Filth

Top Map detail, Dept. of Militia and Defense, 1906

Okay here's a puzzle — and me without a solution. Our last post mentioned two things about Pointe-Gatineau's parc de la Baie — flooding, and contamination.

Funny how that 1904-'06 time-frame keeps cropping up. It just so happens that my earliest Ottawa-Hull topographical map is dated 1906. The detail above shows Pointe-Gatineau relative to "Old Hull" and Ottawa. I count three hotels (H), a post office (P), and a cemetery (C next to a square). The sans-serif T indicates a "telephone office". You can see the Lady Aberdeen Bridge crossing the Gatineau River near its mouth, and two of local ferries that operated at the time. They're indicated by the finely dotted lines, each with a little circle near their middles.

You can also see that the parc de la Baie section is shown as marshland, as if a flooded state was more the rule than the exception. Of course, things are at their worst in spring...

Ottawa Journal, May 4 1897

Questions come to mind. How much time did/does the "park" spend underwater each year? What, if any, efforts have been made to levee and/or drain it over the past century? And how in hell did it get contaminated?

I would have assumed that a regular spring flushing might wash away any contamination. Not that I can find any evidence here for any heavy industry to begin with — nothing of the sort  that laid environmental ruin upon LeBreton Flats or the Chaudière archipelago (for example). Early aerial photos seem to show nothing but farmland and charming wee houses.

Or was it a smaller scale insult, like the McClymont potash field in New Edinburgh? Or, was the field repeatedly inundated with pulp-and-paper waste from upstream? I'll let you know if I find out.

In the meantime, check out these very dirty pictures.

Chaudière Island, Victoria Island, Richmond Landing and the northern part of LeBreton Flats, 1965

Victoria Island (VI, above) was recent closed to the public pending a massive decontamination project. After which...?

W. McClymont potash field yard, New Edinburgh — Goad map detail circa 1895

Parkland in New Edinburgh was the subject of soil remediation a few years back, thanks to industrial contamination dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tut tut, such smut.