Historian Michael McBane, author of Bytown 1847: Élisabeth Bruyère & the Irish Famine Refugees, re-tells this important story for the "Time Travelling with the Historical Society of Ottawa" HSO/Rogers TV series: https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/resources/videos/time-travelling-with-michael-mcbane-bytown-1847

Michael is also author of John Egan: Pine & Politics in the Ottawa Valley.

Alastair Sweeny, PhD, has written extensively about Thomas Mackay, including his 2022 book “Thomas Mackay: The Laird of Rideau Hall and the Founding of Ottawa”.

Other books authored by Alastair Sweeny include George-Étienne Cartier: A Biography, BlackBerry Planet, and Fire Along the Frontier: Great Battles of the War of 1812. Alastair is based in Ottawa and is a member of the Historical Society of Ottawa.

More on the story of the New Edinburgh Shintie Club medallions can be read in the excellent book “Win, Tie, or Wrangle: The Inside Story of the Old Ottawa Senators 1883-1935” by the late Paul Kitchen.

Scottish Shinty

Shinty (or shintie) is unique to Scotland and is regarded as the Scottish national sport. The game was supposedly introduced from Ireland 2000 years ago, along with Christianity, and was often played clan against clan.

Shinty is played with a cork ball covered in leather, that is slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Shinty sticks or camans were formerly similar to modern hockey sticks and are commonly confused by the same.

Shinty in the Highlands with Camans

The earliest reference to shinty – or camanachd, prounounced ca-man-achd in Gaelic – comes from a Scottish text written on 1608:

A vehement frost continued from Martinmas [November 11] till the 20th of February. The sea froze so far as it ebbed, and many people went into ships upon ice and played at the chamiare [shinty] a mile within the sea mark. Many crossed over the Firth of Forth on the ice a mile above Alloa and Airth, to the great admiration of aged men, who had never seen the like in their days.

The keenness and duration of this frost was marked by the rare occurrence of a complete freezing of the Thames at London, where accordingly a fair was held upon the ice. In Scotland, rivers and springs were stopped; the young trees were killed, and birds and beasts perished in great numbers. Men, travelling on their affairs, suffered numbness and lassitude to a desperate degree. Their very joints were frozen; and unless they could readily reach shelter, their danger was very great. In the following spring, the fruit-trees shewed less growth than usual; and in many places the want of singing-birds was remarked.

The cold was caused by the eruption of the Peruvian volcano, Huaynaputina, which sent over 12 cubic miles of rock and ash into the atmosphere. This caused catastrophic weather events for a decade, including a Russian famine that killed two million.

Ice hockey evolved from Shinty after Highlanders and Scottish soldiers settled in Canada and took to playing shinty on ice for lack of a grass field in winter. Informal ice-hockey games in Canada are still referred to as shinny games.

In 1809, we find one of the very first documented mentions of a ball and stick game being played on the ice by skaters, in Perth, Scotland.

Scone Abbey

Close to Perth is Scone Abbey, where the Kings of Scotland were traditionally crowned for hundreds of years. From the 9th to the 15th Century, Perth was effectively the capital of Scotland. It was a primary residence for monarchs, and it was where the Royal Court was held. Royalty enhanced the early importance of Perth, and Royal burgh status was given to the city by King William the Lion, in the early 12th century.

In 1836, Scottish historian George Penny published Traditions of Perth, a collection of town anecdotes. One of his entries mentions games of shintie being played on Inch Island in the Tay River that runs through the town. Shintie – aka “shinty” – was an old Scottish form of field hockey or bandy, played with a ball and a caman - a shintie stick curved at one end, similar to a field hockey stick. Penny relates that Perth boys also played an ice version on skates:

The Shinty or Club used to be played in all weathers on the Inch; and frequently on the streets, by large assemblies of stout apprentices and boys. This game was also played on the ice by large parties, particularly by skaters, when there was usually a keen contest.

This explicit reference to skates is absent from the 1607-08 and 1740 references to games played on the ice.

It’s highly probable that one passionate player of the game was a seventeen year old Perth lad, Thomas Mackay, apprenticed to his father as a mason. After his father’s death at age 50, Thomas and his wife and mother emigrated to Canada, where he found plentiful masonry work in Montreal. In 1815 he won a contract to build the Lachine Canal, and in 1825, on the recommendation of Governor Lord Dalhousie, the Royal Engineers engaged him to build the Rideau Canal entry locks. In the 1840s, next to the Rideau Falls, he built a mill complex and village he called New Edinburgh, and a villa his daughter named Rideau Hall.

Mackay never forgot the game of his youth, and encouraged his friends and mill workers to take time out for winter play on the frozen Rideau River. On Christmas Day, 1852, Mackay, then age 60, hosted an ice shintie match between the New Edinburgh Scots against the Bytown Sassenachs (Englishmen). The Scots won 2-1 and the Laird of Rideau Hall awarded the Shintie Club winners this silver medal, now in the Bytown Museum in Ottawa.

Mackay’s Silver Shintie Medal, 1852 @Bytown Museum

James Powell is the author of the blog Today in Ottawa's History giving  a day-by-day account of local history.

