old Sulpician stone fort, a testament to their ability to build hardy stone structures. 

The Sulpicians are named after the Church of Saint Sulpice from Paris, France where it was founded in 1641. The founder of the Sulpicians was Jean-Jacques Olier who had with a global outlook for the Sulpician Order. He thus created the Society of Our Lady of Montreal which created the colony of Fort Ville-Marie in New France, the basis of the modern city of Montreal. The Sulpicians undertook their first overseas mission at the colony in 1657, and eventually were given the control of the seigneury of much of the colony.

Olier was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He specifically desired that the members of the Society of Saint Sulpice celebrate her in a feast called the “Presentation of Mary in the Temple”, which occurs each year on November 21. The Sulpicians were thus under the protection of Mary and this is the reason that the overlapping initials “A” and “M” are found in all Sulpician institutions, representing the Latin expression “auspice Maria” – under the protection of Mary.

When the Sulpicians began their mission around what is now Montreal, it was according to Sulpician records that around 1700 the Sulpician René-Charles de Breslay decided establish a mission on Île aux Tourtes…our island in question.

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.

I have drawn what the fort may have looked like based on the archeological map layout and the description of other structures of that time period.

A wooden guardhouse and an officers’ house were erected at the Île aux Tourtes mission. An archeological excavation on the island revealed the old foundations of the fort of which I have overlaid on to a current aerial image of the island to show where it was located.

Also uncovered were a number of artifacts associated with this 300 year old fort, including metal rings with the Sulpician symbol, of which we learned about their “A&M” logo previously.

Lead seals were affixed to goods to indicate information such as place of origin, manufacture, quality, size, circulation, and taxation. These lead seals marked everything from tobacco and salt to bundles of various trade goods and affixed to a bale of goods at its place of origin and remained on the goods until they reached their final destination, this one being found on Ile-Aux-Tourtes.

The one found on this island shows a horse and St. George spearing a dragon, the number 3 on it indicates that there was a levy of 3 pennies on whatever it was attached to. Curiously, this was made in England between 1660-1724 according to the British History Museum. 

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 or perhaps they were possibly destroyed by Benedict Arnold’s invading forces when he attacked Montreal during the Battle Of The Cedars in the American Revolution in 1776.

Benedict Arnold leading his Continental Army troops in military maneuvers during the Battle Of The Cedars took over the fort across from this island (Fort Senneville mentioned earlier) and burned it to the ground as they retreated back to the United States. It would not surprise me that we may find some remnants from that skirmish on the island in future investigations. 

The remains of the church and a two-hearth fireplace were in existence and visible in the early 1840s and from 1891 and until the 1930s, several cottage cabins were built on the eastern point near the site of the original fort.

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. 

Andrew King, January 2024

SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Olier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Priests_of_Saint_Sulpice

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1856-0701-5506

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Cedars

Google Maps

With the recent popularity of the the film “Oppenheimer”, I was curious as to where the world’s first nuclear reactor would have been located. It’s amazing the information you can find by doing a simple Google search. It seems that with proper funding, more time and purer materials, the first man-made nuclear chain reaction would have taken place in Ottawa. A scientist working at he National Research Council in 1940 by the name of George C. Laurence made the first experimental nuclear reactor in 1940.

A year later, the Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) became the world’s first successful artificial nuclear reactor. On December 2nd, 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in Chicago with the CP-1 reactor.

A year earlier, another reactor was initiated in Ottawa, but lacked the proper materials to be completely successful. Dr. Laurence joined the staff of the National Research Council of Canada in 1930 and became active in improving the measurement of radiation dosage in the treatment of cancer and in promoting safety from radiation exposure, but also became instrumental in creating nuclear energy.

With the world superpowers entrenched in a World War, the Commonwealth country of Canada seemed like an unlikely candidate for creating nuclear power, but like most technological advancements, Canada persevered and was a pioneer in the field.

Research in the National Research Council of Canada during WW2 was focused on wartime efforts to advance allied technology against the Axis powers, and one such avenue of research was that of nuclear energy.

