For decades the landmark Dairy Queen sign on the corner of Merivale and Clyde has greeted overheated customers in search of a cool treat at that location’s dairy bar. The sign  has now been removed, joining the many other lost classic signs of Ottawa’s streetscape.

Merivale’s classic Dairy Queen sign.

The sign was the second iteration of the Dairy Queen logo used from 1960 until 2001 when Dairy Queen executives decided “DQ” was a cooler moniker for their ice cream shops and started changing all the signs. Ottawa once had an even older sign on St. Laurent, a sign that dated from the 1950s but was removed in 2013 and demolished to make way for the new “DQ” makeover. That sign was famous and rare enough to make the official Wikipedia Dairy Queen page which unfortunately has not been updated to mention that the classic sign has since been trashed.

The classic 1950’s Dairy Queen sign that used to be on St. Laurent but was demolished to make room for a new corporate look. The photo is part of the Dairy Queen Wikipedia page.

The St. Laurent Dairy Queen after the makeover.

The classic red ellipse sign on Merivale has been in use since 1960, representing the swoop of soft serve ice cream with its pointy ends, but in 2007 the sign was “updated” with fancy new swooshy colours.

I guess it was only a matter of time before one of the last remaining classic 1960’s Dairy Queen signs would be removed to fit into the new corporate image. The location is a seasonal one, so there was no one there to ask about the sign when I visited. This has always been my favourite Dairy Queen, a shining beacon of an era all but lost in time.

Both classic Dairy Queen signs have been removed, one from the pole and one from the store front. (Compare to Google Streetview below)

It seems a shame that we have to remove the classic signage of establishments that have adorned their businesses for so long. We have grown up with them, they are like a familiar old friend to greet us when we pass by. There is something comforting and welcoming about these classic old signs, a sentiment lost in corporate attempts to modernize.

To update a known and trusted industry brand by replacing old signs seems like a misguided attempt to fit into the modern streetscape. As the world progresses, I guess we must adjust, but why can’t we just leave the familiar old signs up and let us enjoy a bit of our diminishing city’s nostalgia.

Andrew King, 2016

An aerial photo of the Chemical Weapons Laboratory that used to be at Rideau Falls.

UPDATE: On October 24th 2016, one week after this article was originally posted, it was announced by the NCC that the site will now become location for Canada’s Centre for Geography and Exploration. The Centre is scheduled to open its doors in 2017 as a Confederation Pavilion during Canada’s 150th anniversary.

Being the Nation’s Capital, Ottawa has always been home to a number of government facilities working on classified projects. These “classified” government projects are developed in secrecy, with details about them not being revealed until years later, if at all. A scenic park beside Rideau Falls may seem like an unlikely spot where one of these projects occurred…but it did, and it was not just any project. It was a secret lab inside an old pulp and paper mill developing and testing chemical weapons.

A CHEMICAL WEAPONS LABORATORY 

The secret Chemical Weapons Lab at Rideau Falls that was once a pulp and paper mill. (Photo: Shirley’s Bay Review)

Allied forces during World War Two, including Canada, made preparations to wage both chemical and biological warfare. The use of chemical and biological weapons had already been experienced in the First World War with ghastly results. The threat of bio/chem weapons being used in WW2 was less of a concern due in part to the signing of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. Yet, here in Ottawa there was human experimentation involving volunteers at the wartime Chemical Weapons Laboratory in Ottawa to assess the effects of chemical agents as well as to develop protective measures.

A Chemical Weapons Laboratory.

In Ottawa.

What!? Where was this? you might ask…In some remote field miles south of the city in a secret facility?. No, rather it was a government building beside Rideau Falls that is now a scenic park owned by the NCC.

