Ottawa << AHT uh wuh >>, Ontario, is the capital of Canada. It lies on gently rolling hills along the south bank of the Ottawa River, about 110 miles (175 kilometers) west of Montreal, Quebec. Attractive parks, stately government buildings, and scenic drives add beauty to the city. Ottawa faces the city of Gatineau, Quebec, across the Ottawa River.
In 1826, British troops founded the first settlement in the area that is now Ottawa. The soldiers had come to build the Rideau Canal, which links the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario. The town that sprang up around the construction site became known as Bytown. In 1855, the townspeople changed its name to Ottawa, adapted from the Indian word Outaouak. The Outaouak were an Algonquin tribe that settled and traded furs in the area.
Ottawa was a small lumbering town when Queen Victoria chose it in 1857 to be the capital of the United Province of Canada. The Dominion of Canada was established in 1867, with Ottawa as its capital. The city’s layout has been changed greatly through the years in keeping with Ottawa’s standing as a national capital.
Metropolitan Ottawa
About 85 percent of the city of Ottawa is a rural area. The Rideau River flows through Ottawa from the south. It plunges 37 feet (11 meters) over a cliff into the Ottawa River at the northeastern end of the city, forming the Rideau Falls. The Rideau Canal cuts through the city on its way from the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario (see Rideau Canal).
Parliament Hill borders the Ottawa River just west of the canal. The hill, with wooded slopes and beautiful lawns, offers a dramatic view of the heart of Ottawa. The graceful spires and green roofs of the three Parliament buildings and the Library of Parliament rise above a bluff near the river. The Peace Tower, a memorial to Canada’s war dead, rises 302 feet (92 meters) from the central Parliament building. The tower, topped by a lighted clock, houses a set of 53 bells that weigh a total of 60 tons (54 metric tons).
The areas immediately to the west and east of the Rideau Canal are the oldest parts of Ottawa. The city’s chief shopping districts center around the Sparks Street Mall to the west of the canal and Byward Market and Rideau Street to the east.
Ottawa includes the urban and rural areas that, until 2001, were part of the region of Ottawa-Carleton and the municipalities of Cumberland, Gloucester, Goulbourn, Kanata, Nepean, Osgoode, Rideau, Rockcliffe Park, Vanier, and West Carleton. The Ottawa region also includes the Outaouais, an area in western Quebec directly across the Ottawa River from Ottawa. The main city in the Outaouais is Gatineau. It consists of five former Quebec municipalities—Aylmer, Buckingham, Gatineau, Hull, and Masson-Angers—that merged in 2002.
A visitor’s guide
Millions of tourists visit the Ottawa-Gatineau area yearly. They come to see Parliament in action and to view such attractions as the Peace Tower and eight locks of the Rideau Canal. Ottawa’s annual festivals and fairs, its numerous museums, and the Casino du Lac-Leamy also attract many visitors to the area.
The Parliament buildings
rank as one of Ottawa’s most popular tourist attractions. These four buildings form three sides of a 35-acre (14-hectare) square. They include the Centre Block, the East Block, the West Block, and the eight-sided Library of Parliament.
The Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII of England, laid the first stone of the Centre Block in 1860. The three main buildings were completed in 1865. The library was completed in 1876. Fire destroyed most of the Centre Block in 1916. The Centre Block was soon rebuilt, and it reopened in 1920.
The Centre Block includes the House of Commons, the Senate chamber, the Peace Tower, and offices of members of Parliament. The East Block includes the restored office of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister. The West Block contains offices for members of Parliament and other government officials. During the summer, visitors may watch a daily changing-the-guard ceremony on Parliament Hill.
In 2019, the House of Commons and the Senate moved to temporary chambers to allow renovations in the Centre Block. The renovations were expected to take a number of years.
Other notable government buildings
include the Royal Canadian Mint, where visitors may watch coins being made. The Library and Archives Canada building exhibits historical documents. The Canadian Supreme Court building also attracts many visitors.
Rideau Hall,
also called Government House, is the official residence of Canada’s governor general. It stands near the mouth of the Rideau River. Thomas McKay, a lumberman, built it in 1838. The Canadian government bought this gray limestone building in 1868 for Viscount Monck, the governor general at the time of Canadian confederation. The official residence of the prime minister is nearby, at 24 Sussex Drive.
The National War Memorial,
at Confederation Square, honors Canadians who have served their country in times of war. It consists of bronze figures of servicemen and servicewomen marching through a granite arch. Many other monuments and statues in Ottawa also celebrate the people, events, ideals, and accomplishments of the city and of Canada.
