History of the The Gatineau Valley Historical Society

The following article written by R.A. J. Phillips is reprinted from the 25th anniversary edition, Volume 13 of Up the Gatineau!

Twenty-Five Years

It is not a long time in the life of the Gatineau, but to us it seems to bestow a mantle of venerability. Can the Historical Society of the Gatineau really be a quarter of a century old?

We shall celebrate our anniversary with pride, gratitude and pleasure, but not too comfortably. Pride in the accomplishments of the Society; gratitude to the members who built it; pleasure in the rewards it now gives us; not too comfortably, because most of the challenges still lie ahead.

It is a time when we inevitably look back at how it began - with a sense of protest against government indifference to our history, with a campaign to save threatened buildings which were our heritage, with a confidence of what a tiny voluntary association could do.

As a society of over 400 members and growing, we are no longer quite so tiny. The voice that once trembled uncertainly in the wilderness is sometimes being listened to, perhaps sometimes with respect. Whether through our efforts or through some unexplained outside forces, the history of the Gatineau is now regarded more seriously than when we began. It is something to be explored, to be learned, to be savoured, to be saved for later generations. People who have become more conscious of our history now look to us to preserve it.

We have done well in keeping history through our publications, notably Up the Gatineau! itself, but also through our periodicals and special documents. We have touched the imaginations of those within reach of our monthly meetings by bringing remarkable people to share their thoughts on history. We have done less well in recent years in persuading people to undertake more research to which the Society is ready to contribute financially, but we have now begun what we hope will be a long series of oral histories. We have just established an Historical Museum of the Gatineau in Wakefield as a successor to our first small museum operated at Moorside in conjunction with the Tea Room there which the Society ran for many years. Most of the artifacts from this museum, which had been in storage or in use by the N.C.C., are incorporated in the New Museum with many additions thereto. We have done some justice to the Pioneer Cemetery we own, and we have seen a little progress in telling Canadians the story of the unique hero who is buried there. Perhaps best of all, we have involved more people, in one way or another, in the history of this small part of Canada.

That seems a reasonable start for a young organization. Won't you join us in our Twenty-Fifth Anniversary celebrations? Then it will soon be time to start working on an appropriate record for our first fifty years...

Name Change: from Historical Society of the Gatineau to Gatineau Valley Historical Society.

The Society has had three names since its inception. Originally the Historical Society of the Gatineau, a "new" name (the one eventually adopted in 2003) referencing the Gatineau Valley was first proposed to our membership in March of 1997. Members were not enthusiastic, and in September 1997, we agreed that "the only change to the name should be the capitalization of the word "the," to emphasize the fact that our frame of reference is "The Gatineau" and not "Gatineau."

Half a dozen years later, in 2003, we became the Gatineau Valley Historical Society. The Editor's Note introducing Volume 29 of Up the Gatineau! explains:

The masthead of this volume signals a change, as the Gatineau Valley Historical Society replaces a name - the Historical Society of the Gatineau - which served well for 40 years. Two reasons prompted the name change: ease of expression, and identity. We noticed that many people tended to rearrange the original words into a more natural-sounding sequence, and we wanted to distinguish our area of interest from that of the increasingly important mega-city of Gatineau. The Society's mandate and mission remain unchanged; the new name reflects current conditions.