Gatineau River
Rivière Gatineau
The upper Gatineau River
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Outaouais
Source	Unnamed wilderness
- location	near boundary between Outaouais and Mauricie regions
Mouth	Ottawa River
- location	City of Gatineau
- coordinates	45°27′15″N 75°41′42″W / 45.45417°N 75.695°W / 45.45417; -75.695
Length	386 km (240 mi) [1]
Basin	23,724 km2 (9,160 sq mi) [1]
Discharge	for Paugan Power Station
- average	350 m3/s (12,360 cu ft/s) [1]
Map of the Ottawa River drainage basin with the Gatineau River

The Gatineau River is a river in western Quebec, Canada, which rises in lakes north of the Baskatong Reservoir and flows south to join the Ottawa River at the city of Gatineau, Quebec. The river is 386 km (239.8 mi) long and drains an area of 23,700 km².

While it has been said that the river's name comes from Nicolas Gatineau, a fur trader who is said to have drowned in the river in 1683, the local Indian tribe, the Algonquin Anicinabek, assert that the name comes from their language. The name they give the river is "Te-nagàdino-zìbi", which means "The River that Stops [One's Journey]".

The geography of the area was altered with the construction of the Baskatong Reservoir, and it is still possible to travel upstream on the Gatineau and reach a point where a small portage will bring you to the headwaters of the Ottawa River. The Ottawa River then flows northwest and turns south where it eventually flows more easterly and connects with the Gatineau.

The river flows through the communities of:

• Maniwaki
• Low
• Wakefield
• Chelsea
• Gatineau

A covered wooden bridge over the river at Wakefield, built in 1915, was destroyed by arson in 1984, but has been rebuilt.

The Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield Railway, a tourist steam train follows the old train route up the Gatineau valley to Wakefield.

History[link]

This river was an important transportation corridor for native people of the region and early explorers. On June 4, 1613, Samuel de Champlain passed here while travelling on the Ottawa River to L'Isle-aux-Allumettes. He wrote:

We passed near a river coming from the north, where a people called "Algoumequins" can be found, which drains into the great St-Lawrence River, three leagues downstream from the Saint-Louis Falls, makes an island of nearly forty leagues, and which is not large but filled with an indefinite number of falls which are very difficult to pass. Sometimes, these people use this river to avoid meeting their enemies, knowing that they will not seek them in such difficult accessible places.

He noted this "river coming from the north" but did not give its name.

According to the Bulletin des recherches historiques (1895), the land-surveyor Noël Beaupré wrote an official report on the river on February 3, 1721, but without naming it, leaving it unclear if its current name was in use in the 18th century.

In 1783, in a report to the governor Frederick Haldimand, lieutenant David Jones called the river by the name "River Lettinoe". According to Lucien Brault (History of Pointe-Gatineau, 1948), this would be the first written reference to the name Gatineau. On the charts of his account from 1830, but recalling events from the beginning of the 19th century, the traveller and fur trader Jean-Baptiste Perrault called the river "nàgàtinong" or "àgatinung".

On a plan of the Rideau Canal, drawn by lieutenant-colonel John By in 1831, the river is called "Gatteno". Finally, "R. Gatineau" appears on the chart of William Henderson in 1831, and on the one of Thomas Guesses, in 1861.

This name recollects the memory of a fur trader from the 17th century, Nicolas Gatineau or Gastineau. Inhabitant of Trois-Rivières, he had traded near a river located between the Ottawa and Saint-Maurice Rivers, which was then customarily called river of Gatineau. But according to Raymond Douville, at the end of the 17th century Louis (1674-1750) and Jean-Baptiste (1671-1750), sons of Nicolas, established a trading post, or just a supply post, on a point located at the mouth of the river, site of the future Point-Gatineau. Therefore the toponym given to the river is more likely a credit to the Gatineau sons than to Nicolas.^[2]

From the 19th century up until 1991, the river was used to transport logs to sawmills near the mouth of the river. Philemon Wright and his descendants played an important role in the development of the lumber industry in the Gatineau valley. In more recent times, with declining quality in the forests of the region, logs are used for pulp and paper.

The river has been extensively dammed and is an important source of hydroelectric power. In the spring of 1974, there was extensive flooding along the Gatineau.