Dr. Laurence in Ottawa in 1940 surmised in his spare time that a very large number of fissions produced in a reaction would release a large amount of energy. There was evidence to show that a large increase in the rate of producing fissions would be easier to accomplish if the neutrons were moving slowly. They would move more slowly if they encountered large numbers of very light atoms such as hydrogen atoms; therefore, it might be advantageous to associate with the uranium a suitable quantity of material containing hydrogen, such as water. Heavy Water.

By this time however, the nuclear scientists in England and the United States had stopped publishing the results of their research, and continued their work in secrecy. With heavy water extremely scarce and hard to produce, Laurence decided to try and use just basic carbon instead of heavy water in his nuclear reactions, as it was cheaper and easier to produce.

So, in Ottawa, between 1940-42, Laurence decide to create his own “Nuclear Reactor” using carbon powder instead of heavy water.

Here are the actual experiment notes from Dr. Laurence on what was likely the world’s first nuclear reactor experiment that occurred in Ottawa:

“In our experiments in Ottawa to test this, the source of neutrons was beryllium mixed with a radium compound in a metal tube about 2.5 centimetres long. Alpha particles, emitted spontaneously from the radium, bombarded atoms of beryllium and released neutrons from them. The carbon was in the form of ten tonnes of calcined petroleum coke, a very fine black dust that easily spread over floors, furniture and ourselves. The uranium was 450 kilograms of black oxide, which was borrowed from Eldorado Gold Mines Limited. It was in small paper sacks distributed amongst larger paper sacks of the petroleum coke.

The sacks of uranium and coke were held in a wooden bin, so that they occupied a space that was roughly spherical, 2.7 m in diameter. The wooden bin was lined with paraffin wax about five centimetres thick to reduce the escape of neutrons. The arrangement is shown above, as a sectional view through the bin and its contents.

A thin wall metal tube supported the neutron source at the centre of the bin, and provided a passage for insertion of a neutron detector which could be placed at different distances from the source. In the first tests the detector was a silver coin, but in most of the experiments it was a layer of dysprosium oxide on an aluminum disc.

The experimental routine was to expose the detector to the neutrons for a suitable length of time, then remove it quickly from the assembly and place it in front of a Geiger counter to measure the radioactivity produced in it by the neutrons. The Geiger counter tubes and the associated electrical instruments were homemade because there was very little money to spend on equipment.”

By 1942, Laurence realized that the nuclear energy released was too small because there was too much loss of neutrons by capture in impurities in the coke and uranium oxide and in the small quantities of paper and brass that were present. These little impurities could lead to failure, and the American and British research teams took over the experiments using more refined materials.

It was in 1942 after these initial Ottawa nuclear experiments that is was decided that a special unit of nuclear research would be set up in Montreal.

On September 2, 1942 Canada received scientists from England, and was provided laboratory facilities and supplies and administer the project in Montréal as a division of the NRC.

The first of the staff from England arrived about the end of the year 1942 and set up shop at 3470 Simpson Street belonging to McGill University.   Three months later, they moved into a 200 square metre area in the large, new building of the University of Montréal, and more scientists and technicians arrived from England.  

The Project became part of the Manhattan Project and with great enthusiasm, a Canadian group of scientists were brought together with a single purpose…to create nuclear energy.

Building reactors in downtown Montreal was out of the question; so the Canadians selected a site at Chalk River, Ontario, on the south bank of the Ottawa River some 110 miles (180 km) northwest of Ottawa.

This is where Canada’s first operational nuclear reactor was born, called “ZEEP”. The Chalk River Laboratories opened in 1944, and the Montreal Laboratory was closed in July 1946 when the Chalk River reactor went critical on September 5th, 1945, becoming the first operating nuclear reactor outside the United States.

Andrew King, September 26th, 2023

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Laboratory

https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/history/early_years/earlyyears.html

One of the most enduring legends in Ottawa that always sticks in the back of my head like a Kerr’s Halloween caramel on a molar, is the urban folktale that beneath Sparks Street there is a concealed Victorian era public washroom. Sealed for a century, in perfect preservation, awaiting its triumphant return from beneath the asphalt like the Ark of Covenant. With a busy summer schedule behind me, I thought I should probably attempt to put this curious history mystery to rest. Well, guess what?…it’s probably true.

BACKSTORY

Public toilets have been a part of human sanitation since ancient Rome. Long stone benches with holes accommodating multiple and simultaneous users with no privacy, these first public restrooms were thought of as a social event.

