Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 3.
Vale of Gatineau
John MacTaggart
It seems to me that it would be much to the benefit of Great Britain to transport a part of her convicts to this Vale of the Gattineau; they would here be quite apart from the rest of the inhabitants of the colony, and it would be perfectly impossible for them to escape. A tailor once took it into his head to run away from his master at Hull, and return to Quebec, the place of his nativity. He started early in the morning, took a canoe, crossed over the River Ottawa, and entered the wilderness on the opposite side. Day after day the poor fellow wandered in the woods, and found nothing to support life but a few wild raspberries. At last, on the tenth day of his desertion, he came out at the Rapid de Chats, about thirty miles from Hull, and quite in an opposite direction to that he intended to travel. The mosquitoes had feasted on him in a shocking manner; as, in passing through the thick woods the trees had torn off his garments, and exposed his almost famished carcase to the mercy of the merciless insects. He got back to the lapboard, and never thought of stirring away more.
Now the only way that the convicts could desert would be by Hull, and if they ever reached that from the vale, they might think they had done wonders, to say nothing of having afterwards to perform the tai/or’s trip.
Convicts could be transported to the vale at about one-fourth of the expense that they now are to New Holland. They would find it, when cleared, extremely fertile, fit to produce roots and fruits in abundance. I have seen specimens of lead and zinc brought out of it by the Indians; so there is a mine of these metals in it to a certainty, which might probably be wrought to much advantage. As the local situation also is excellent, with regard to Upper and Lower Canada and the lnterior, it might become a place of great importance and utility to the Mother Country, and a receptacle for villains near to the British gaols, where they could be delivered and retained with much security, and employed to advantage. lt embraces an area of 25,000 square miles, perfectly distinct from all lands of location, ranging between the 46° and 48° of north latitude, and may average about 300 feet above the level of the ocean. It is covered with a dense wilderness of trees, generally of the hard-wood kind; — oak, beech, maple, butter-nut, &c. which are of the very best quality. The snow falls in the beginning of December, and generally vanishes with the month of March. The Gattineau is a river about four times as large as the Rideau, and about twelve times as large as the Thames, out of the influence of the tide. It is subject to two floods in the spring, like the Ottawa. I have penetrated into the vale for the sake of curiosity; and the statements here made, if ever a proper survey takes place, will not be found, I dare say, very wide of the fact.
The most comfortable place for convicts in Canada, then, is in the great Vale of the Gattineau, which commences beyond the Great Falls, and are about 50 miles above where that river disembogues itself into the Ottawa. Towards the west, between this vale and the Lakes of Chaudiere and Chats, (which are each what are termed thirty-mile lakes of the Ottawa,) the lofty mountains of Airdly extend in compact ridges, averaging 1500 feet above the level of the waters of the Lake of the Chaudiere. To the north, the vale may be said to be bounded by a branch of the Rocky Mountains, in which the Gattineau is supposed to have its rise, about 800 miles from the river's mouth. To the east is another range of high mountains; and then the River Leivre, which also rises out of the Ridgy Mountains, and discharges itself also into the Ottawa, about 30 miles farther down than the Gattineau. To the south, from the vale, is the famous township of Hull; a township that can boast of 2000 acres of cleared land, and 1500 inhabitants. There is no township located equal to this for more than 60 miles in any direction from it. The great Rideau Canal has its entrance near the mouth of the Gattineau, but on the opposite side of the Ottawa, where an excellent fortification on a cape may be easily made. At present this cape forms the Rideau Military Post: it overhangs the Ottawa, as it were, nearly 300 feet above it, and is a most commanding station.
This is a chapter from the two volume THREE YEARS IN CANADA — An Account of the Actual State of the Country in 1826-7-8 by John MacTaggart who was a Clerk of Works on the Rideau Canal project under the direction of Col. John By.
The spelling — Gattineau, Airdly and Leivre — is that of the author