Timeline of the Park

Gatineau Park’s human history reflects Canadian history. It all began at the end of the Ice Age...

Overview

The Gatineau Hills were finally free of the glacier’s icy grip around 10,000 years ago, and they began welcoming an ever-changing parade of humans 5,000 years later: First Nations peoples, explorers, fur traders, loggers, settlers, industrial developers, and finally, recreational users.

As these people came and went, they left their mark. Communities were born, land was cleared for agriculture… beaver populations were decimated, forests were felled and mining operations scarred the landscape. Now protected, Gatineau Park is returning to a more natural state. But we visitors — over a million of us each year — are a new force to be reckoned with. Our impact is everywhere, and growing!

Five Thousand Years Ago — Land of the Algonkian

Long before Europeans came to this country, native people travelling along the Ottawa and Gatineau rivers may have visited the Park to hunt and to collect plant foods and medicines.

1600s to Early 1800s — Exploration and the Fur Trade

French explorer Étienne Brûlé canoed the Ottawa River in 1610. He was the first Frenchman to live among the native people.

Following Brûlé came the legendary coureurs de bois, who exploited the Gatineau Hills for their wealth of furs, especially beaver. Gatineau Park is named after one of those fur traders, Nicholas de la Gatineau (Duplessis), who explored the area in the mid-1600s, looking for new trapping lands.

Early 1800s — The Settlement Period

Settlers began arriving in the Gatineau Hills in the early 1800s. Their memory lives on in the Park’s place names — Pink, Fortune, Meech, Lusk, Mousseau, and others.

Many early settlers were United Empire Loyalists — people who wanted to stay loyal to the British crown after the thirteen American colonies won the war against Britain in 1783.

But the soil was poor, and many farmers left. The few who stayed on continued farming to raise food for their families, and worked in the logging camps through the winter to make ends meet.

1860s to 1940s — The Industrial Era

In the 1800s, the sound of picks and axes rang in the Gatineau Hills. Iron ore, molybdenite, phosphate and mica were mined in what is now Gatineau Park.

Iron ore from the Forsyth and Baldwin Mines was shipped down the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers to the Rideau Canal, and from there to the Great Lakes, destined for markets in the northern United States.

Today, the mines are no longer used, but Gatineau Park continues to draw geologists, who study the wealth of rocks and minerals at the Park’s quarries, roadcuts and rock outcrops.

1800 to Today — The Logging Era

When the Napoleonic Wars cut off Britain’s supplies of timber from the Baltic in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain turned to her colony, British North America, as a new timber source. The huge white pines of the Ottawa Valley and the Gatineau Hills made perfect masts for British naval vessels.

Throughout the 19th century, the Ottawa Valley’s towering pines were felled and floated down the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers toward Quebec City. This colourful chapter of Canadian history was dominated by Irish, Scottish and French-Canadian loggers, whose songs and legends are part of our folklore.

Today, the pulp and paper industry continues to employ people in the upper Gatineau, although now the logs are moved to the mills by truck. The last log run down the Gatineau River was in 1992.

Birth of the Park

The idea of creating a park in the Gatineau Hills goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903, the Ottawa Improvement Commission proposed the creation of a vast park to the north of Ottawa in its general plan for the region. That year, William Lyon Mackenzie King bought land in the area. In 1913, the Hold Commission returned to the idea of a national park, and recommended the acquisition of 30,000 to 40,500 hectares of land to the north and west of Ottawa–Hull.

In 1934, the Federal Woodlands Preservation League persuaded the federal government to acquire 10,000 hectares of land in the Gatineau Hills in order to put a stop to the systematic destruction of the forest. In 1937, the Federal District Commission had received approval from the government and started land acquisition with the purchase of 16,000 hectares.

When Mackenzie King died in 1950, he bequeathed his 231-hectare property to the people of Canada. He had acquired this land during the course of his life, and had created gardens and laid out ruins from various locations.

In 1950, Jacques Gréber produced a new plan for the National Capital Region, and recommended expanding Gatineau Park to 33,000 hectares. After adjustments to field maps, the Park covered 35,600 hectares by 1960.

Today, the NCC manages about 95 percent of the 35,600 hectares that make up the Park.

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