Current view of what used to be the Chemical Weapons Lab. (photo:Google)

THE PROGRAM

The year was 1941 and the National Research Council (NRC) was part of program to study the use of choking gases such as chlorine, and chloropicrin in addition to the hellish compounds of hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride. Ottawa’s studies also included blistering weapons such as the infamous mustard gas. It is hard to believe but labs in Canada studied, tested, manufactured and stockpiled these bio/chem weapons during World War 2. Research was headed by the Directorate of Chemical Warfare and Smoke and conducted in Canadian university labs using NRC grant programs. These school labs included McGill, Toronto, Queen’s, Saskatchewan and Western.

Manufacturing of chemical and biological weapons at Rideau Falls labs. (from “A Brief History of the Defence Research Establishment”)

Ottawa had its own Chemical Weapons Laboratory working with the NRC at Rideau falls in a now demolished facility. Created in 1940, the Rideau Falls Chemical Weapons Lab, dubbed “CWL” was responsible for the production of flame thrower fuel and the manufacture of 1000 pounds of B1 dye used to detect mustard gas in addition to a number of other “classified chemical compounds”. By the end of the war CWL had produced 8 million gas masks, forty million canisters, and in Cornwall, produced barrels of deadly mustard gas.

The Ottawa labs worked on highly toxic but largely unknown chemical agents. Once a converted pulp and paper mill known as Edward Mills, the secret labs operated from 1940 until 1947 when operations were moved out of the Rideau Falls site to Shirley’s Bay. The labs were soon demolished after the move-out and were eventually made into Rideau Falls Park which is there today.

The John Street Labs, classified as “Chemical Weapons Laboratory, CWL” (photo: geoOttawa)

In addition to the study, testing and manufacture of bio/chem weapons and the associated gear to counteract them, the CWL labs at Rideau Falls also conducted experiments on volunteer subjects. Paid volunteers would be subjected to testing of chemical agents, with experimental counter measures being tested for their success. Subjects suffered blisters, and respiratory testing. In February 2004, the Ministers of National Defence and Veterans Affairs announced a recognition program to offer payments to these Canadian veterans who volunteered to participate in chemical-warfare experiments in Ottawa and elsewhere.

After the Second World War, the stockpiled chemical and biological weapons were taken aboard ships and unceremoniously dumped into the Atlantic Ocean, where barrels upon barrels of these nightmarish compounds decay on the ocean floor.

The current site of what was once the grim Chemical Weapons Lab. (photo: Google Streetview)

The site that was once a shrouded chemical and biological weapons facility is now nothing but a tranquil NCC owned property called “Rideau Falls Park”. Here the NCC built the now abandoned Canada and the World Pavilion in 2001,  which subsequently was shuttered in 2005. It was announced on October 24th 2016 by The National Capital Commission and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society that the site will now become Canada’s Centre for Geography and Exploration. “The Centre is scheduled to open its doors in 2017 as a Confederation Pavilion during Canada’s 150th anniversary.” There is no mention of the shrouded past of the site other than a quip on the NCC website that states it was “developed after the Second World War when the area was acquired by the federal government and cleared of industry.”

What a gas.

Andrew King, October 2016

SOURCES

Click to access CanadaandChemicalWarfare.pdf

Click to access p518800.pdf

http://www.theinternetdesignshop.com/WebImages/Shirleys%20Bay%201.pdf Shirley’s Bay Review

http://www.cheminst.ca/magazine/columns/then-and-now-5

https://legionmagazine.com/en/2016/05/chemistry-experiments/http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=chemical-warfare-agent-testing-recognition-program/hnocfon0

Google Maps

http://www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/property-management/what-we-manage/news/2016-10-24/50-sussex-drive-to-become-new-centre-geography-ex

“A Brief History of the Defence Research Establishment” published 2002

Over 10,000 years ago a body of water covered the City Of Ottawa called The Champlain Sea, a deep sideline of the Atlantic Ocean. It occupied a depression created by a continental glacier, and then it drained away as the giant glacier that once covered the northern hemisphere disappeared and the earth rebounded back into shape.  Now its only remnants are the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. However, sand dunes were left to remind us of its former existence, sand dunes that exist hidden in the forests south of Ottawa off Slack Road. These dunes were a result of wind and water carrying sand left by the massive glacier into the sea by glacial rivers that once cut through through the glacial deposits. These sand dunes exist today, but are disappearing fast.

