Rich Little — The Early Years

26 January 1964

People have often remarked that there appears to be a disproportionate number of Canadian comedians who made it big in the United States. Think of Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, Leslie Nielson, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, Norm Macdonald, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Mike Myers, Martin Short, and Jim Carey to mention just a few.

One possible reason for this phenomenon is the relative size of the “creative economy” in Canada compared to that in the United States. A 2016 British study by Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) found that in 2011 Canada’s creative economy accounted for 12.90% of Canadian employment, compared to 9.75% in the United States and 8.76% in the United Kingdom. Others have speculated that Canadian comedians owe their success in the United States by spending years honing their craft outside of Hollywood, developing their own unique comedic styles before trying their luck down south. Many earned their chops on SCTV in Toronto. Still others have suggested that Canadians know their American neighbours but at the same time have an outsider perspective that allows for observational humour, impressions, and parody that appeal to Americans.

One comedian who excelled at an early age in impersonations is Rich Little. Little was born in Ottawa on 26 November 1938, the second of three sons of the eminent physician, athlete and boy scout leader Dr. Lawrence “Bones” Little and his wife Elizabeth. The family lived at 114 The Driveway. From a very early age, young Rich was doing impressions for his mates in the St John’s 57^th Wolf Cub Pack and at school. At Lisgar Collegiate he did impressions of his teachers, often answering questions in class in their voices. (That must have gone over well!)

^{Front page of the Ottawa Citizen, 1 September 1955, 16 year old Rich Little and 17 year old Geoff Scott with Ed Sullivan at the CNE in Toronto.}

As a teenager, he joined up with Geoff Scott of Glebe High School to do comic impersonations at schools and other local events. In late August 1955, young Rich, age sixteen, and Geoff, age seventeen, travelled to Toronto to see Ed Sullivan who had flown in from New York City to host the Canadian National Exhibition and introduce Marilyn Bell who had swum across Lake Ontario in 1954 and who had just swum across the English Channel. Sullivan was also in Toronto to scout out new talent for his show. Somehow, the boys managed to speak to Sullivan and even get their photograph taken with him. The duo also did some impersonations for the variety show host. Little reported that Sullivan’s poker face broke into a smile saying “Boys, you have some great imitations there. But you lack audience experience. Come back in two years.” Little said that meeting Sullivan was the “thrill of [his] life.”

Little and Scott took Sullivan’s advice to heart and began to perform wherever they could. In November 1955, Little provided entertainment at a parish dinner of the St. George’s Anglican Church. The following year, the duo performed at such events as a picnic for the handicapped in Aylmer, an open house at Connelly Motors in Westboro, and a springtime party for the Ottawa Philharmonic. In addition, they were introduced to radio listeners to Ottawa when Gord Atkinson of radio station CFRA asked them to perform on his show.

Little and Scott got their first big break in February 1956 when they were invited to be one of the acts on the CBC television show Pick the Stars in which a panel of celebrities judged up-and-coming entertainers for cash prizes. The show was hosted by Dick MacDougal. With Little doing great Dick MacDougal and Ed Sullivan impressions, the duo came in tied for first place despite their “nervousness that made them look a shade amateurish,” according to the Ottawa Journal. However, the reporter added that Little and Scott were “a good deal funnier” than Joey Bishop who the CBC had hired at a cost of $2,500 to make a guest appearance on the Denny Vaughan Show, a musical variety series. Prophetically, the newspaper said that Little and Scott had the ability to become great comics should they choose a career in show business. Their appearance on Pick the Stars led to a call to perform from the Gatineau Country Club, the premiere night club in the Ottawa area. However, Little’s parents put their foot down with a firm “no!” After all, Rich was only 17 years old. However, the duo got more gigs on CBC television, including an appearance on the Jackie Rae Show in April 1956 where Little introduced his Charlotte Whitton (Ottawa’s mayor) impression to a national television audience.

As well as doing impersonations, Little got in as much radio and acting experience as he could. While still at school, he worked at CFRA during summer vacations doing everything, including a woman’s show called Helpful Hints for the Homemaker which apparently included one helpful hint for bald men: “Pour sour cream over the scalp twice daily; rub vigorously.” Little also performed in countless plays at the Ottawa Little Theatre and Ottawa’s Children’s Theatre. In a 1955 production of The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Anderson, Little was “third dog.” He was later the “sandwich man” in Pinocchio. In 1958, he played summer stock in North Hantley, Quebec in which he did the lighting, staging and sound, in addition to acting. Also that year, he won best actor in the Eastern Ontario Drama Festival for his role as “Bo Decker” in the play Bus Stop. By the early 1960s, he was doing two or three plays annually, with the view of eventually making the stage his career, with his sights set on Broadway.

While Rich Little and Geoff Scott performed frequently together during the late 1950s and early 1960s, they eventually went their own ways. Following his graduation from Glebe High School in 1957, Scott became a staff reporter at the Ottawa Journal. Two years later after leaving Carleton University, he joined CHCH-TV in Hamilton, where he became the face of the station. In 1978, he entered a new profession as a federal MP representing the riding of Hamilton Wentworth for the Progressive Conservative Party, a job he held until 1993. He died in 2021.

