There have been many changes in Ottawa since I first came to Canada’s capital in the ‘50s to play in the Ottawa Music Festival. Back then it was a dour city, brown and rundown. But even so, it certainly wasn’t the place Voltaire had in mind when he described Canada “as a land covered with snow and ice, inhabited by barbarians, bears and beaver.”
In fact, in the early years of the 20th century, Ottawa—whose name is derived from the Algonquin word “adawe,” meaning “to trade”—was a rough, brawling town crawling with lumberjacks and con men.
Lumbering was British North America’s biggest industry during most of the 19th century. The tough, arrow-straight pine of the Ottawa Valley was especially prized by British shipbuilders. By 1864, just 12 years before the original Parliament Buildings were completed, there were over 25,000 lumbermen in the Ottawa Valley—and many more in other valleys in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Entire forests were rafted to Quebec for shipment to Britain.
These days trucks loaded with logs still ply Ottawa’s main streets.
Canadian Museum of History
Another tradition has proven its longevity in the nation’s capital: What is now the Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Museum of Civilization) celebrated its 100th birthday back in 1942.
It all started in 1841 when Queen Victoria granted 1,500 pounds sterling for the creation of “the Geological and Natural History Survey of the Province of Canada,” which originated in 1842 with its establishment in Montreal under Sir William Edmund Logan. Scientists soon began collecting geological and archaeological items during field work. By 1851, the collection was important enough to be sent to the Great Exhibition in London, England. And in 1927, an act of Parliament caused the Survey to be renamed the National Museum of Canada.