Once humans began to traverse these ancient sand dunes, evidence has appeared that native people who needed wood and game inhabited the region, and archeological artifacts have been found in the area.  Hidden behind a facade of forest trees, the “sand zone” is recognized for its archaeological potential. I recently visited the site and found it to be a unique area worth visiting if you have the chance.

This 1925 aerial view shows the once mighty extent of Ottawa’s Dune Sea. (photo from The Canadian Field Naturalist Journal June 2008)

Parking on a side road off Slack Road, we traversed up a small embankment to discover a flat plain of fine sand and dunes, stretching into the forest to the south. At one time this sand dune plain was massive, as a 1925 aerial photograph shows. In its current state it is just a fraction of its former self. The once mighty Dune Sea of Slack Road of about 3km in length has now been reduced to a few small areas of sand as the encroaching forest consumes this ancient Dune Region.

Comparison photos showing the disappearing sand dune region south of Ottawa. (from Canadian Field Naturalists Journal June 2008)

The area is now part of the Pinhey Forest Reserve (National Capital Commission) and contains numerous trails where one can explore this ancient sand dune area. Housing developments, an industrial park and re-forestation efforts have all but concealed the former dunes, but the ground beneath is definitely a sandy experience. There seems to be remnants of some kind of archeological dig at the various dunes, with sifting equipment strewn about.

The original sand dunes are now covered in forest growth, equally as magical. (photo Alison Fowler)

Odd stick huts in the forest off the trails…

Creepy monk carvings in forest stumps off the trails…

The forest that now covers the area is itself a unique feature as there are bizarre stick huts, carved stump monks and other oddities that give this hidden wonder a peculiar experience. Stick to the trails if you do go, and follow the trail maps, as it is very easy to become lost in the labyrinth among the secret sand dunes.

Andrew King, October 2016

SOURCES

http://journals.sfu.ca/cfn/index.php/cfn/article/viewFile/568/569

http://biodiversityconservancy.org/sand_dune.html

 

 

On Baseline Road beside the Walmart Super Centre, there is a fading old totem pole, towering 60 feet over the bustling city traffic, sitting grandly in front of the Scouts Canada National Headquarters.  Having passed by this sentinel many times, I often imagine it one day toppling over Baseline Road, its top bird beak skewering a car below it like a shish kabob. Aside from that, I also think of what the story is behind this amazing totem pole, a somewhat forgotten and fading old soul beside the Walmart…who carved it and why is it there?….

This is the Tale of the Totem.

Photography by @oldmanloudwife

Carved in 1960 by Chief Mungo Martin, Ottawa’s towering totem has weathered almost 60 years at its post on Baseline Road. (Photo by @oldmanloudwife)

Carved in 1960 by Chief Mungo Martin, of the Kwakiutl Tribe and his grandson Henry Hunt, Ottawa’s totem pole has been weathering away at its post for almost 60 years. Most of the carving was done in Victoria, B.C. where Chief Martin was a prominent figure in Northwest Coast style of aboriginal art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka’wakw eople who live in the area of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The pole was gifted to Ottawa from the British Columbia Scouts, and cost approximately $8,000 in 1960 to carve and paint from a BC cedar tree.

Chief Mungo Martin (Photo Wikipedia)

The towering totem consists of 6 main figures; a Raven, a Man, a Grizzly Bear, a Cannibal Woman, a Killer Whale, and a Beaver. These were all clan crests of the tribes that Chief Martin was closely related, and hence forth placed on the Ottawa totem.

The raven on the top represents “Gwawina” a raven that came to the earth and transformed into a man, which is the the second figure. The grizzly is the bear Kyelem, that also transformed into a man, and the woman is Tsonoqua the Cannibal Woman.

The Killer Whale is Makinukw, a supernatural whale. The Beaver on the bottom is Tsawa, who gave birth to a half beaver, half human son.