Fast forward a few centuries ahead and underground public toilets were introduced in the United Kingdom during the Victorian era. These facilities were accessible from the city street by stairs, and lit by glass brick on the pavement above. Local health boards often built underground public toilets to a high standard, a classy reprieve for “doing your business” whilst enjoying the city.

By 1919, more than one hundred cities had opened above-ground or underground “comfort stations”, and Ottawa was one of them.

LOCATION

Throughout my time writing these Ottawa Rewind posts I have often been e-mailed about pursuing certain subjects, and I have had some great conversations at numerous pubs and restaurants with individuals suggesting topics I should maybe write about, and the “hidden Sparks St washroom” has been always favourite topic of mine.

In the search for Ottawa’s sealed Victorian lavatory, I began my quest for answers by first checking the GeoOttawa historic mapping aerial photos of the Sparks St area. Nothing really came up except for some curious structures just around the north corner, on O’Connor St. (full circle: this is where I was told that I could not give out free t-shirts celebrating Canada150 in 2017)

The next step was going through the Library and Archives Of Canada website archive search of photographs around Sparks St that may show these fabled public restrooms. It soon became apparent that the underground public washrooms of Britain were also popular in Canadian cities during the Victorian era, especially in Toronto which had many examples in photographs. These were usually structures on the street level with stairs that led down into the restroom facility.

Ottawa would likely be no different, and with Sparks Street being the “hub” of Ottawa at the time, it would make sense that we would have a similar setup. O’Connor Street makes the most sense as to the the location of said underground washrooms as it is the halfway point along Sparks, a perfect location to place a public restroom if people were meandering down Sparks St. from either direction in the early 1900s.

Focusing on the O’Connor angle, I narrowed the search at the Library and Archives to collect photos from the era of 1880-1915 and found some interesting images. Once such photo shows Sparks/Wellington/O’Connor in 1869 with two street level structures in the middle of the street.

These could be what was called a public “Pissoir” a French word for an invention, common in Europe, that provided a urinal in public space with a street level structure. This is the etymology behind the word “piss” or “I’m going for a piss”. Crude nowadays, but actually based on actual historical terminology.

So with what looks like a couple of “Pissoirs” on O’Connor just north of Sparks St., I began scouring the old newspapers looking for any articles mentioning public underground washrooms in that zone. Well, lo and behold, I struck the jackpot.

POTTY TALK

When Sparks Street transformed into a pedestrian mall in the 1960s, the once bustling spine of the city became a different place, and any history of its past was shrouded with a new progressive vision for the Nation’s Capital. Former historic buildings were transitioned into a “modern vision” for the Capital, and any Victorian underground washrooms would likely be sealed up and paved over.

However, it seems that idea came much earlier, as by 1938 there is no photographic evidence of any washroom structures being on O’connor, but what is mentioned via a newspaper, is the fact they did exist!

In a 1967 Ottawa Citizen article, mention of a sealed underground washroom was made: “two long sealed public washrooms, just north of Sparks on O’Connor Street, will remain closed under their coatings of concrete and asphalt.” AHA! So the rumours are true!

Then, another article was found, this time from an earlier edition of the Ottawa Citizen, where it was mentioned: “A large public washroom of Roaring Twenties style awaits re-discovery below O’Connor Street”…That makes two mentions in the Ottawa Citizen!

CLOSING THE LID

With so many pieces of the puzzle coming together, I thought it best to return to GeoOttawa and see if there are any sewer or water mains that may show up on their mapping system that would indicate the presence of an old sealed underground washroom. Et Voila. The GeoOttawa sewer map shows a “capped” line on O’Connor which is likely the capped water lines to and from the Public Underground Victorian Era Washroom (PUVEW). Yes, I made that up.

With new evidence in hand, I once again scoured the Library and Archives photo library to see if there were any photos in that area that might indicate an entrance to an underground washroom facility.

After a lengthy search, one photo from 1909 came up that showed a view of Sparks and O’Connor and upon zooming in….BINGO!

A built structure showing what appears to be the entrance to the fabled underground public washroom! There it was, in Black and White from 1909. The Holy Grail of Ottawa legend reveals itself in all its glory.