^{Advertisement, Ottawa Citizen, 21 June 1962.}

As for Little, after his graduation from Lisgar Collegiate, he took a job at the Smiths Falls radio station CJET where he had two shows daily, doing take-offs of popular television programs. One episode featured a Zorro take-off called “The Stroke of Burro,” in which “Peter Lore” played the burro. It also featured “Jimmy Cagney” and “Charlotte Whitton.” In 1961, he had his own show on CBOT, CBC’s Ottawa station, called Folderol—a half-hour program of light humour and interviews that aired at 6:00pm. The show also starred the Ottawa folk singer Tom Kines, and Jim Terrell who handled “helpful hints for the handyman.”  He also formed a partnership with Joe Potts called Little-Potts Productions, selling commercials, station breaks and impersonations to radio and television stations. As well, he continued to hone his stage impersonations at Le Hibou, Ottawa’s renowned coffee shop, and the Gatineau Country Club where he was now old enough to go. Among his impressions were President Kennedy, Prime Minister Diefenbaker, “Mike” Pearson, and Charlotte Whitton.

So good was his Whitton impersonation that in an Ottawa Journal article Little said that he frightened Lloyd Francis, one of Whitton’s “punching bags” on city council. It seems that while Little was driving down Elgin Street one Sunday, he pulled up alongside Francis who was in a car in the lane beside him looking at the construction of the Queensway overpass. Francis, who was oblivious to Little’s presence, almost jumped out of his skin when Charlotte Whitton’s voice shouted at him “Why don’t you look where you’re going, you stupid oaf!”

^{Advertisement, Ottawa Citizen, 10 January 1963.}

Through 1962 and 1963, as his popularity rose, Rich Little began appearing on many Canadian radio and television programs, including the Tommy Ambrose Show, and the Pierre Burton’s Show, television specials such as Little’s take on Charles Dickins’ Christmas Carol on CRFA, and a CBC show called Six for Christmas, as well as hosting a regular three-hour CRFA show, six days a week. He also released with Les Lye and Elsa Pickthorne his first album called My Fellow Canadians that spoofed well-known Canadian personalities. The record was a huge success. Mike Pearson, the leader of the Liberal Party, was a good sport about Little’s imitation of him, accepting an autographed copy of the album from Little. However, Prime Minister Diefenbaker and his wife Olive were not amused, advising the record company that neither were interested in receiving a copy.

Expecting to premiere excerpts from the record on the Tommy Ambrose Show in late February 1963, it ran afoul of the spring 1963 federal election. While Little’s impersonations were reportedly neither particularly political or controversial, CBC cancelled the program owing to “the troubled political scene and election campaign.” Public reaction to the news was swift; if anything, it boosted Little’s profile and popularity. A St John NB radio station declared a “Rich Little Day,” playing excerpts from the album and other Little material through the day.

A second album called Scrooge and the Stars, was released in mid-November 1963. It featured the voices of popular American entertainers, including “Jack Benny” as Scrooge and “Ed Sullivan” as the Ghost of Christmas to Come. “President Kennedy” featured as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Just a few days after the album’s release, tragedy intruded into the mirth. President Kennedy was assassinated.

^{Album cover of Rich Little’s first album, released by Capital Records in January 1963. Source: LP Cover Archive.}

Rich Little’s work on CBC and his records brought him recognition in the United States. He reportedly auditioned for The Jimmy Dean Show in 1963, thanks at least in part to two Canadian writers for the show, Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth. But it was no avail. He also auditioned for NBC’s Tonight Show. In an interview, Little recalled that the producer said, “Okay, you’re Rich Little from some place on the Arctic Circle. Make me laugh.” He didn’t get a guest spot, the producer apparently underwhelmed by Little’s sketch about Jack Benny’s birthday party attended by Fred MacMurray, George Burns, Rochester, Alfred Hitchcock and other US celebrities.

1964 was Rich Little’s breakout year in the United States. After coming off of an appearance on the Juliette Show in Toronto in early January, he went to Hollywood to audition for the Judy Garland Show. Again, the opportunity to audition came from John Aylesworth who had seen his try-out with The Jimmy Dean Show and was now a writer for Judy Garland. He had also been greatly impressed by Little’s two comedic albums. Rich Little appeared on 26 January 1964, along with Martha Raye and Peter Lawford. (Rich Little on Judy Garland Show.) Unfortunately, Little’s family and friends probably didn’t see the show when it aired on CBS, unless they had a special aerial to pick up the signal from Watertown, New York. Cable television was not yet available in Ottawa.

From that point on, there was no looking back. Rich Little was now a bone fide star. For the next twenty years or so, he was on the top of his game, appearing on sit-coms, variety shows, including the Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jimmy Dean Show, The Kopycats and The Julie Andrew’s Show. (Here is a 1967 CBC interview with Rich Little: CBC interview.) During the 1970s, he was a regular on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, and became famous for his impression of President Richard Nixon. As well, for a time he was a regular on The Johnny Carson Show.  

When his television career went into decline, Rich Little took on the nightclub scene in Las Vegas. In 2024, at 85 years of age, he continues to perform at the Tropicana.

Rich Little was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2022.

Sources:

CBC News, 2018. “Rich Little looks back on his time at Lisgar,” 4 May.

Globe and Mari, 1955. “At the CNE: Swimmers Flashback for Sullivan,” 25 August.

History of Canadian Broadcasting, 2024, Rich Little (1938-).

Nesta, 2016. Creative Economy Employment in the US, Canada and the UK.

Official Rich Little Website: The Man, The Voices, The Legend, 2024.

Ottawa Citizen, 1955. “Come Back Later Boys Sullivan Tells Ottawans,” 1 September.

——————, 1955. “No Place For Adult Mind At Theater For Children,” 21 November.

——————, 1955. “10 Turkeys Carved As Parish Holds It’s First Family Dinner,” 28 November.

——————, 1956. “Who Are The Servants And Who The Masters?” 15 February.