When it was completed in British Columbia, the totem was transported on rail two cars to Ottawa where it was hoisted in 1961 in front of the Scouts Canada building. The totem’s base is ten feet long and was anchored in over 75 tons of concrete at the base.

The totem pole is loaded onto a train car bound for Ottawa. (courtesy of D. Stremes from Canadian National Railways employee magazine
“Keeping Track” from July-August 1960)

The totem being hoisted into position on Baseline Road in 1961. (Scout Leader Magazine)

It would only be a year after Chief Mungo Martin’s totem was erected in Ottawa that he would pass away in 1962, leaving behind his legacy through various totem poles across North America, and one totem pole in Windsor Great Park in the United Kingdom. That Totem Pole was a gift from the people of Canada to Her Majesty The Queen in June, 1958.

Ottawa’s great totem remains on Baseline Road, its once vibrant colours fading with each passing year. It has endured the harsh winds and weather of Ottawa winters for 56 years and has welcomed many a Scout into the National Headquarters in that time.

The next time you pass by the great totem of Baseline Road, you might want to wave to the great spirit who lies within its weathered wood.

Andrew King, September, 2016

With special thanks to @oldmanloudwife for the photos used with permission.

SOURCES

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

The Scout Leader, Vol.XXXVIII Number 4, January 1961

On November 5 1970 Led Zeppelin released the “Immigrant Song” on Atlantic Records, written during Led Zeppelin’s tour of Iceland, Bath and Germany in the summer of 1970.

The song’s lyrics are written as if by Vikings rowing west from Scandinavia in search of new lands. These lyrics would seemingly make the Vikings “immigrants” in a new land, and that land would be Canada.  References to Viking conquests and the Old Norse were confirmed in a 1970 radio interview when Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin jokingly recalled, “We went to Iceland, and it made you think of Vikings and big ships ..”

Led Zeppelin perform the “Immigrant Song” live, which is a lyrical ballad that curiously resembles the Norse discovery of Canada in 1000AD.

Between 1961 to 1968 the Norwegian archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad investigated sites on the northern tip of Newfoundland and determined that the curious site once thought to be of “native origin” was actually of Norse origin because of definitive similarities between the characteristics of structures and artifacts found at the site compared to sites in Greenland and Iceland from around 1000 CE. The land of “ice and snow”. The Norse settlers had once made their way from Iceland to Greenland, and then furthermore to Canada around 1000AD. It is now the only proven Viking settlement in North America and a National Historic Site.

The Norse settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland Canada dated to 1000AD. (image:GoogleMaps)

On the album Led Zeppelin III, the “Immigrant Song” features an intense lyrical ballad by Robert Plant about the Norse discovery of a “new land”.. an interpretation is below in italics:

We come from the land of the ice and snow, (Scandinavia, Iceland)
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. (Iceland)
Hammer of the gods, will drive our ships to new land. (Norse god Thor used a hammer, taking the ships to a new land..Canada)
To fight the hordes, and sing and cry. (The Norse upon reaching Canada called the indigenous people they encountered, skraelings)
Valhalla I am coming. (In Norse mythology, Valhalla (from Old Norse Valhöll “hall of the slain”is a majestic, enormous hall for the war dead located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin.)

Always sweep with, with threshing oar. (The Viking longships used oars to propel them through the water)
Our only goal will be the western shore. (The Western shore would be Vinland, the fabled new land discovered in Canada by Norse explorer Leif Erikson in 1000AD)

Ah, ah.
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun (The sun is visible in Iceland at midnight during certain months) where the hot springs flow.
How soft your fields so green. (Vinland, as described by the Vikings in Canada was described to have meadows of green grass)

Can whisper tales of gore. (The sagas of the Vikings told of the Norse settlement of Vinland being brutally attacked by the indigenous people, and vice versa.) 

Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your over Lords.

Always sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore. (Canada)

So now you’d better stop, and rebuild all your ruins. (The Vinland settlement was abandoned in Canada, leaving only ruins)
For peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing. (The Norse settlers lost their battle with the indigenous people of Canada who forced them to return back to the land of the ice and snow despite the initial trust the two parties once had for each other.)