Gatineau River near Farrellton, circa 1930

Tributaries[link]

Major tributaries of the Gatineau River in upstream order are:^[3]

• La Pêche River
• Kazabazua River
• Picanoc River
• Grand Lac Rond
  • Thirty-one Mile Lake
• Rivière Désert
  • Rivière de l'Aigle (Eagle River)
  • Tomasine River
  • Désert Lake
    • Ignace River
• Baskatong Reservoir
  • Gens de Terre River
    • Wapus River
    • Belinge River
    • Cabonga Reservoir
  • Rivière d'Argent
  • Notawassi River
  • Petawaga River
    • Petawaga Lake
• Bazin River
  • Rivière aux Bleuets
  • Rivière a la Marte (Marten River)
  • Dandurand River
• Rivière du Canot (Canoe River)
• Choquette River
• Chabot River
• Fortier River
• Chouart River
• Tamarac River
• Clova River

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ottawa-Gatineau Watershed Atlas
• Gatineau River
• Festival d'eau vive de la Haute-Gatineau - A festival dedicated to the preservation of rivers.

See also[link]

• List of Quebec rivers

Gatineau
—  City  —
The sun sets on office buildings in the Hull Sector of Gatineau.
Coat of arms Official logo of Gatineau Logo
Motto: Fortunae meae, multorum faber[1]
Gatineau Location in Quebec, Canada
Coordinates (25, rue Laurier[2]): 45°25′40″N 75°42′38″W / 45.42778°N 75.71056°W / 45.42778; -75.71056Coordinates: 45°25′40″N 75°42′38″W / 45.42778°N 75.71056°W / 45.42778; -75.71056[3]
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Outaouais
RCM	None
Constituted	January 1, 2002
Government[2]
• Type	Gatineau City Council
• Mayor	Marc Bureau
• Federal riding	Gatineau, Hull—Aylmer and Pontiac
• Prov. riding	Chapleau, Gatineau, Hull, Papineau and Pontiac
Area[2][4]
• City	381.30 km2 (147.22 sq mi)
• Land	342.98 km2 (132.43 sq mi)
• Metro[5]	2,999.90 km2 (1,158.27 sq mi)
Population (2011)[4]
• City	265,349
• Density	773.7/km2 (2,004/sq mi)
• Metro[5]	314,501
• Metro density	104.8/km2 (271/sq mi)
• Change (2006–11)	9.6%
• Dwellings	117,769
Time zone	EST (UTC−5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC−4)
Postal code(s)	J8L to J8Z, J9A
Area code(s)	819
Access Routes A-5 A-50	Route 105 Route 148 Route 307 Route 315 Route 366
Bridges	Alexandra Bridge Portage Chaudière Prince of Wales Champlain
Website	www.gatineau.ca

Gatineau (/ɡætˈənoʊ/) is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is the fourth largest city in the province. It is located on the northern banks of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario, and together they form Canada's National Capital Region. Ottawa and Gatineau comprise a single Census Metropolitan Area. As of 2011 Gatineau had a population of 265,349,^[4] and metropolitan population of 314,501 for the Quebec part of the Ottawa-Gatineau Census Metropolitan Area;^[5] the full census metropolitan area, including Ottawa and the rest of the Ontario part, had a population of 1,236,324.^[6]

Gatineau is coextensive with a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census division (CD) of the same name, whose geographical code is 81. It is the seat of the judicial district of Hull.^[7]

History[link]

1830 painting of Wright's Town by Thomas Burrowes, with the Chaudière Falls and Bytown visible in the background

The current city of Gatineau is centred on area called Hull, the oldest non-native settlement in the National Capital Region. It was founded on the north shore of the Ottawa River in 1800 by Philemon Wright at the portage around the Chaudière Falls just upstream (or west) from where the Gatineau and Rideau Rivers flow into the Ottawa. Wright brought his family, five other families and twenty-five labourers^[8] and a plan to establish an agriculturally based community to what was then a mosquito-infested wilderness. But soon after, Wright and his family took advantage of the large lumber stands and became involved in the timber trade. The original settlement was called Wrightstown, later it became Hull and in 2002, after amalgamation, the City of Gatineau.