——————, 1956. “Tonight is Open House at Connolly Motors,” 27 June.

——————, 1956. “Dedicate Bus At Picnic For Handicapped,” 13 August.

——————, 1962. “Televiews,” 20 December.

——————, 1963. “PM cook to record spoof,” 24 January 1963.

——————, 1963. “Gord Atkinson’s showbiz,” 31 August.

——————, 1963. “Curtain Raisers,” 19 November.

——————, 1963. “Capitol album,” 3 December.

——————, 1964. “Show business with Gord Atkinson,” 11 January.

——————, 1964. “Show ‘biz’ notes, 1 February.

Ottawa Journal, 1956. “TV and Radio,” 7 March.

——————-, 1956. “Pinocchio Final Play For Children,” 24 March.

——————-, 1956. “TV and Radio,” 19 April.

——————-, 1956. “TV and Radio,” 3 April.

——————-, 1957. “Mailbag,” 27 April.

——————-, 1958. “”TV and Radio,” 31 October.

——————-, 1959. “TV and Radio,” 19 May.

——————-, 1961. “Highlights CBOT,” 30 September.

——————-, 1961. “Folderol,” 1 December.

——————-, 1961. “CBOT Highlights,” 2 December.

——————-, 1961. “Me, Jim Tom ‘n’ Folderol,” 23 December.

——————-, 1962. “Girl About Town,” 24 March.

——————-, 1962. “Even on Sundays,” 27 September.

——————-, 1963. “Comedian Caught By CBC’s Cancellation,” 16 February.

——————-, 1963. “TV and Radio,” 22 February.

——————-, 1963. “TV and Radio,” 27 February.

The Origins of Scouting in Ottawa

27 April 1909

On 27 April 1909, the Ottawa Journal published a small article announcing that Mr. C.C. Campbell of 193 Gloucester Street, was organizing an Ottawa company of boy scouts. Campbell had recently returned from Britain where he had been the scout master of the 1^st Whitehead troop and the Secretary of the North Irish Division Council of boy scouts. Reportedly, he had been trained under the “eye” of General Baden-Powell. Boys aged between 12 and 18 interested in joining the scouts were urged to contact Mr. Campbell at his home address.

^{Lord Baden-Powell, c. 1910-1920, Wikipedia.}

The boy scouts were a new youth organization at the time. Its founder, General Robert Stephenson Baden-Powell, had launched the movement just two years earlier in Britain. Baden-Powell was British officer and former military scout in several colonial wars in South Africa in the late 19^th century. In 1900, he became famous as the “Hero of Mafeking” during the Second Boer War. Then a colonel, Baden-Powell had commanded the town’s garrison that had held off Boer attackers during a 217-day siege. While accounts suggest that Baden-Powell’s military prowess was overstated, the successful defence of Mafeking catapulted him to fame. The siege captured public attention, particularly as both the son of the British prime minister and the daughter of the Duke of Marlborough (the aunt of Winston Churchill) were living in the besieged town.

Following the relief of Mafeking, Baden-Powell, now a national hero, was promoted to Major-General. In 1903, he was appointed Inspector General of the Cavalry. He was promoted again to Lieutenant General in 1907. That year, he began to focus his attention on the development of the boy scout movement. He retired from the British Army in 1910.  

Drawing on an earlier scouting publication that he had written while serving in Africa called Aids to Scouting for N.C.O.s and Men, Baden-Powell published in 1908 six pamphlets entitled Scouting for Boys. The pamphlets were extremely popular and provided the blueprint for the boy scout movement.

In the first pamphlet, Baden-Powell described how boys were organized during the siege of Mafeking into a cadet corps, and the useful role they played in delivering messages, keeping a look-out and acting as orderlies, thus freeing up men to fight. Taking inspiration from that, Baden-Powell wrote that boys did not have to wait for war to be a scout but they instead could become a “peace scout” requiring the same skills. He cited “frontiersmen in all parts of the Empire,” including the ‘trappers of North America,’ and the ‘constabulary of North-West Canada’ among others. He also invoked a romantic and sometimes mythological version of British history, citing as scout role models King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Clive of India and Captain Cook, many of whom contributed to the founding of the world-girdling British Empire.

^{First of six pamphlets by General Baden-Powell on Scouting, 1907.}

Baden-Powell was also influenced by his friend Ernest Thompson Seaton, a writer, who had founded in 1902 the “Woodcraft Indians” in the United States a program that taught non-Indigenous children how to live in the woods based on stereotypical native skills. Seaton, who was born in Britain, had emigrated to Toronto in the 1860s with his parents, before moving to Manitoba and subsequently the United States. He, along with Daniel Beard, helped form the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 with the support of Baden-Powell.

The romanticized view of Indigenous North American culture subsequently became a significant feature of the scouting movement in both Canada and the United States. Indeed, as early as 1909, on hearing that a local company of scouts was being formed in Ottawa, the Ottawa Journal opined that “The dreams of many of Ottawa’s boys who wish to follow in the footsteps of the immortal “Hawkeye” will soon be realized. Hawkeye was the fictional protagonist of The Last of the Mohicans and other novels by James Fenimore Cooper, a popular nineteenth century American author. (In October 2023, Scouts Canada apologized to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples for its participation in programs that collaborated with the residential and day school systems aimed at assimilating Indigenous youth while at the same time romanticizing their cultures and appropriating them for its own use.)