With the “Immigrant Song” being released in 1970, it was written during the same time the Ingstads announced their discovery of the Norse settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The Norse were the immigrants, and the new land was Canada.  Perhaps a coincidence, but it seems the lyrics are a telling clue as to the origin of the Led Zeppelin song we are all familiar with. The complete song on YOUTUBE is posted here.

Andrew King September 25, 2016

SOURCES

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ledzeppelin/immigrantsong.html

Thor’s Hammer

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

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

On my first solo trip as high school kid to Ottawa back in 1990 I drove the old Prescott Highway from Kingston to Ottawa in my ’73 VW Beetle, passing by a curious diner on my way to an interview at Carleton University.  The diner was called the Green Valley restaurant, a neat old diner that looked like it was part of a 1950s movie set. The white building would later burn to the ground in the late 1990s on New Year’s Eve, its history disappearing up in smoke and its remains bulldozed into a future parking lot. My first greeting as I entered Ottawa was through this fine old dame that once sat at the corner of Baseline and Prince Of Wales Drive, and now 25 years after I first saw her, I want to show the rest of you who may never have known the majestic Green Valley.

In 1933 Waldorf Stewart moved to a remote wooded property on the old Prescott Highway near Ottawa where he built a play cabin for his daughter near his new home. The rustic cabin was soon visited by uninvited guests who were tourists passing by thinking it was a Motor Court cabin rental, a type of accommodation that was springing up all over North America as more and more tourists traveled by car. Stewart realized an opportunity when he saw one, and built a few more cabins and opened the Green Valley Tourist Court with cabins to rent for tired travellers on their way into the Nation’s Capital.

One of the first, if not the very first, motels in Ottawa was the “Green Valley Tourist Court” located at the corner of Prince of Wales and Baseline that opened in 1933.

In 1947 Stewart expanded his tourism empire at what was once considered “the outskirts” of the city and opened the Green Valley Restaurant, a modest diner to serve breakfast and evening meals to his customers staying at the rental cabins. Now boasting 24 cabins, Stewart thought the motel and diner would only be open for the summer tourist season, but the restaurant gained a reputation for fine quality foods. This may in part to the hospitable service but also because Stewart hired Chef Gustave, formerly from the Engineer’s Club in Montreal. After only a short period of time, the Green Valley became one of Ottawa’s premiere dining destinations.

An Ottawa experience was going to the Green Valley Restaurant, shown here in what looks to be the 1950s. (image Library and Archives Canada)

The restaurant was expanded three times and included a gift shop called the ‘Then and Now Shop’ where visitors could purchase toys, souvenirs and curious gadgets. Kids especially enjoyed the “Mickey Mouse” sundaes that the restaurant served to its younger diners which was a cartoon dessert; a scoop of ice cream with wafer ears and pistachio eyes. Many Ottawa residents will remember going there with grandparents or on special occasions, as it was a treat to be treated to the Green Valley Restaurant back in the day.

In 1956 Stewart once again expanded the restaurant to include “The Walnut Room”, a special dining area with rich walnut panelling and thick carpeting. Once staffed with 65 employees, the Green Valley became an empire, but like most empires they eventually fade away.

I remember when I received my first paycheque from my first full time job and I wanted to treat myself to a nice dinner. So I picked the place I saw when I first drove into Ottawa a few years earlier, the Green Valley. It was 1995 and I remember the place looked like it was trapped in 1955, with a musty smell reminiscent of an old landmark dame that now sat tired, empty and staffed by elderly servers who had probably worked there when it first opened and still wore their original uniforms. The furniture was worn, the food was bland, and the place had a very “The Shining” feel to it. Nevertheless you could sense it was once “THE” place to eat in Ottawa, but with the Lone Star opening up down the road, and other restaurants emerging, the Green Valley was left behind, its grandeur tarnished by the hands of time.