In 1820, before immigrants from Great Britain arrived in great numbers, Hull Township had a population of 707, including 365 men, 113 women, and 229 children. Note the discrepancy in the number of men and women, owing to the male work of the timber trade. In 1824, there were 106 families and 803 persons. During the rest of the 1820s, the population of Hull doubled, owing to the arrival of Ulster Protestants. By 1851, the population of the County of Ottawa was 11,104, of which 2,811 lived in Hull Township. By comparison, Bytown had a population of 7,760 in 1851. By 1861, Ottawa County now had a population of 15,671, of which 3,711 lived in Hull Township. The gradual move to the Township by French Canadians continued over the years, with the French Canadians growing from 10% of the population in 1850, to 50% in 1870, and 90% in 1920.^[9]

The carspreserve of the draveurs, people who would use the river to transport logs from lumber camps until they arrived downriver. (The Gatineau River flows south into the Ottawa River which flows east to the St Lawrence River near Montreal.) The log-filled Ottawa River, as viewed from Hull, appeared on the back of the Canadian one-dollar bill until it was replaced by a dollar coin (the "loonie") in 1987, and the very last of the dwindling activity of the draveurs on these rivers ended a few years later.

Ottawa was founded later, as the terminus of the Rideau Canal built under the command of Col. John By as part of fortifications and defences constructed after the War of 1812. Originally named Bytown, Ottawa did not become the Canadian capital until the mid-19th century after the original parliament in Montreal was torched by a rioting mob of English-speaking citizens on April 25, 1849. Its greater distance from the American border also left the new parliament less vulnerable to foreign attack.

Nothing remains of the original 1800 settlement; the downtown Vieux-Hull sector was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1900 which also destroyed the original pont des Chaudières (Chaudière Bridge), a road bridge which has since been rebuilt to join Ottawa to Hull at Victoria Island.

In the 1940s, during World War II, Hull, along with various other regions within Canada, such as the Saguenay, Lac Saint-Jean, and Île Sainte-Hélène, had Prisoner-of-war camps.^[10] Hull's prison was simply labeled with a number and remained unnamed just like Canada's other war prisons.^[10][11] The prisoners of war (POWs) were sorted and classified into categories by nationality and civilian or military status.^[10] In this camp, POWs were mostly Italian and German nationals. During the Conscription Crisis of 1944 the prison eventually included Canadians who had refused conscription.^[10] Also, prisoners were forced into hard labour which included farming and lumbering the land.^[10]

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the decaying old downtown core of Hull was transformed by demolition and replacement with a series of large office complexes. Some 4,000 residents were displaced, and many businesses uprooted along what was once the town's main commercial area.^[12]

Amalgamation[link]

As part of the 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, the five municipalities that constituted the Communauté urbaine de l'Outaouais were merged on January 1, 2002 to constitute the new city of Gatineau. They were:

• Aylmer
• Buckingham
• Gatineau
• Hull
• Masson-Angers

Although Hull was the oldest and most central of the merged cities, the name Gatineau was chosen for the new city. The main reasons given were that Gatineau had more inhabitants, it was the name of the former county, the valley, the hills, the park and the main river within the new city limits: thus its name was less restrictive than Hull. Some argued that the French name of Gatineau was more appealing than a name from England to most French-speaking residents. Since the former city of Hull represents a large area distinct from what was formerly known as Gatineau, to be officially correct and specific many people say "vieux secteur Hull" (the former Hull part of town) when speaking of it. It is of note that the name "Hull" was often informally used to refer to the whole urban area on the northern shore of the river facing Ottawa, so much so that the National Capital Region was often referred to as "Ottawa-Hull", especially in Quebec outside the immediate area.

Although referendums were held in 2004 to give citizens the opportunity to overturn the amalgamation, in the end none of the former municipalities met the threshold vote conditions for de-merger, and the status quo prevailed.

Economy[link]

A number of federal and provincial government offices are located in Gatineau, due to its proximity to the national capital, and its status as the main town of the Outaouais region of Quebec.