Baden-Powell’s aim was to inculcate youth into a philosophy and way of life that he believed would make them good citizens, both in times of peace and, if necessary, in times of war. The attributes he wanted to instill included patriotism, self-reliance, chivalry, courage, and endurance. He contended that the fall of the Roman Empire had been due to a decline in good citizenship, something that he did not want to happen to the British Empire.

He stressed that the new youth organization, with its motto “Be Prepared,” was not in competition with other organizations such as cadet corps. Although boy scouts would do some drilling, their focus would be on scouting. Items of instruction would include learning how to live off of the land, knowing the ways of animals, how to read forest signs, follow trails and track animals and people.

To become a second-class scout, a boy would have to tie five different knots (Bowline, Fisherman’s bend, Reef, Clove hitch and Sheet bend), each in thirty seconds. He would also have to track a spoor for ¼ mile in fifteen minutes, know scout laws and signs, and understand the composition of the Union Jack and the right way up of flying it.

To become a first-class scout, a boy must also demonstrate thrift by opening a bank account, be able to lay a fire, and cook a pound of flour and two potatoes without cooking utensils.

While Baden-Powell’s scouting movement was initially directed at boys, he also felt that girls “may well learn scouting when they are young, and so be able to do useful work in the world as they grow older.” He pointed to several role models for girls, such as Florence Nightingale who nursed soldiers during the Crimea War. At his request, Baden-Powell’s sister, Agnes Baden-Powell, formed in 1910 the Girl Guides Association in Britain.

The boy scout movement quickly found its way to the “colonies,” including Canada. According to Robert Milks in his book 75 years of Scouting published in 1981, the first boy scout troops were established in Canada in 1908 at Merrickville and St. Catharines, scarcely months after General Baden-Powell published his book on scouting. However, I could not find a reference in either the St. Catharines’ Standard or in the Merrickville Star about the formation of boy scout troops in either community in 1908. Still, Merrickville had an active scouting program for both boys and girls organized by Rev. Ernest Thomas by June 1910. Similarly, the Standard reported that St. Catharines’ boy scouts had paraded for the first time in September 1910 when they marched through the city with the 19^th Regiment.

Perusing other Canadian newspapers of the era, the Globe reported that a company of boy scouts was formed in Toronto in early October 1909 at the Armories after an organizational meeting was held the previous month. As well, the Edmonton Journal reported in July 1909 that the first colonial branch of the boy scouts had just been authorized in Vancouver, organized by Joseph Hynes who worked with the health department. The troop was given a set of colours and $150 for the purchase of uniforms.

Here in Ottawa, within days of the short Ottawa Journal article published in April 1909 about the boy scouts, hundreds of boys had sent letters to Mr. C.C. Campbell expressing interest in joining. Organizational meetings were held through that summer at the Drill Hall. Campbell became secretary pro tem of the national scouting organization with City Controller Wilson appointed chair of the local scouts’ branch. In mid-September, it was reported that the officers’ books for scouting had arrived in Ottawa from Britain, and would cost 40 cents each to purchase. A large number of “The Scout,” the official newspaper of the scouting organization, had also arrived and would be ready for sale at the Boy Scouts’ office at 94 Bank Street. In early October, a proper application form was developed. On it was the scout promise that a boy would do his duty to God and King, would help other people at all times, and would obey the scout law.

On Friday, 22 October 1909, twenty-five boys turned out at the Drill Hall to practise infantry movements in preparation for the King’s birthday celebrations to be held on 9 November 1909. Sadly, the boys’ uniforms, which comprised a grey sweater, khaki trousers, and a Stetson hat, did not arrive from their Toronto supplier in time for the event. The Ottawa scout organization immediately cancelled the order and bought the uniforms from the Ottawa firm A.E. Ray (located in what later became known as the Daly building). The uniforms were issued the following day.

The last drill of that inaugural year took place in late November at Cartier Square. A winter program of lectures by military officers, snowshoe tramps, hockey games and parties were planned for the winter months. It was hoped that recruitment would bring the number of boy scouts in Ottawa up to five hundred.

^{Ottawa Boy Scouts in front of the Patriotic Fund Headquarters, September 1914, Topley Studios, LAC 3623089.}

Recruitment must have received a boost when it was announced in February 1910 that Sir Robert Baden-Powell (he received a knighthood in 1909), would undertake a cross-country tour of Canada, stopping in all major cities, including Ottawa, in support of the scouting movement.  A troop of English boy scouts would accompany him on his journey.

Baden-Powell arrived in the nation’s capital on the morning of Thursday, 1 September 1910 from Toronto. He was greeted at the station by Lord Lanesborough, who was an aide of Governor General Lord Grey, and Lt-Colonel A.P. Sherwood. Lord Grey who had earlier agreed to become the Chief Scout for Canada, had appointed Sherwood, along with Lt-Col E.W.B. Morrisson, as commissioners to organize the scouting movement in Canada. After breakfast at the Rideau Club, Baden-Powell spoke to journalists at a press scrum outside of the building. He said that “the great idea of the boy scout movement is to instill honour and comradeship. In Canada, you need comradeship where there are so many different races.” He reiterated that the objective of the boy scout movement was not to make soldiers but to teach boys how to become useful citizens.

After a tour of the city, he had lunch at the Country Club before addressing scout leaders at a private meeting at the Y.M.C.A. That night, he addressed a mass meeting of scouts, leaders, and the public also at the “Y.” At that meeting, he appealed to Ottawa citizens to support the scouts, not through donations, but by giving jobs to scouts so that they could earn money to purchase their kit.

