Recent discoveries, combined with archaeological evidence accumulated in the past, has made it apparent that the north shore of the Ottawa River, between the Chaudière Falls and the mouth of the Gatineau River, constituted a cultural landscape dating back more than 4,000 years -- millennia before the establishment of Bytown and the start of the Rideau Canal.
Evidence has been found at Hull Landing (today the site of the Canadian Museum of History) of an ancient burial ground used as long ago as 4,500 to 4,900 years. That same location served as the beginning of a major portage.
This portage, of course, was required to navigate around the nearby Chaudière Falls, itself, for thousands of years, a place of great spiritual significance and power.
Downstream, the delta of the Gatineau River was a summer gathering place providing a wealth of food and resources such as for making stone implements..
Both the Gatineau River and the nearby Rideau River had been bringing travellers together to meet, trade and exchange information for as many as 4,600 years.
In the attached two articles, originally published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology in 2015, professor and journalist Randy Boswell and renowned archaeologist Jean-Luc Pilon delve into the great significance of this important archaeological zone, located, by ironic happenstance, at the core of Canada’s national capital, and counting among its “tenants”, the Canadian Museum of History.
In the second of the two articles, we learn more specifically about how the findings from this site impacted in the origins of Canadian archaeology, the formations of Canada’s first museums and the important role played by Bytown-era physician Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt in the early investigation and exhibition of Canada’s prehistoric past:
"Below the Falls; An Ancient Cultural Landscape in the Centre of (Canada’s National Capital Region) Gatineau": pilon-boswell-cja.pdf
"The Archaeological Legacy of Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt": boswell-pilon-cja.pdf
Elsewhere in the HSO Bytown200 Bicentennial Story Collection, Algonquin elder Albert Dumont and Algonquin author Dr. Lynn Gehl have both written about the historic and spiritual significance of the Chaudière Falls and surrounding area:
Albert Dumont The Kettle of Boiling Waters Chaudiere Falls Algonquin Territory