The Anishinabek
For thousands of years before the Rideau Canal and Bytown, the Ottawa Valley was home to the Anishinaabe Algonquin people and remains their unceded land. James Powell explores the story of the Algonquin people and the devastating impact that European settlement had on their lives and livelihoods: The Anishinabek, Time Immemorial, 7 October 1783

The Chaudiere Bridges
One of the most pressing priorities for Lt. Colonel By and his engineering colleagues, was to span a bridge across the Ottawa River in order to transport essential supplies and workers from Wright’s Town urgently needed to begin construction of the Rideau Canal: The Chaudière Bridges, 28 September 1826

The Canal
James  shares the story of one of the most remarkable engineering feats of its era – the construction of the Rideau Canal: The Canal, 29 May 1832

The Shiners’ War
For the better part of a decade, lawlessness reigned as Bytown’s citizens were terrorized by violent gangs of thugs known as the “Shiners”, cunningly manipulated by the ruthless and ambitious Peter Aylen, a man willing to fuel religious and linguistic division in his attempt to solidify his own unassailable Ottawa Valley timber empire: The Shiners’ War, 20 October 1835

Ottawa’s First Newspaper
500 copies of Bytown’s first newspaper hit the streets on February 24, 1836. James Powell flips through the pages of that first four-page edition and takes a peek at what its first subscribers would have been reading: Ottawa’s First Newspaper, 24 February 1836

The ByWard Market
James Powell traces the history of Lowertown’s almost two-century old ByWard Market: The Byward Market, 4 November 1838

Corporation of Bytown
John Scott was elected the first mayor of Bytown – twice. Initially incorporated in 1847, with John Scott elected as Bytown’s first mayor, Bytown’s charter was subsequently disallowed following a dispute with the Ordnance Department, the military administration that had become accustomed to being in charge since the days of Lt. Colonel John By. James Powell shares the story of how matters were eventually resolved and how, upon reinstatement of Bytown’s charter, John Scott was, for a second time, elected as Bytown’s first mayor: The Corporation of Bytown, 28 April 1847

Stony Monday Riot
In 1849, the Stony Monday Riot erupted in Lowertown between the Reformists and the Tories. Dozens of injuries and one death resulted when as the (mostly Protestant) Tories, furious over the impending visit of the Governor General, Lord Elgin, clashed with the (largely working-class Catholic) Reformists: Stony Monday Riot, 17 September 1849

Lord Elgin Visits Bytown:
Remarkably, Lord Elgin’s visit in 1853 -- only four years after the Governor General had been forced to cancel his visit following Bytown’s violent Stony Monday Riot -- resulted in Lord Elgin’s recommendation that Bytown to be chosen as the Province of Canada’s new capital: Lord Elgin Visits Bytown, 27 July 1853

Choosing Canada's Capital 
Toronto, Kingston, Hamilton, Montreal and Quebec City were among Bytown’s rivals in the intensely-fought contest be chosen as the Province of Canada’s new capital. Bytown even went so far as to change its name to “Ottawa” in hopes of distancing itself from its (well-earned) reputation as a violent and uncivilized backwoods lumber town. James Powell retraces Bytown’s surprising journey to becoming Queen Victoria’s unexpected choice as Canada’s new capital: Queen Victoria Chooses Ottawa, 31 December 1857

Ottawa’s Centenary
In celebration of Bytown’s 100th anniversary in 1926, the Ottawa Journal published an article predicting what Ottawa might be like a century later, in 2026. Today, as we mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of Bytown, James Powell takes us back to 1926 for a look at those predictions and at how else our city celebrated our centenary: Ottawa’s Centenary, 16 August 1926

Andrew King is an Ottawa artist and historian and author of the Ottawa Rewind blog.

• Andrew recalls the steamships that once plied the Rideau Canal: The Lost Steamships of The Rideau Canal (May 22, 1832)
• Andrew unearths the Firth Tavern: Ottawa's First Pub (1819)
• Thirsty canal workers? Andrew combs through old maps to track down Bytown’s first brewery: Ottawa First Brewery (1831)

Curtis Wolfe researches local history and heritage and his writings have been featured in Lowertown’s Community Newspaper The Echo.

Curtis uncovers the history of a local street: What’s in a name? Uncovering the namesake of Tormey Street.

Let’s hear your stories about Bytown and the Rideau Canal as we begin to mark 2026, the 200th anniversary of the beginning of both!

All contributions are welcome. Selected submissions will be shared on a special webpage on the HSO website for all to access, including educators. Eligible contributions can be submitted in a variety of formats, including written or audio/video.

We request that submissions be received by November 30, 2025.

We hope to also incorporate selected contributions into the HSO’s many other platforms – such as the HSO blog, the HSO’s Capital Chronicle newsletter, our website’s articles and Ottawa Stories sections and potentially the HSO pamphlet series.  All will be shared through our social media platforms well.

We welcome stories that pertain to the Rideau Canal or Bytown (1826-1855) or the Ottawa area’s history beforehand, as well as stories exploring the impact that the establishment of both had on the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous people.

We welcome new as well as updated or previously-published materials for submission. Contributors will allow the HSO the right to publish their materials while also retaining the right to do so themselves.

Contact us to learn more: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We will also be happy to discuss any proposals for submissions you may have.

Have a look at our collection of stories: https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/resources/bytown-200

Enjoy this episode of the HSO/Rogers TV series Time Travelling with Michael McBane.

Peter McBride, President of the Bytown Fire Brigade, tells of the history of firefighting in early Bytown and today's modern Ottawa.

Alastair Sweeny, author of "Thomas Mackay, The Laird of Rideau Hall and the Founding of Ottawa" recounts the beginning of Bytown.

Bytown Museum's Collections and Exhibitions Manager, Grant Vogl, gives a snapshot of the vast collection of art works held within the museum's vault.