BREAKING THE SEAL?

Upon realization that there was indeed a public underground washroom on O’Connor Street off Sparks Street that existed sometime between 1869 and 1928, it begs the question: Is it still there?

Using Google Maps to pinpoint what’s currently at that location, it seems there is a concrete sidewalk over the spot but that doesn’t mean we can’t use current technology to investigate further.

If enough of us are interested in seeing if the sealed Victorian Washroom is still there, then perhaps we can Crowd Fund a Ground Penetrating Radar expedition to map out what lies beneath, or, simply ask the City Of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission and/or Government of Canada (they own north of Sparks Street area) to uncover what they undoubtedly know exists below.

If anyone else may haver photos or further proof the underground washroom existed/still exists, please contact me.

Until that time, the legend of the sealed Victorian Public Washroom seems to ring true, and until it can be confirmed with some jackhammers, the truth will be forever flushed below.

Andrew King, September 20th, 2023

SOURCES

Library and Archives Canada

GeoOttawa

Fire Insurance Maps: Carleton University: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4752d4c2e21e4c6b9601a18fbdd7991e

Unexplained engineers built primitive canals along the Ottawa River that are now underwater…

AN ANCIENT HIGHWAY

The Ottawa River has been a conduit for travel and trade for thousands of years, from ancient vessels carrying raw copper mined in Lake Superior to the massive lumber rafts of the late 19th century, it has been something of a super highway for centuries. Ancient clay pots have been found in Luskville caves, with forged copper weapons from 6,000 years ago found on Ottawa River islands that show a vast ancient trade network with distant regions that seem unbelievable. Exotic materials originating from as far away as the tip of Labrador and a 2,000 year old knife found near Ottawa was was made from a type of stone only found in Ohio, USA. The Ottawa River provides water access to a variety of areas through the Rideau river, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes and beyond. Likewise, visitors from any those places and beyond could have visited the Ottawa area.

That’s what makes the discovery of a series of primitive canals that are now submerged beneath the waves of the Ottawa River so intriguing.

Prior to the current navigable Ottawa River system that opened in 1963, there were a series of rapids that made continual boat travel on the Ottawa River impossible. Portaging was necessary. When the Carillon Dam was completed east of Ottawa in 1963 it raised the water level by between 9-62 feet allowing ships to travel freely between Ottawa and Montreal. This flooded out the rapids of Long-Sault on the Ottawa River, but also any previous shorelines, including a series of what were called “primitive canals” whose builders remain a mystery.

EIGHT CANALS WITH HUGE BOULDERS MOVED

In his 1984 book “The Ottawa River Canal System” Normand Lafreniere writes about a series of primitive canals that were once on the original shoreline of the Ottawa River near what is now Hawkesbury, Ontario. A series of British military canals were built along the Ottawa River in the 1830s but these other canals pre-date those to some unknown period and builder.

Lafreniere notes that their construction is “extremely primitive, not to say archaic, for that period” and the builders of these canals used techniques that included moving boulders weighing in some cases nearly 1 ton. These massive stone boulders also contained unusual drill holes.

“They were in fact little more than trenches formed by the removal of some of the numerous large boulders found along the north bank of the Ottawa River in the vicinity of the Long Sault. These rocks must have been serious hazards to navigation as many of them were removed to allow the passage of canoes and other craft. Altogether eight “canals” formed in this way were observed…”

It remains unknown who constructed these canals, and they were all lost in time when the river water rose in 1963 completely submerging all evidence of them. Lafreniere remarks in his report that it is not likely they were built by the native indigenous travellers as they would not have had the drilling tools necessary to drill 10 inch holes into solid rock that were found on the 1 ton boulders. Another speculation made is that they were constructed by the various fur trader expeditions that used the Ottawa River as their lucrative trade freeway, but no known mention in any literature of both the French fur traders or Hudson’s Bay Company makes mention of these canals.

So who would have made the labour intensive effort to construct 8 canal trenches along the Ottawa River? A historian by the name of Cyrus Thomas believes they were made by a local settlers to facilitate navigation of their boats to bring goods to market from their respective mills along the river, but no proof has been brought forward to confirm this theory.