The National Arts Centre,
in the heart of Ottawa, opened in 1969. The facility houses several performance spaces, including a 2,300-seat opera and concert hall. The National Arts Centre Orchestra performs in the concert hall.
Museums.
The National Gallery of Canada has Canadian and European paintings and sculpture. It also regularly hosts special exhibitions of international artists. The Canadian Museum of Nature features animals, fossils, and minerals. The Canada Science and Technology Museum includes exhibits on communications and transportation. Laurier House, the former residence of Canadian Prime Ministers Sir Wilfrid Laurier and W. L. Mackenzie King, is a historical museum. The Canadian War Museum houses the most extensive military collection in Canada. Exhibits at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, trace Canada’s development from the time of the Vikings to the present. They illustrate the cultures of Inuit (formerly called Eskimos) and First Nations (American Indians).
Parks and recreation.
The Ottawa region has hundreds of parks and playgrounds. Ottawa’s professional sports teams include the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League and the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League. The Central Experimental Farm and the Dow’s Lake area include many attractive gardens.
Annual events
in Ottawa include the Canadian Tulip Festival in May. Millions of tulip bulbs bloom in parks, along roadways, and on the grounds of public buildings. The late Queen Juliana of the Netherlands sent the first bulbs to Ottawa as a gift. During World War II (1939-1945), Juliana, then a princess, lived in Ottawa while German troops occupied her country. After returning home, she sent Ottawa 100,000 tulip bulbs in gratitude for the city’s hospitality and for Canada’s role in freeing the Netherlands. Juliana then sent Ottawa 15,000 tulip bulbs annually until she abdicated in 1980. Since 1980, the Dutch government has sent tulip bulbs to Ottawa each year for the festival.
Ottawa holds a winter festival called Winterlude in February. The festival features snow sculptures and ice carvings and such sports as broomball, ice skating, and dog-sled racing. The Festival Franco-Ontarien (Franco-Ontarian Festival), held in the city every June, celebrates Ontario’s French Canadian culture. It includes art exhibits and folk dancing. The city’s jazz, blues, folk, and chamber music festivals, held in the summer, are also popular.
People
Most of Ottawa’s people were born in Canada. Most of the rest immigrated from Asia, Western Europe, or the United States.
A majority of Ottawa’s residents have some British or French ancestry. About three-fifths of the people only speak English. Both English and French are spoken by about a third of the people.
Economy
Industry and commerce.
The Canadian government ranks as Ottawa’s largest employer. Tens of thousands of the area’s residents work for the Canadian government.
The Ottawa area is also a high-technology center. It is sometimes called Canada’s Advanced Technology Capital. Hundreds of high-technology companies employ thousands of people in the Ottawa area. These companies specialize in advanced research and development in such fields as computer software, environmental technology, space science, and telecommunications.
Many Ontarians work in health care and related industries. Tourism is also an important part of the local economy.
Transportation.
Many major airlines use the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. Passenger and freight trains also serve the city. Ottawa has a fine highway system, including scenic drives that run parallel to the Rideau Canal on both sides. The highway system extends across the Ottawa River into the Gatineau Hills. A publicly owned company provides bus and light rail service. Several bridges connect Ottawa with Gatineau.
The Ottawa River links the city with Montreal, and the Rideau Canal connects it with Kingston, Ontario. Ferries also operate between Ottawa and communities in Quebec. But water transportation plays only a small part in Ottawa’s economy.
Communication.
Ottawa has three daily newspapers. The Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun are printed in English, and Le Droit is printed in French. Many local television and radio stations in Ottawa broadcast in English. Others broadcast in French.
Education
Schools.
Ottawa’s elementary and secondary schools are almost evenly divided between public and Roman Catholic institutions. The city is the home of Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The University of Ottawa, founded in 1848 as the College of Bytown, offers most of its courses in both English and French. St. Paul University and the Dominican University College are also in Ottawa. The Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology and its French counterpart, La Cité collégiale, offer postsecondary education in various academic and professional disciplines.
Libraries.
The Ottawa Public Library and the Bibliothèque Municipale de Gatineau (Municipal Library of Gatineau) have dozens of branches. Ottawa is also home to the Library of Parliament and Library and Archives Canada, Canada’s national library.
Government
An elected city council governs Ottawa. The council includes a mayor and 24 councillors who represent districts called wards. Both the mayor and councillors serve four-year terms. Taxes on property, sales, and businesses provide most of the government’s revenue. Ottawa also receives federal and provincial grants.
History
Early days.
Centuries ago, Algonquin and Iroquoian First Nations (American Indian) people traveled down the Ottawa River on hunting and trading trips. They went ashore at what is now Ottawa and carried their canoes around the Chaudiere Falls. In 1613, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain passed through the area. French fur traders used the Ottawa River as a route to the west.