Citizens at the assembly were wildly excited about the boy scout movement. They passed the following resolution: “At this representative gathering of the citizens of Ottawa, assembled to hear the distinguished Imperialist Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the boy scout organization, advantage is taken to place on record the hearty endorsement of the movement which is destined to revolutionize the boy of today and to give him a character than means so much to future generations.”

Baden-Powell’s scouting movement quickly became a world-wide phenomenon. During his lifetime, he received many honours from Britain, other countries as well as the international scouting movement for his service to youth. In 1929, he was raised to the peerage as First Baron Baden-Powell.  He died in 1941 in Kenya and was buried at St Peter’s Cemetery in Nyeri. The Kenyan government made his resting place a national monument.

Today, the scouting movement continues to play a significant positive role in the lives of tens of thousands of Canadian boys and girls. However, the movement has not been without its challenges in recent years. In addition to substantial decline in enrollment from the peak years in the 1960s, cases of child abuse were revealed to have occurred.  This led to a tightening of the screening procedures for volunteers and other practices to ensure the safety of all children. The movement has also had to adapt to changes in Canadian society, including a more diverse population, and new social mores with respect to sexuality. Diversity and inclusion, something unthought of even a generation ago let alone in Baden-Powell’s time, are now elements of the scouting program, ensuring that disabled persons as well as vulnerable and minority groups have access to scouting activities.

For more information about the scouting movement in Canada, see Scouts Canada and Girl Guides of Canada.

Sources:

Baden-Powell, Robert. 1899. “Aids To Scouting for N.C.Os & Men,” 1915 Edition, Galt and Folden’s Military Series.

Baden-Powell, Robert. 1908. “Scouting For Boys,” Dover Edition, published 2007, originally published Horace Cox, London.

Edmonton Journal, “Organize Troop Of Boy Scouts,” 31 July.

Globe, 1909. “Boy Scouts For Canada,” 29 September.

——-, 1909. “Boy Scouts Organized,” 6 October.

Ottawa Citizen, 1900. “The Hero of Mafeking,” 23 May.

——————, 1909. “The Boy Scouts,” 5 July.

——————, 1909. “The Boy Scouts,” 22 July.

——————, 1909. “Organizing Boy Scouts,” 2 October.

——————-, 1909. “Boy Scouts In Force,” 9 November.

——————-, 1909. “Capital Boy Scouts,” 24 November.

——————-, 1910. “‘B.-P.’ Will Visit Ottawa,” 3 February.

——————-, 1910. “Baden-Powell On Boy Scouts,” 12 February.

——————-, 1910. “Defender Of Mafeking IS Guest Of Capital today,” 1 September.

——————-, 1910. “Enthusiasm On Boy Scout Idea,” 2 September.

Ottawa Journal, 1909. “Local Company Of Boy Scouts,” 27 April.

——————-, 1909. “Boy Scouts Interesting,” 11 June.

——————-, 1909. “Many Interested In Boy Scouts,” 25 June.

——————-, 1909. “Meeting OF The Boy Scouts,” 15 September.

——————, 1909. “Boy Scouts Held Regular Drill, 23 October.

——————, 1909. “ Capital Boy Scouts,” 24 November.

——————, 1910. “Boy Scout Leader Coming,” 4 August.

——————, 1910. “Visit Of Leader Of Boy Scouts,” 31 August.

——————, 1910. “Baden-Powell’s Best Doing,” 1 September.

——————, 1910. “Baden-Powell At Y.M.C.A., 2 September.

Times Colonist, 1908. “Boy Scouts,” 15 February.

Victoria Daily Times, 1907. “Boys As Army-Scouts,” 7 September.

The Saved Army Invades Ottawa

6 April 1884

The nineteenth century was a time of incredible change in Europe and North America. The industrial revolution was upending the existing economic and social order. A cultural renaissance, which drew inspiration from the past, was revolutionizing the arts. Meanwhile, evangelical preachers whose aim was to revive traditional Christian values were attracting thousands of converts, and in so doing threatening long-established churches. This religious revival was intertwined with other social crusades, including the temperance and abolitionist movements.

^{Rev. William Booth, c. 1862, Wikipedia}

Among these evangelical preachers were William Booth and his wife Catharine who in 1865 began bringing the word of God to the destitute and marginalized of London’s poor East End. Booth had been a minister of the Methodist Reform Church but grew frustrated with constraints placed upon his ability to preach. Consequently, he struck out on his own, bringing the message of Christian love and redemption to parts of society that had been neglected by mainstream churches. Realizing that it is difficult to save souls if the physical body is in need, the Booths started to provide food and other essentials at their gatherings. 

Not surprisingly, this new, vigorous, evangelical movement, initially called the “Christian Mission,” irritated many. Mainstream churches were hostile. The Booths’ brash, loud approach to reaching people, via parades, public hymn singing, drums and tambourines, was viewed by some as inconsistent with the biblical admonition Let all things be done decently and in order (I Corinthians, 14:40). The parades and loud music created disturbances. Bystanders mocked adherents and sometimes threw stones causing riots. This led to members getting into trouble with the law for disturbing the peace and other offences. Some went to jail. The Booths’ opposition to the consumption of alcohol also led to enemies. Organized on military lines, with officers (i.e., ministers) and soldiers, members of this new movement called themselves the “Saved Army.” In 1878, the new movement became known as the “Salvation Army.” William Booth was its “General,” with Catharine Booth becoming the “Army Mother.” Despite opposition, the Salvation Army quickly spread through Great Britain and continental Europe. It jumped the Atlantic to the United States in 1880 and to Canada in 1882 with an open-air meeting first held in Toronto in January 1882. Units of the Army were quickly established in other cities, including London and Kingston. They were often led by British immigrants who had been Salvationists in the old country.

