Virtual Annual General Meeting via Zoom

Wednesday, February 22, 2023
from 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Please send an email to membership@gvhs.ca to pre-register for the AGM.

A notice with a link to the meeting documents and with details about joining the virtual AGM will be sent to you prior to the meeting.

Nominations for the Board of Directors will be accepted until February 15, 2023. Contact info@gvhs.ca.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the 2023 Annual General Meeting!

Our spring program information will be detailed in our next newsletter in the coming week.

Landon Mackenzie Pearson 1930 - 2023

The GVHS sends its condolences to the family of the Honourable Landon Pearson on her recent passing, on January 28, 2023.

In 2012, Landon Pearson contributed the first of two articles to Up the Gatineau!, the GVHS's local history journal. Titled "Pearsons Up the Gatineau!" it chronicled the Gatineau Valley connections of her father-in-law, Prime Minister Lester Bowles Pearson. This article went on to win the Arthur Davison Prize for the outstanding article in Volume 38. She followed up with a second article, “‘Go Ask Mary’: Mary E. Macdonald 1918–2006,” in Volume 44. Landon Pearson was a faithful member of the GVHS, and we mourn the loss of this remarkable Canadian. You can read her Up the Gatineau! Volume 38 article, and learn about her significant accomplishments in the Globe and Mail obituary.

Sheila Thomson celebrated 100

Longtime local historian Sheila Thomson celebrated her centennial birthday in January 2023.

Sheila was a dogged researcher who wrote an extensive history of the early Chelsea settlers, based on numerous interviews of old-timers. This 1965 paper is available for reference in the GVHS's Pat Evans Archives.

Sheila was profiled by Wayne Anderson in Volume 44 of Up the Gatineau!, in his article called "One Woman’s Fight to Preserve the History and Wilderness of Gatineau Park." She and her husband were featured on the cover of that volume, which also included an article by her called "Letter to Harry: My 1949 Canoe Trip in the Upper Gatineau." Please take the time to appreciate the talents of this remarkable individual by reading or re-reading this volume.

The GVHS congratulates Sheila on her 100th birthday, which the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club has also recognized with the attached article by Daniel Brunton in their most recent Trail & Landscape publication.

See tribute by Daniel F. Brunton.

New GVHS Exhibit at Chelsea Town Hall

Drop by the municipal offices at 100 chemin Old Chelsea to see the new exhibit in the reception area on our “History Wall”. The exhibit tells the story of the former century-old Cascades train station, now landlocked off Old Chelsea Road close to Hwy 5, and awaiting its final destination somewhere along La Voie Verte Chelsea.

Louise Schwartz showing the new History Wall.