In 1800, Philemon Wright, a farmer from Massachusetts, took over a large tract of land on the north side of the Ottawa River. He built a sawmill and began a lumber business that grew into a thriving industry. Ira Honeywell, the first settler on the south bank, began to farm on the Ottawa side of the river in 1811.
Bytown.
After the War of 1812, the British feared another war with the United States. As a result, they sought a way to send gunboats and supplies from Montreal to Lake Ontario without passing near U.S. territory. To carry out this project, the British sent the Royal Engineers under Lieutenant Colonel John By to build the Rideau Canal. A community known as Bytown grew up around By’s headquarters.
Frequent conflicts between Irish canal workers and French Canadian lumbermen made Bytown a stormy place during its early years. The lumber trade on the Ottawa River had begun in 1806, when Philemon Wright took the first raft of processed timber down to the St. Lawrence River. Bytown became a center of this trade. Sawmills and other lumber industries sprang up, and by 1837, the population had reached 2,400. Bytown was incorporated as a town in 1850. It became a city in 1855, and the people changed its name to Ottawa. The community had a population of about 10,000 that year.
Capital of Canada.
Upper and Lower Canada (the southern parts of present-day Ontario and Quebec) joined in 1840 and formed the United Province of Canada. For the next 17 years, the legislature debated the question of a permanent capital. Meanwhile, Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto each served as capital. Canada referred the decision to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in 1857. She chose Ottawa as the capital because of its beauty and location. Ottawa lay on the boundary of what had been Upper and Lower Canada. The city was far enough from the United States to protect it from attack.
In 1867, Ottawa became the capital of the newly formed Dominion of Canada. Its population had reached 18,000. The city grew in a disorganized fashion, with numerous railroads crisscrossing through the center of town to accommodate the lumber trade. In 1896, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier called for a beautification program to make Ottawa the “Washington of the North.” Three years later, the Ottawa Improvement Commission was formed.
The 1900’s.
In 1900, a great fire left nearly one-fourth of Ottawa’s 60,000 people homeless. But by 1912, the city’s burnt-out areas had been rebuilt, and its population had reached 90,000.
The Federal District Commission replaced the Ottawa Improvement Commission in 1927. Ten years later, Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King appointed Jacques Greber, the Paris city planner, to develop a plan for Ottawa. But World War II broke out in 1939 and interrupted the project. Greber returned to France. Ottawa became the center of Canada’s war effort.
After the war, Greber returned to Canada. In 1951, Parliament accepted his plan to beautify Ottawa. The Greber Plan brought about significant changes. Ottawa removed 32 miles (51 kilometers) of unattractive railroad tracks and relocated the railroad station to the east edge of the city. It set aside land for a belt of parks and green spaces around the capital. The commission also developed the 88,000-acre (35,600-hectare) Gatineau Park just north of Ottawa. Instead of grouping all government offices in the city’s core area, the plan called for new government buildings on the outskirts of the city.
The National Capital Commission replaced the Federal District Commission in 1959. It is responsible for acquiring land for beautification purposes. It set up a national capital region of 1,800 square miles (4,660 square kilometers)—900 square miles (2,330 square kilometers) in Ontario and 900 more in Quebec. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the commission created beaches and parkways within the capital region. At the same time, the area’s rapidly growing computer-software and electronics industries built research facilities and factories.
In 1962, Ottawa established the Commercial and Industrial Development Corporation, later renamed the Economic Development Corporation, to promote economic growth. This government corporation created 12 industrial parks in Ottawa during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In 2001, the corporation merged with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (now the Ottawa Centre for Regional Innovation).
In 1973, the city repealed a law that had limited the height of buildings in the downtown area. As a result, taller buildings began to be constructed in Ottawa. City leaders predicted that the additional apartment dwellers and office workers in the new buildings, along with commuters from the growing suburbs, would strain Ottawa’s transportation system. The provincial government announced a plan to avoid this problem by helping the city government build a new bus system. Much of the system is reserved for buses only. The plan called for Ontario to pay 75 percent of the cost of this Transitway project. Construction of the system began in 1981, and new parts are added continually.
In 1999, the Ontario legislature passed a law to create a new, enlarged city of Ottawa. The new city came into being on Jan. 1, 2001. It includes the urban and rural areas that once comprised the Ottawa-Carleton region and the municipalities of Cumberland, Gloucester, Goulbourn, Kanata, Nepean, Osgoode, Ottawa, Rideau, Rockcliffe Park, Vanier, and West Carleton.