Opposite Carillon, on the south shore of the Ottawa River a report was made in 1818 by a Captain Mann that describes a “bank of stones has been thrown up on the south shore, which forms a canal, into which batteaux are admitted by a lock; but as the bank does not retain the water, and the lock is not sufficiently deep, this work is, during the autumn, rather an obstruction than an assistance to the navigation.”

Was it possible these existing primitive canals described were built hundreds of years prior to their discovery in the 1800s, and if so who would have built them? Lafreniere states that “Although several hypotheses have been formulated regarding the date of their construction, the possible builders, and even the purpose they served, these primitive “canals” remain an enigma that only extensive research can attempt to solve.”

CANAL SPECULATION

A mystery…but to expand the horizons of who might the engineers of these intriguing canals could be we can extend the timeline back to when the Ottawa River was being used as a thoroughfare for the shipping of ancient copper from Lake Superior. It is still unclear who mined an estimated 500,000 tons of copper that is missing from the Keweenaw Peninsula & Isle Royale. The copper was removed from pit mines which ranged from 5 to 30 feet deep with more than 4,000 on Isle Royale alone.

The mining and transport of this extremely pure copper spanned a period of more than 4,500 years, but no evidence of any ancient habitation on Isle Royale has been found. During the Bronze Age, copper was a vital ingredient in the forging of bronze objects in Europe, but that would have meant the ancient Great Lakes copper made its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps the ancient miners that were using the Ottawa River to bring their precious copper cargo to the St. Lawrence and abroad made the mysterious canals.

But the drill holes pose an intriguing piece of the mystery, as ancient copper tools would not have been able to drill into solid rocks as copper is too soft a metal. At around the year 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians invented and used a core drill. The ancient Romans developed even more advanced technologies, such as the pump drill.

By the Viking Age, it’s believed that spoon augers had become the most commonly used type of drill. By the 19th century, drilling into rocks for dropping dynamite in the holes for blasting the rocks into smaller pieces was common, but why were these canal stones not blasted?

In 1535 explorer Jacques Cartier made his way further inland down the St. Lawrence where he meets Chief Stadacona, in what is now Quebec City. Stadacona told Cartier he looks like the other white men that have already passed here who live in a place to the west, men that resemble Cartier and his crew; white skinned, blonde men that wear woolen clothing, that use metal objects like swords and possess gold and silver. This place they live is called Saguenay and it was said to lie north west of Montreal if you followed the Ottawa River northwards.

Maps of the time clearly show Saguenay marked on them, evidence of a fantastical story told by the Amerindians 500 years after the Norse Vikings had apparently left the continent.

Upon further research, it is confirmed that the Norse Vikings did indeed build trench canals throughout the lands they explored, including throughout Scotland and Denmark. These shallow trenches were sometimes lined with stones, or in the case of the Kanhave canal, built by Vikings in 726 AD, lined with wood.

In Scotland, it was discovered in 2000 by a local archaeologist a timber from a Norse-style clinker-built ship carbon dated to AD 1100. In May 2009 an archaeological study sponsored by Historic Scotland identified a stone-built “canal” that allowed for boats to exit at high tide. Historic Environment Scotland lists the site as a “rare medieval harbour complex, with docks, boat noosts, & canal proving the Norse explorers were also canal builders.

With the primitive canals now lying underwater, any further investigation is likely impossible so the builders of them will remain a mystery. Perhaps they were simply dug out by local settlers who wanted to increase transport of their milled goods, or a preliminary British military operation. With much of history constantly evolving, it may even someday be proven that there were far more ancient engineers at work along the shores of the mighty Ottawa River.

Andrew King, September 12, 2023

SOURCES

Click to access ottawarivercanalsystem.pdf

http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/sowter/1901/sowter1901e.shtml

Google Maps

Once the greatest warship to ever sail the Great Lakes and larger than Horatio Nelson’s legendary HMS Victory, it was bigger than anything else in the American fleet during the War of 1812. This gargantuan warship was “HMS St. Lawrence” and it gained naval supremacy over Lake Ontario during the final months of the war. Later decommissioned and used as a floating warehouse for a brewery in Kingston, Ontario, the mighty warship-turned-warehouse was reportedly bashed to pieces in a storm and sank into the depths of Lake Ontario, lying forgotten under the waves. Intrigued to learn what remains of this impressive ship, I was able to locate the wreck and explore the remnants of this significant piece of Canadian history.