^{The Ottawa campaign underway, War Cry, 4 April 1885.}

The first references to the Salvation Army in the Ottawa Citizen occurred in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Most were not complementary. An 1879 editorial stated that “One of the latest outbreaks of fanaticism among the lower classes in England is a society, calling itself the ‘Salvation Army,” which marches in procession, and gets up an excitement and causes riots.” An 1882 editorial claimed that the “ravings of the Salvation Army ‘soldiers’ [brought] religion into contempt.” In 1883, the newspaper reported that the Salvation Army had become such an “intolerable nuisance” in Toronto that legal action was planned by neighbours of the Army’s Queen Street “barracks.” However, these views mellowed over time, especially after the Army came to Ottawa and its works became better known.

The first report of the Salvation Army reaching Ottawa, was a news item that appeared in the spring of 1884 reporting that a meeting connected with the Salvation Army had been held on 6 April at a private home on Duke Street in LeBreton Flats. The purpose of the meeting was to lead an assault the capital. A few weeks later, the Citizen reported that the Saved Army had commenced the religious crusade and was drawing large crowds, owing to its “novelty.” The people behind the crusade appeared to have come from Portsmouth, a small village on the outskirts of Kingston. The Citizen noted several prominent Kingston supporters of the Army, including the chaplain of the Kingston Penitentiary, and the brother of Sir Richard Cartwright, a native of Kingston who had been Minister of Finance in the government of Alexander Mackenzie.

While still cool towards the new religious organization, the Citizen said that members had conducted themselves on Ottawa streets in a “ladylike and gentlemanly manner.” If people objected to the Army’s practices, it said that they should stay away; there was no requirement to attend Salvationist meetings. The newspaper added that “nobody but a biped destitute of all feelings of decency or manhood would go into any building where a so-called sacred service was being carried on and act in a manner to hurt the feelings of those taking part in it. A gentleman…would be careful to do nothing to offend the worshippers at any shrine, in the mosque, padoga (sic), Anglican High Church or Low Church, within the walls of the Roman Catholic Church, or even among the pestilent Mormons [!].”  The newspaper later opined that the Salvation Army reached people whom the mainline churches “either wholly neglect or seem indifferent to their fates.”

Across the country, the Salvation Army began to attract adherents, particularly among working people, the unemployed, and the destitute. In November 1884, the Army started publishing a weekly Canadian edition of the War Cry, the official gazette of the Salvation Army. The newspaper featured prominent Salvationists and discussed “war news” i.e., how the Salvation Army was faring across the country.

^{Unidentified Salvation Army soldiers, Salvation Army Archives.}

One May 1885 story prominent in both in the Citizen and in the War Cry was the donation of a drum to the Ottawa corps. Henceforth, Ottawa’s officers and soldiers paraded to the beat of a bass drum, as well as tambourines. A few months later, a concertina was added. These parades, while successful in attracting a lot of attention, were not always welcome. In June 1886, regular Sunday services at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church were disrupted as Salvationists noisily sang while parading down Wellington Street to and from their barracks at 309 Sparks Street (a former livery stable). On one Sunday, Rev. W.T. Herridge, the minister, had to stop his sermon twice as he could not be heard over the din.

While the Salvation Army gained converts as it “attacked” Ottawa, it found progress slow going. In an 1885 report on Ottawa in the War Cry, Captain Hind and Lieutenant Dalmage said that their meetings were being upset by young men led by the devil. They said that “It is surprising that in this 19^th century and especially in the Capital of Canada, to find the devil has men and women so completely in his clutches that he leads them to hoot, shout, and howl, while people are on their knees. God help Ottawa!  For with all the education, society, etc., the devil has entirely his own way so far.”

^{General Booth, 1907, postcard, Salvation Army Archives.}

Salvation came the following year when the General himself stopped in Ottawa while on a North America tour. General William Booth arrived in the capital on Friday 15 October 1886 on a CPR train from Montreal, disembarking at the Union Depot at 12:35pm. Every member of the Ottawa corps was there to cheer him when he stepped off the platform. He was accompanied by Col. Dowdie and Staff-Capt. Vint from England and Commissioner Coombs who headed up the Canadian branch of the Army. During his short visit to Ottawa, Booth stayed at the residence of John M. Mosgrove at 266 Lisgar Avenue.

On his arrival, a procession formed from the train station. Led by a brass band provided by the Kingston corps of the Army, the Ottawa corps conveyed the General to their Sparks Street barracks. That afternoon, a “holiness meeting” was held in the Grand Opera House for the area’s Salvation Army officers and soldiers, giving them an opportunity to meet the General in person. At 5pm, a banquet for 500 persons was held at the barracks, hosted by the women of the Army. The Ottawa Journal reported that long tables groaned “beneath appetizing delicacies.”  The General and the Army returned to the Opera House for an evening meeting open to all. The price of admission was 15 cents. The Citizen said that the General’s address was “most pointed and convincing.” It also “sparkled with humour, shone with earnestness and conviction and scintillated with dramatic power.” He told the audience that if people saw for themselves and examined the Salvation Army’s methods, they would have a better appreciation of the Salvation Army. Booth challenged any bishop or leading man of any known denomination to spend twenty-four hours with him, or even a Sabbath. If, after that time, the person did not support the work of the Army, Booth would donate $250 to any orphan asylum. Suffice to say, the General’s money was safe.

