the shortest route to the Atlantic seaboard from the great grain-producing areas of western America.
The Ottawa was first explored by Samuel de Champlain in 1613. Champlain describes many of its tributaries, the Chaudière and Rideau Falls, the Long Sault, Chats and other rapids, as well as the character of the river and its banks, with minuteness and reasonable accuracy. He places the Chaudière Falls in 45° 38′, the true position being 45° 27′. The Long Sault Rapids on the Ottawa, about midway between Montreal and the capital, were the scene of one of the noblest exploits in Canadian history, when in 1661 the young Sieur des Ormeaux with sixteen comrades and a handful of Indian allies deliberately gave their lives to save New France from an invasion of the Iroquois. They intercepted the war party at the Long Sault, and for nearly a week held them at bay. When finally the last Frenchman fell under a shower of arrows, the Iroquois were thoroughly disheartened and returned crestfallen to their own country. For a hundred and fifty years thereafter the Ottawa was the great highway from Montreal to the west for explorers and fur-traders. The portage paths around its cataracts and rapids were worn smooth by the moccasined feet of countless voyageurs; and its wooded banks rang with the inimitable chansons of Old Canada, as the canoe brigades swept swiftly up and down its broad stream. Throughout the 19th century the Ottawa was the thoroughfare of the lumbermen, whose immense rafts were carried down from its upper waters to Montreal and Quebec.
OTTAWA, a city of Carleton county, province of Ontario, and the capital of the Dominion of Canada, on the right bank of the Ottawa river, 101 m. W. of Montreal and 217 m. N.E. of Toronto. The main tower of the parliament building is in 45° 25′ 28″ N., and 75° 42′ 03″ W.
The city stands for the most part on a cluster of hills, 60 to 155 ft. above the river. It is on the main line of the Canadian Pacific railway, which affords direct communication with Montreal by two routes, the North Shore and the Short Line, one on either side of the Ottawa river. Branches of the same railway lead to Brockville, on the St Lawrence river, passing through the town of Smith’s Falls where connexion is made with the direct line from Montreal to Toronto; to Prescott, also on the St Lawrence; northward through the Gatineau valley to Maniwaki, in the heart of a famous sporting country, and westward to Waltham, on the north side of the Ottawa. The Grand Trunk offers a third route to Montreal, and another line of the same railway leads to Parry Sound, on Georgian Bay. The Ottawa and New York (New York Central) runs to Cornwall, on the St Lawrence, thence to New York. Electric railways afford communication with all parts of the city and extend eastward to Rockliffe Park and the rifle ranges, westward to Britannia on Lake Deschenes, and through the neighbouring town of Hull to Aylmer and Victoria Park. During the summer months steamers ply down the Ottawa to Montreal, and by way of the Rideau canal and lakes to Kingston on the St Lawrence. A road bridge, partially destroyed in the great fire of 1900, connects Ottawa with Hull; a railway bridge spans the river above the Chaudière Falls; and the Royal Alexandra Bridge, below the falls, carries both steam and electric railway tracks, as well as roadways for vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The site of the city is exceedingly picturesque. For 3 m. it follows the high southern bank of the Ottawa, from the Chaudière Falls, whose mist-crowned cauldron is clearly visible from the summit of Parliament Hill, to and beyond the Rideau Falls, so named by early French explorers because of their curtain-like appearance. The Rideau, a southern tributary of the Ottawa, once formed the eastern boundary of the city, which, however, is now absorbing a string of suburbs that lie along its eastern banks. The Rideau Canal cuts the city in two, the western portion being known as Upper Town and the eastern as Lower Town. Roughly speaking the canal divides the two sections of the population, the English occupying Upper Town and the French Lower Town, though Sandy Hill, a fashionable residential district east of the canal, is mainly occupied by the English. Opposite and a little below the mouth of the Rideau, the Gatineau flows into the Ottawa from the north. Above the Chaudière Falls the river is broken by the Deschenes Rapids, and beyond these again it expands into Lake Deschenes, a favourite summer resort for the people of the city. To the north lie the Laurentian Hills, broken by the picturesque Gatineau Valley.
The crowning architectural feature of the city is the splendid group of Gothic buildings on the summit of Parliament Hill, whose limestone bluffs rise 150 ft. sheer from the river. The three blocks of these buildings form sides of a great quadrangle, the fourth side remaining open. The main front of the central or Parliament building is 470 ft. long and 40 ft. high, the Victoria Tower (180 ft. high) rising over the principal entrance. Behind and connected with the Parliament building is an admirably proportioned polygonal hall, 90 ft. in diameter, in which the library of parliament is housed. The corner stone of the main building was laid by the then prince of Wales in 1860. The buildings forming the eastern and western sides of the quadrangle are devoted to departments of the Dominion government. To the south, but outside the grounds of Parliament Hill, stands the Langevin Block, a massive structure in brown sandstone, also used for departmental purposes. The increasing needs of the government have made necessary the erection of several other buildings and an effort has been made to bring as many of these as possible into a harmonious group. The Archives building and the Royal Mint stand on the commanding eminence of Nepean Point, to the eastward of Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canal lying between. Two large departmental buildings occupy ground south of the Archives building and facing Parliament Hill, one containing the Supreme Court as well as the Federal Department of Justice. At the foot of Metcalfe Street, south of Parliament Hill, stands the Victoria Museum, with the department of mines, with the splendid collections of the Geological and Natural History Museum, the departmental library, and the National Art Gallery. The Dominion Observatory stands outside the city, in the grounds of the Central Experimental Farm. Plans were approved in 1909 by the government for a union railway station east of the canal, and immediately south of Rideau Street, and a large hotel (Grand Trunk Railway), the Chateau Laurier, at the southern end of Major’s Hill Park. Other prominent buildings are the city hall, post office, Carnegie library, normal and model schools, government printing bureau, county court house, the Basilica or Roman Catholic cathedral, and Christ Church cathedral (Church of England), the Roman Catholic university of Ottawa and the collegiate institute.
The city charities include four large general hospitals, two of which are under Protestant auspices; one is controlled by Roman Catholics; the fourth is devoted to contagious diseases. Ottawa is the seat of the Church of England bishop of Ottawa, and of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Ottawa. Several of the philanthropic and educational orders of the latter church are established here, in nunneries, convents or monasteries. As elsewhere in Ontario, the educational system is divided into public schools (undenominational), and separate schools (Roman Catholic), the latter supported by Roman Catholic taxpayers, the former by all other members of the community. The collegiate institute is common to both, and is used as a preparatory school for the universities.
Ottawa has been a great seat of the lumber trade, and the manufacture of lumber still forms an important part of the industrial life of the city, but the magnificent waterpowers of the Chaudière and Rideau Falls are now utilized for match-works, flour-mills, foundries, carbide factories and many other flourishing industries, as well as for the development of electric light and power, for the lighting of the city and the running of the electric railways.
The people of Ottawa possess a number of public parks, both within and outside the city, partly the result of their own foresight, and partly due to the labours of the Government Improvement Commission. Parliament Hill itself constitutes a park of no mean proportions, one of the noted features of which is the beautiful Lover’s Walk, cut out of the side of the cliff half way between the river and the summit. The grounds above contain