Built in 1814 to take command of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812, it was the only Royal Navy ship-of-the-line to ever be launched and operated entirely in fresh water. At the time, Lake Ontario was landlocked by the shallow water and rapids of the St. Lawrence River downstream and by Niagara Falls at the other end of the lake. This resulted in British ships having to be built on site at the shipyards in Kingston to gain control of the waters that were an important supply route for both British and American forces.

The colossal vessel was built in only ten months and was one of the largest ships of the Napoleonic era measuring 191 feet in length, five feet longer than Horatio Nelson’s HMS Victory. This goliath of the lake was also heavily armed with three decks containing 112 cannons – eight more than Nelson’s warship. Manned with a crew of 800 men, it was launched in September of 1814 ready to take on the American fleet under the command of British naval commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, with Captain Frederick Hickey.

Patrolling the waters of Lake Ontario on the hunt to decimate any American ships in its path, the floating behemoth out-sized and outgunned anything the Americans had on the water. Out of fear the monster ship would blow their ships out of the water if confronted, the American fleet was kept their precious ships hidden safely in harbours with a clandestine attack planned to sink the mighty warship. Fearing the St. Lawrence would turn the tide of the war, the Americans sent in a secret team of operatives to sink the St. Lawrence in Kingston’s harbour with sea-mine of made out of a gunpowder filled keg. They failed in their mission to sink the new threat and a few months later, the War of 1812 ended.

Her immense presence on the lake deterred the U.S. fleet from ever setting setting sail and ironically the HMS St. Lawrence never saw action. A few weeks later in 1814 hostilities came to an end, and following the Treaty Of Ghent the Great Lakes were demilitarized. The HMS St. Lawrence had successfully gained control of the lakes and the War of 1812 was over.

Afterwards, the mighty ship was deemed unnecessary and was de-commissioned, only one year after it was launched. Sitting idle at the docks of Kingston’s Navy Bay, it was finally stripped of its cannons and hardware and sold for a mere 25 pounds. The massive hulk of a ship was then reportedly used as a pier and floating warehouse for Kingston’s Morton Brewery. Eventually after years of neglect and decay, the once mighty warship was bashed to pieces in a storm and slipped beneath the waves.

With the last known location of HMS St. Lawrence to be in front of Morton’s Brewery sometime in the mid-1800s, the final resting place of the ship was approximated using old maps and local diver reference. The original Morton Brewery buildings still exist on the Kingston waterfront so the underwater wreck most likely lies nearby.

Equipped with an underwater camera and snorkeling gear, I entered the approximate area of where the HMS St. Lawrence reportedly went down, swimming east about 500m into the small bay of Morton Brewery indicated on the old map.

Seeing only weeds and rocks, I soon thought I was in the wrong area until I came across what looked like a mooring stone. Swimming around the area of the mooring stone through more weeds, some wood timbers came into view. There before me lay what was left of the greatest warship to ever sail the Great Lakes.

After two hundred years of decay and neglect, not much is left of the once grand ship, a line of old wooden ribs form the outline of the ship that lies on the lake bottom in about ten to fifteen feet of water. Protruding iron fasteners are visible among the encroaching weeds. After I swam and filmed the entire length of the shipwreck I tried recording what I could of this important Canadian relic. Private waterfront homes and a seawall surround the wreck site, with the hulk of the ship hidden below the waves, out of sight and decaying on the lake bottom.

The HMS St. Lawrence played a pivotal role in turning the tide of war and its contribution to curbing further conflict should lend itself to a more deserving honour. It seems unfitting that the greatest warship to ever sail the Great lakes now lies quietly forgotten below the very waters it used to protect.

Andrew King, Posted April 30th, 2023. From an earlier column in the Ottawa Citizen, 2014

A quest to find the wreckage of a crashed WW2 P-38 Lightning in the woods north of Ottawa…

During World War Two the German Luftwaffe nicknamed it der Gabelschwanz-Teufel, or “ the fork-tailed devil”. The American built Lockheed P-38 Lightning was aptly nick-named due to its distinctive twin-engine booms and central pilot pod paired with exceptional flight characteristics. The P-38 was a formidable opponent for the Luftwaffe in Europe and for the Japanese in the Pacific, who referred to it as “two planes, one pilot”.