A policy of the federal government to distribute federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River led to the construction of several massive office towers to house federal civil servants in downtown Gatineau; the largest of these are Place du Portage and Terrasses de la Chaudière, occupying part of the downtown core of the city. Some government agencies and ministries headquartered in Gatineau are the Canadian International Development Agency, Public Works and Government Services Canada and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.^[13]

Recreation[link]

Filling the balloons in the park

Two important tourist attractions located in Gatineau are the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Casino du Lac-Leamy. In August, the Casino hosts an international fireworks competition which opposes four different countries with the winner being awarded a Prix Zeus prize for the best overall show (based on several criteria) and can return in the following year. At the beginning of September, on Labour Day weekend, Gatineau hosts an annual hot air balloon festival which fills the skies with colourful gas-fired passenger balloons.

There are many parks. Some of them are well gardened playgrounds or resting spaces while others, like Lac Beauchamp Park, are relatively wild green areas which often merge with the woods and fields of the surrounding municipalities. Streams of all sizes run through these natural expanses. Most of the city is on level ground but the Northern and Eastern parts lie on the beginnings of the foothills of the massive Canadian Shield, or Laurentian mountains. These are the "Gatineau Hills", and are visible in the background of the companion picture. One of Gatineau's urban parks, Jacques Cartier Park, is used by the National Capital Commission during the popular festival, Winterlude.

Education[link]

The city contains a campus of the Université du Québec, the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO).

It is also the home of two provincial junior colleges (or CEGEPs): the francophone Cégep de l'Outaouais and the anglophone Heritage College.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has a campus in Gatineau.

The main French-language school boards in Gatineau are the Commission scolaire des Portages-de-l'Outaouais, the Commission scolaire au Coeur-des-Vallées and the Commission scolaire des Draveurs.

Primary and secondary education in English is under the supervision of the Western Quebec School Board.

Transportation[link]

The Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport is Gatineau's municipal airport, capable of handling small jets. There are Canada customs facilities for aircraft coming from outside Canada, a car rental counter and a restaurant. Various past attempts to provide regularly scheduled flights from Gatineau's airport had been unsuccessful. Most residents of Gatineau used the nearby Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, or travel to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal. Since September 2003 however Expresso has been operating regularly scheduled direct flights from Gatineau airport to Quebec City.

Ottawa and Gatineau have two distinct bus-based public transit systems with different fare structures, OC Transpo and the Société de transport de l'Outaouais. Tickets are not interchangeable between the two, however passes and transfers from one system to the other do not require payment of a surcharge on any routes.

Many Gatineau highways and major arteries feed directly into the bridges crossing over to Ottawa, but once there the roads land into the dense downtown grid or into residential areas, with no easy connection to the main highway in Ottawa, the East-West 417 or Queensway. This difficulty is further magnified by the lack of a major highway on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River connecting Gatineau to Montreal, the metropolis of the province; most travellers from Gatineau to Montreal first cross over to Ottawa, and use Ontario highways to access Montreal. However, it is expected that Autoroute 50's gap between Gatineau and Lachute will be completed by 2010, making a new link between Gatineau and the Laurentians popular tourist area, and may serve as part of a Montreal by-pass by the north shore for Outaouais residents.

Key roads[link]

Gatineau City Council[link]

The Gatineau Municipal Council (French: Le conseil municipal de Gatineau) is the city's main governing body. It is composed of 17 city councillors and a mayor.

Media[link]

Gatineau is the city of license for several television and radio stations, although many more stations licensed to Ottawa are also available in the area. Both cities are generally considered to constitute a single media market, and many of the region's TV and FM broadcast stations transmit from the Ryan Tower site at Camp Fortune just north of Gatineau. All of the stations licensed directly to Gatineau broadcast in French.

Weekly newspapers published in Gatineau include Le Bulletin d'Aylmer (bilingual) and The West Quebec Post. Gatineau does not have its own daily newspaper, but is served by daily newspapers published in Ottawa, including the French Le Droit and the English Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun.

Population and demographics[link]

According to the 2011 census the city of Gatineau had a population of 265,349. This was an increase of 9.6% compared to 2006. Most of the population live in the urban cores of Aylmer, Hull and the former Gatineau. Buckingham and Masson-Angers are more rural communities. Gatineau is the fourth largest city in Quebec after Montreal, Quebec City and Laval.