The following morning, General Booth left Ottawa for Western Canada on the continuation of his North American tour. A few weeks later, the Ottawa division moved into larger quarters at Victoria Hall at the corner of O’Connor and Queen Streets.

In March1907, General Booth, now 78 years old, returned to Ottawa in the context of a round-the-world tour, with stops across North America and Japan, before returning to England via India—a journey of more than 25,000 miles, a huge undertaking for a man of his age. His reception was far different from the one he received twenty-one years earlier. This time, he was a guest of Lord Grey, the Governor General, staying at Rideau Hall. His first public appearance was as the speaker at a Canadian Club luncheon held at Harmony Hall in front of 300 guests. Among them, were Lord Grey, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Robert Borden, and Ottawa’s Mayor D’Arcy Scott.

The General spoke on the objectives of the Army, specifically the raising of men and women “out of despair and misery, from vice and drunkenness, and from harlotry and debauchery.” The Army taught them that “life was beautiful and good if only the love of their Maker was implanted in their hearts.” He told the Canadian Club that the Salvation Army had succeeded beyond his own dreams, and that it had become a force in the world for uplifting mankind.

That evening, at the Russell Theatre, the General expanded on this theme in front of a sold-out house. He noted that the Salvation Army flag flew over fifty-two countries. There were twenty-five different editions of the War Cry, translated into seventeen languages, with a weekly circulation of more than 1 million copies. The Salvation Army provided a host of social services including rescue homes, refuges, maternity houses, emigration and colonization services, as well as food and shelter for the homeless. The reasons for its success were the open declaration of its aims, the self-sacrifice of its officers and soldiers, and its confidence in the possibility of converting anybody.

He left the next day bound for Winnipeg abord a private train carriage. General Booth died in 1912 at 83 years of age.

Fast forward to today, the Salvation Army remains true to General Booth’s objectives and vision. It currently operates in 133 countries. In Canada, it is active in 400 communities, providing hope and support to vulnerable people without discrimination. In 2022, it dished out close to 4 million meals, helped 1.5 million people with food, clothing or other assistance, provided 1.2 million days worth of beds, and fed 115,000 children through school meals programs. During emergencies, the Salvation Army is there providing immediate assistance, as well as longer-term physical, emotional, and spiritual aid to victims and responders. For more information about the host of services offered by the Army and how you can help, see Salvation Army.

Sources:

Ottawa Citizen, 1879. “Editorial Briefs,” 26 September.

——————, 1881. “Editorial Notes,” 7 April.

——————, 1882. “Editorial Notes,” 23 December.

——————, 1882. “Toronto,” 20 November.

——————, 1883. “Salvation Army,” 2 April 1883.

——————, 1883. “Latest News in a Nutshell,” 14 April.

——————, 1884. “Salvation Army,” 7 April.

——————, 1884. “The ‘Saved Army,’ 19 April.

——————, 1884. “Saved Army,” 7 May.

——————, 1884. “Editorial Notes, 31 May.

——————, 1885. “A Drum For The Salvation Army,” 4 May.

——————, 1885. “An Innovation,” 13 July.

——————, 1886. “General Booth,” 16 October.

——————-, 1907. “General William Booth,” 16 March.

——————-, 1907. “Gen. Booth At The Russell,” 21 March.

Ottawa Journal, 1886. “The Salvation Army Nuisance,” 7 June.

——————-, 1886. “Salvation Army Notes,” 29 November.

——————-, 1886. “Salvation Army Notes,” 13 December.

——————-, 1907. “Founder Tells of Army Work,” 21 March.

Salvation Army, 2024. Salvation Army.

[The] Salvation War, 1883, under the Generalship of William Booth, London, Salvation Army Book Depot, 8 & 9 Paternoster Square.

[The] Salvation War, 1884, under the Generalship of William Booth, London, Salvation Army Book Depot, 8 & 9 Paternoster Square.

War Cry, 1885. “Ottawa,” 11 April.

———-, 1885. “Ottawa,” 25 April.

———-, 1885. “Ottawa,” 30 May.

———-, 1886. “The General’s Tour,” 6 November.

———-, 1886. “Montreal and Ottawa,” 13 November.

Ottawa’s First Mosque

26 March 1975

^{Ottawa Mosque, 251 Northwestern Avenue, 2009, by Muhammad, Wikipedia}

According to a 1995 Citizen article, the first Muslim immigrants to Ottawa were Hassan Mahmood Wahad and his family, who came to the capital in 1903 from the small Lebanese-Syrian town of Kfarmishki, located about 90 kilometres southeast of Beirut. At the time, the community was part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Wahad family found a home in the Byward Market alongside other recent immigrants. It must have been difficult. Initially knowing little English or French, Hassan Wahad and his family were cut off from their language, culture, and religion. Somehow, Hasan Wahad made a living as a pedlar, selling small items door to door. Other Lebanese families from Kfarmishki, including the Boushey family who became well-known in the capital for their landmark grocery store on Elgin Street, later joined the Wahad family in Ottawa.

Hassan Wahad made it to the local newspapers in 1924, when he appeared as a witness in a bigamy case involving two other members of the small but growing Muslim community in the city. Wahad gave evidence of marriage practices in Muslim Syrian communities. (The bigamy case was dismissed for lack of evidence.) Wahad’s second daughter, Afefe, was the first Muslim person born in Ottawa. At school, Afefe became known as Eva. This moniker stuck for the rest of her life. Eva Wahad was to play a key role in the establishment of the first mosque in Ottawa.

