OTTAWA CITIZEN, By Robert Sibley
A wobbly wrought iron staircase, weed-encrusted rock formations, and the finest panorama of the Ottawa River you could want — such are what the NCC will work with to develop one of the national capital’s “hidden treasures.”
More than 100 people turned out Tuesday for a public consultation on the National Capital Commission’s plans to increase public access — pedestrian and cyclist — to the shorelines and islands the Bronson Pulp Mill ruins and the Richmond Landing area.
Starting from the Mill St. Brew Pub on Wellington Street, most joined NCC staff on a tour of the project sites on Richmond Landing, Victoria Island and Amelia Island. They encountered everything from the glossy Royal Canadian Navy Monument at Richmond Landing to the rusty remnants of abandoned machinery — including an ornate spiral staircase — at Ottawa Hydro’s No. 2 generating station on Amelia Island.
Judging by responses to the tour, the project — intended to be finished in time for the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017 — will likely prove popular, provided it is done well.
“I always bring friends who visit to Richmond Landing. The view is incredible,” said Sheila Laidlaw, who, as it happens, is a descendant of Henry Bronson, the 19th-century lumber baron who built a sawmill on the Ottawa River below Chaudière Falls and helped turn a muddy backwater village into a capital city.
“This area is one of Ottawa’s best-kept secrets, so I hope they keep it as natural as possible,” she added. “We don’t want Coney Island.”
Others echoed the sentiment.
“It’s good to see them wanting to doing something with this area,” said Rosemarie Kelland, who along with husband Geoff joined one of the hour-long tours. “They need to showcase the history of these places. It’s been hidden for so many years.”
That, indeed, is the intention. Describing the area as one of the national capital’s “hidden treasures,” NCC officials said they want to provide universally accessible routes from the Wellington-Portage intersection to the Bronson Pulp Mill ruins on Victoria Island below Chaudière Falls and from the Ottawa shoreline to Richmond Landing, where visitors have a widescreen view down the Ottawa River to the spires of the Parliament Buildings and Notre Dame Cathedral.
It’s possible new bridges could connect Richmond Landing, Victoria Island, Amelia Island, the site of a Hydro Ottawa generating station — the oldest electrical generating station in Canada, as it happens.
According to the NCC, the project would highlight the aboriginal and natural heritage of the islands, recognize the military presence in the region and showcase the manufacturing and power generation industries that helped spur Ottawa’s development. The idea, officials said, is to create a site of “national significance.”
In the 19th century, lumber from the Ottawa Valley provided timber for the Royal Navy. The pulp mills that followed provided newsprint for most of the country.
When Henry Bronson died in 1889, his son Erskine Henry continued to manage the company until 1900, when the Great Fire destroyed their Chaudière sawmill. Erskine gave up lumbering altogether and built a pulp mill. The former pulp mill is now the location of the Energy Ottawa Building. Next to it, the former Thompson-Perkins Mill is now the site of The Mill St. Brew Pub.
Improving public access to the Ottawa River shorelines is one of the NCC’s main strategic objectives. Earlier this year, it issued a call for proposals that would “animate” the river’s shorelines.
In September, chief executive Mark Kristmanson, in a report to the NCC board, said construction should begin in 2016 with completion by the summer of 2017, the year of Canada’s sesquicentennial.
That prospect pleased Sheila Laidlaw. “My granddad (a descendant of Henry Franklin Bronson) would have been happy about this. He really loved Ottawa.”
View the NCC's presentation in PDF format below.