The Quebec part of Ottawa-Gatineau Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) — which includes various peripheral municipalities in addition to Gatineau — had a total population of 314,501.

The following statistics refer to the Quebec portion of the Ottawa – Gatineau CMA (as it was defined in the 2006 census): Aboriginal status: ml/m/.m/peoples comprise 2.7% of the population.^[14]

Languages: Counting both single and multiple responses, French was a mother tongue for 80.0% of residents in 2006, English for 13.9%, Arabic for 1.7%, Portuguese for 1.1% and Spanish for 1.0%.^[15] (Figures below are for single responses only.)^[16]

Religion: About 83% of the population identified as Roman Catholic in 2001 while 7% said they had no religion and 5% identified as Protestant (1.3% Anglican, 1.3% United, 0.7% Baptist, 0.3% Lutheran, 0.2% Pentecostal, 0.2% Presbyterian). About 1% of the population identified as Muslim, 0.5% as Jehovah’s Witnesses, 0.3% as Buddhist, and 0.2% as Eastern Orthodox.^[17]

Visible minorities: The 2001 census found that 4.3% of the population self-identified as having a visible minority status, including, among others, about 1.3% who self-identified as Black, about 1.0% self-identifying as Arab, 0.5% as Latin American, 0.4% as Chinese, 0.3% as Southeast Asian, 0.2% as South Asian, and about 0.1% as Filipino. (Statistics Canada terminology is used throughout.)^[18]

Immigration: The area is home to more than five thousand recent immigrants (i.e. those arriving between 2001 and 2006), who now comprise about two percent of the total population. 11% of these new immigrants have come from Colombia, 10% from China, 7% from France, 6% from Lebanon, 6% from Romania, 4% from Algeria, 3% from the United States and 3% from Congo.^[19]

Internal migration: Between 2001 and 2006 there was a net influx of 5,205 people (equivalent to 2% of the total 2001 population) who moved to Gatineau from outside of the Ottawa - Gatineau area. There was also a net outmigration of 630 anglophones (equivalent to 2% of the 2001 anglophone population). Overall there was a net influx of 1,100 people from Quebec City, 1,060 from Montreal, 545 from Saguenay, 315 from Toronto, 240 from Trois-Rivières, 225 from Kingston, and 180 from Sudbury.^[20]

Ethnocultural ancestries: Canadians were able to self-identify one or more ethnocultural ancestries in the 2001 census. (Percentages may therefore add up to more than 100%.) The most common response was Canadian / Canadien and since the term 'Canadian' is as much an expression of citizenship as of ethnicity these figures should not be considered an exact record of the relative prevalence of different ethnocultural ancestries. 43.1% of respondents gave a single response of Canadian / Canadien while a further 26.5% identified both Canadian / Canadien and one or more other ethnocultural ancestries. 10.4% of respondents gave a single response of French, 1.1% gave a single response of Portuguese, 1.0% gave a single response of Irish, 0.9% gave a single response of Lebanese, 0.8% gave a single response of English, 0.7% gave a single responses of Québécois and 0.7% gave a single response of North American Indian. Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were:

The data to the left is also presented more geographically by Statistics Canada as: 70.7% North American, 37.8% French, 14.3% British Isles, 4.5% Aboriginal, 4.0% Southern European, 3.8% Western European, 1.9% Arab, 1.7% Eastern European, 1.0% East and Southeast Asian, 0.8% African, 0.7% Latin, Central and South American, 0.7% Caribbean and 0.5% Northern European.
(Percentages may total more than 100% due to rounding and multiple responses).

Communities[link]

The larger communities within Gatineau are:

Geographic location[link]

		Chelsea, Cantley, Val-des-Monts, L'Ange-Gardien
	Pontiac		Lochaber-Partie-Ouest
		Gatineau    East
		Ottawa River Bridges to Ottawa, Ontario

See also[link]

	Ottawa portal
	Quebec portal

• Chemin de fer de l'Outaouais
• Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield Railway
• List of communities in Quebec
• List of crossings of the Ottawa River
• Mayor of Gatineau
• Municipal reorganization in Quebec
• Twin cities

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gatineau, Québec

• City of Gatineau website
• Official website of the City of Gatineau Youth Commission

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