The former entrance to the Green Valley Restaurant now blocked off, and turned into a parking lot. (GoogleMaps street view)

I’m glad I got to visit the Green Valley, because soon after I was there, the restaurant mysteriously burned down on some New Year’s Eve, its charred remains were unceremoniously bulldozed away, turning this once special place into nondescript parking lot. That parking lot still remains at the corner of Prince of Wales and Baseline, and you would never know that it was once the location of Ottawa’s grand valley experience, the now lost Green Valley.

Andrew King, September 2016

SOURCES

Delcampe.net

The Ottawa Citizen via Google News

GoogleMaps

Library and Archives Canada

On a tour of the remarkably intact ruins of a railway turntable from Ottawa’s first railway.

Archeologists working on a development study at the City Centre property uncovered the surprisingly intact stone ruins of a 50 ft diameter 1800’s railway turntable. I was invited to examine the site and with much awe, was transported back in time to place that has been lost under the soil for almost 150 years.

Jeff Earl from Past Recovery Archaeological Services Inc. invited me to take a look at a massive 50ft stone ruin that has been lying beneath the surface of City Centre’s vacant lot. First constructed in 1871 for the St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway, the 50 foot diameter turntable structure would have been part of the industrial railways that snaked all through the former LeBreton Flats area.

Study area showing the second 1883 CPR roundhouse west of the 1871 one that was demolished.

Earl and his associate, Peter Sattelbrger, toured me through the unearthed ruins and explained they had studied old maps and Fire Insurance Plans that indicated a large railway roundhouse may have been situated at the site. Digging began and the archeological team uncovered a remarkably intact stone ruin of a circle that would have made up the foundation of the turntable, used to turn around the old steam locomotives and send them in the opposite direction.

The original 1871 timber and stone pivot point of the turntable unearthed.

The St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway was previously known as the Prescott and Bytown Railway, and brought Ottawa’s first train to town in 1854. (I wrote about it for the Ottawa Citizen here) That operating company went bankrupt and re-formed in 1866 as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway. The line was eventually taken over in 1884 by Canadian Pacific Railway who used it as a link between Ottawa and their mainlines along the St. Lawrence. The parliament buildings were constructed from stone brought up from the St. Lawrence River on this rail line.

The old 1871 railway complex at 900 Albert St. as shown on Belden’s 1879 atlas.

The “ghost” of the railway roundhouse complex shown at the current site at 900 Albert St..

Rail track foundation beds for the tracks radiating from the circle.

The stone circle ruins have well preserved timbers in the centre where the pivot point of finely dressed stones formed the base. This would have been to rotate the steam locomotive once they were on the turntable . Sattelbrger explained that it was most likely a “gallows” style turntable for the trains arriving off a spur line from the main tracks of the railway. This structure either burned down or was demolished when a second turntable and roundhouse was opened west of the original in 1883, of which the ruins from that have also been unearthed.

A gallows style turntable similar to the one unearthed at City Centre.

The larger, 20 bay roundhouse but in 1883 later burned down also in 1910, and a third one was built in 1911 again, further west at the present site of the Tom Brown area. That third structure was subsequently demolished in 1968.

The second 1883 roundhouse foundation walls that were also uncovered by archeologists.

Upon examining the ruins, it was amazing to see how well preserved the stone, timber and  red brick was, hidden beneath the surface all these years. Old steam pipes and rail equipment was also carefully dusted off and catalogued, the archeologists diligently working to record as much of this site as possible before the whole area is turned into a proposed future condo development.

What is probably part of Ottawa’s oldest rail history lies quite preserved in the vacant lot at City Centre, soon to be buried again to make way for a proposed 30 to 55 storey condo tower. No one will ever know that it was there when it is removed for construction. Except for a few of us.

My sincere thanks to the Past Recovery Archaeological Services Inc. team for inviting me to witness a piece of history that was lost, then found, then about to be lost again. Your work is highly appreciated by many, and thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Andrew King, August 2016

SOURCES

http://www.railways.incanada.net/circle/Findings_Enginehouses.htm