Developed as a twin engined high altitude interceptor to attack hostile aircraft, the P-38 entered service in 1942 and remained in operation with the United States Air Force until 1949. After the war, thousands of P-38 Lightnings became obsolete aircraft as the aviation world entered the jet age. These surplus P-38s were sold off into a variety of new roles including foreign air forces, civilian aerial duties and post-war air racers.

A few of these surplus P-38 Lightnings made their way to Ottawa in the 1950s being converted into aerial survey aircraft owned and operated by Spartan Air Services. With only a handful of these unique planes still in existence, I hoped to discover if any of these Ottawa “fork tailed devils” still exist and where they might be located.

Referencing Norman Avery’s 2009 book “Spartan: Seven Letters That Spanned the Globe” it was determined that Ottawa had at one time a number of converted P-38s where the machine gun area of the nose was replaced with high altitude cameras for survey mapping work. Operating out of Uplands airport in the mid-1950s, Spartan converted these World War Two fighter planes by modifying them to carry both a pilot and navigator/camera operator as well as the camera equipment necessary to take high-altitude aerial photos. Most of the Spartan Lightnings were eventually sold off or scrapped but a few are displayed in museums in the United States or awaiting restoration.

Tracing serial and registration numbers from the Warbird Registry, I learned Spartan was plagued by two tragic P-38 crashes in 1955, one going down south of Ottawa near what is now Rideau Carleton Raceway, killing the pilot and destroying the aircraft. The other plane mysteriously crashed in a lake north of Ottawa, killing its crew of two.

Records show the registration number of that crashed P-38 to be “CF-GCG”, which I used to trace the serial number of the plane: 44-53183. This revealed the plane was built at Lockheed’s Burbank, California factory for the United States Air Force. After the war this aircraft was surplussed and sold for civilian use where it became an air racer in both the 1946 and 1947 Bendix air races, which pitted pilots racing against each other in modified warbirds from Burbank, California to Cleveland, Ohio. Records indicate the plane was then sold in 1951 to California Atlantic Airways in Florida, where it was soon sold to Ottawa’s Spartan Air Services in the same year. Modified for aerial survey work, the former warbird P-38 (or F-5 as the photo reconnaissance models were named) began service with a crew of two under the Canadian registration CF-GCG.

On March 15 1955 while on routine patrol, the Spartan Lightning climbed into the air for the last time, taking with it the lives of its pilot, Nicholas Toderan and camera operator Allan Bourne. The aircraft reportedly was operating at high altitude over the Gatineau Hills and for reasons unknown, went into a steep dive that accelerated the aircraft to the speed of sound where it dramatically exploded, scattering debris throughout the woods below. The majority of the aircraft crashed into frozen Lake McGregor near Val-Des-Monts, Quebec. Archival Ottawa Citizen articles reported the event and revealed that some of the wreckage was recovered from the lake bottom along with the bodies of Toderan and Bourne. Explanations for the crash in the article said there may have been a lack of oxygen in the cockpit, causing the pilot to lose consciousness which sent the plane into its death dive.

The 1955 Ottawa Citizen article showed photos and gave a description of the crash site, which I compared to current maps and information on the area. Plunging into the ice of Lake McGregor near “Ile Aux Mouton” or Sheep Island, a photo in the original article showed a cottage in the background that belonged to former Ottawa Mayor Charlotte Whitton.

Using this as a basis for a search into whether or not any P-38 wreckage remains undiscovered, I inquired on social media if anyone had a cottage on the lake that I could rent as a “base of operations”. A friend, James Murphy, replied that his family has a cottage on the lake and that someone had found an usual piece of metal in the woods nearby.

Contacting the owner of this piece of metal, Michel LeFrancois, it was determined his cottage was in the same area of the reported crash site. Packing a camera and kit bag, we headed up to meet Mr. LeFrancois to see if his find had any connection to the lost P-38. Arriving at his cottage on Lake McGregor, LeFrancois led us into his backyard where on display was a piece of twisted metal he had found in 1998.

Studying this unusual piece he had found and comparing it to diagrams and a scale model of a P-38, we identified the part as likely the top section of the engine’s turbo-supercharger unit that would have been attached to one of the P-38’s Allison V12 engines. Asking where he found the piece, LeFrancois pointed into the woods near his cottage which turned out to be directly in front of the lake crash site. This engine piece was likely part of the debris that had rained down overhead after the initial mid-air explosion.

Heading into the woods in the direction of where LeFrancois had shown us, we spread out in search of any other wreckage that may still lie in the woods from the ill-fated P-38. After an extensive search a piece of metal was spotted protruding from the thick undergrowth of the forest floor. Concentrating a search within that area we quickly discovered several other pieces of metallic debris that resembled pieces of aircraft.

With these pieces in hand, we thanked LeFrancois and his family for their hospitality and assistance and drove to Michael Potter’s nearby Vintage Wings of Canada facility that owns and operates flying examples of World War Two aircraft. Hoping someone there could confirm the parts we had found were indeed those from a World War Two era aircraft, Vintage Wings staff quickly identified the parts as aircraft hydraulic or fuel lines and what was probably a piece of a camera mount that aerial survey cameras would have been mounted to inside the aircraft. We were then shown an example of the same Allison engine that the parts would have been from, as well as a P-38 turbo-supercharger unit Vintage Wings had in storage. Without much doubt, these were likely newly pieces discovered pieces of the Spartan P-38.

With substantial pieces of Ottawa’s P-38 still being found nearly 70 years after the crash, one wonders if other pieces of this ill-fated warbird remain in the forest waiting to be discovered. It continues to be a mystery as to what happened that fateful day in 1955, perhaps the pilot suffered from anoxia, plunging the crew to their deaths, or maybe a mechanical malfunction caused the plane to crash. Whatever the case may be, it seems the plane lived up to its nick-name as the “fork-tailed devil”.

After this story was published in the Ottawa Citizen in 2014, I was contacted by the daughter of one of the deceased crew members, and thanked me for bringing into the light what happened to her father that fateful March day in 1955. I thought it only fitting to package up and send her the remains of her father’s aircraft we found in the woods that day, a physical connection to the past she could finally hold in her hands, of which she was grateful to receive.

As time marches on, it always amazes me the unknown history that may be out there, still waiting to be discovered. I was glad to bring a form of closure to the daughter of the perished crew member after we found what was left of the WW2 plane. The search for the fork tailed devil proved successful despite the tragic circumstances.

Andrew King, March 15, 2023

This article originally appeared in the Ottawa Citizen September 27th, 2014.

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 hotel was built.

I noticed the remains of the site when I saw a large circular pit in a vacant field driving by some years ago. With some trusty online aerial imagery and research, I learned it was a remnant of a large railway station and a century-old ghost town once called “Rideau Yard” built in 1915.

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 mall.

I had wanted to document what was left of this century old railway station before it was lost forever. A 1980 edition of the Bytown Railway Society publication “Branch Line” included a series of maps and recollections by former employees. This helped me reconstruct what may have been there.

On the site, there was a vast area of roundhouse ruins with railway artifacts strewn about. An aerial image from the National Air Photo Library clearly shows the outline of the old roundhouse building and the turntable. Bricks from the roundhouse, pieces of twisted metal and other remnants of the lost station have now been buried under the development, which has now become the Sandman Hotel.

When I explored the area, the turntable’s open pit and centre pivot structure were concealed under a cover of vegetation but it was easy to imagine a once bustling railway station and steam locomotives trundling on their way in and out of Ottawa on the TransContinental line.

Using the similar roundhouse and turntable complex that was restored and is currently maintained by Toronto’s Railway Museum and the Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto for comparison, we can visualize what Ottawa’s Rideau Yard station may have looked like when it was in operation 108 years ago.

Once labelled the most contaminated site in Ottawa, this “brownfield” property is now owned by Toronto’s Unitrin and Triform Developments, which has given new life to the area, and a hotel has once again been built on the site.

With this new development, it looks like the century-old dream of a busy commercial centre on the land will finally be realized. History has come full circle.

Andrew King, February 9th, 2023

From a previously published article in the Ottawa Citizen

Sources:

Colin Churcher’s Railway Pages

Google Satellite Images