It was years before Ottawa’s Muslim community was large enough to consider the possibility of building a mosque. By the early 1960s, there were still less than five hundred Muslims living in the city. Prayers at major religious festivals such as Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adza were held at the Pakistan High Commission and the Egyptian Embassy. (Eid-al-Fitr marks the end of the month-long period of fasting of Ramadan. Eid-al-Adza, the Feast of Sacrifice, honours the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail in an act of obedience to Allah.)

At the 1962 Eid-al-Fitr observance at the Pakistan High Commission, four Ottawa Muslims proposed the creation of an Ottawa Muslim Association (OMA) with the objective of building a mosque. Three reasons were cited for its construction. First, the mosque was to serve the religious needs of the growing Muslim population of Ottawa. Second, it would help Muslim children stay connected with their heritage. Third, the mosque would promote better understanding among peoples of different faiths.  The Muslim Women’s Auxiliary, which was founded by Eva Wahad, was tasked with the objective of raising money for the mosque’s construction fund.

In 1962, Ottawa’s Muslim community began to hold weekly prayers at the Western United Church located at the corner of Wellington and Bronson Streets. When that building was demolished in 1965, the community’s services were moved to Northwestern United Church on Northwestern Avenue close to Scott Street. Also in 1965, the OMA was officially incorporated.

For the next ten years, Ottawa’s Muslims scrimped and saved. The Ottawa Muslim Association recommended that community members donate ten days’ salary each year to the building fund. Eva Wahad organized hundreds of events to raise funds including cultural activities, teas, and even pork-free, Chinese cooking lessons. Roughly half of the more than $500,000 ultimately needed to construct the mosque was provided by Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Malaysia.

By 1967, the Association had raised the $25,000 needed to purchase a plot of land beside the Northwestern United Church. The spot was ideal. It was serviced by three bus routes, was fairly central, and not too close to its neighbours. On the land was two old houses. One was rented out while the other was used for programs. For many years, funerals and marriages had to be performed by an Iman brought from Detroit. By the late 1960s, Dr. Farid R. Ahmed, a National Research Council physicist and the first OMA president, was able to able to perform these rites. He later became chair of the mosque construction committee.

In 1972, the OMA announced that Ottawa would finally get its first mosque to be located on the Northwest Avenue property. While all the funds necessary for construction the mosque had not yet to be donated, the organization was able to proceed with its plans. The building, with a traditional Islamic dome and 115-foot minaret, was designed by Toronto architect Anwar Asad. The call to prayers made five times a day would be delivered using an electronic amplifier.  The building would be oriented so that worshippers would facing east. As is customary with all mosques, there would be no chairs or pews. Prayers would be made kneeling on carpets. Consistent will Islamic practice, men would pray in front, then boys, then women and girls.

City hall gave the go-ahead to build the mosque in early March 1973, but not before a few hiccups. Plans for the site incorporated only twenty parking spaces instead of twenty-six as initially required by the city’s planning department. After the Board of Adjustments approved a variance, the City appealed, concerned about crowding on neighbourhood streets. However, the appeal failed since the relevant city by-law governing the required number of parking spots for a house of worship was based on the number of seats or pews, whereas a mosque had no seats or pews. Mayor Benoit also noted that a shortfall of six parking spots would make no appreciable difference to neighbourhood congestion.

With this last hurdle passed, tenders were sent out. Ground was broken at 251 Northwestern Avenue in September 1973. Two young children, Basher Ghadban and Yasmine Ismaily, turned the first sod with G. K. Chaudhry, the then president of the OMA, and other members of the Muslim community looking on.

Eighteen months later, on 26 March 1975, prayers were held for the first time in the new Ottawa mosque. While the upstairs dome and minaret were not yet complete, building inspectors had given their permission to use the basement. In the inaugural congregation were ambassadors from Muslim and Arab countries. That September, Eid-al-Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan) was celebrate for the first time in the mosque. By now, evening and Sunday prayers (not Friday) had already started, with plans underway to commence weekend Islamic classes.

In late February 1976, with the upstairs building still unfinished, prayers in the basement were disrupted by protests at the visit of Pakistan’s then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto, who was visiting Ottawa, had come to the mosque to pray and to pledge funds to the mosque’s building fund. A Pakistani couple who had been separated from their children by the 1972 civil war that had led to the independence of Bangladesh interrupted prayers to present a petition to Bhutto asking for his intervention to bring their children to Canada. Their earlier efforts to do so had been thwarted by death threats. Mosque officials allowed the couple to present their petition to Bhutto. However, a shouting match broke out afterwards between supporters of the couple and others in the hall. Bhutto was whisked away by RCMP officers. Two demonstrators were detained but subsequently released without charge. The following year, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was ousted in a military coup by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and was controversially executed in 1979.

After some minor last-minute finishing touches, including the installation of handrails, building inspectors gave the upstairs portion of the glass and steel mosque the green light at the end of February 1977. Although ready for occupancy, its interior was empty. There was not even a pulpit in place, as the one promised by Egypt had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, on 3 March 1977, Ottawa’s Muslim community was able to celebrate Eid Milad-un-Nabi in honour of the birth and life of Mohammed. School children gave poetry recitals. There were also prayers and a talk on the Prophet’s life. In early July 1977, Eva Wahab and the Ottawa Muslim Women’s Auxiliary hosted an “open house” at the mosque and tea to the people of Ottawa of all faiths.

Today, the Ottawa Mosque and the Ottawa Muslim Association remain central to the life of the capital’s Muslims. However, the size of the Muslim community has grown rapidly since the opening of the mosque on Northwestern Avenue, augmented by new arrivals, most recently from war-torn Syria and Somalia. With the number of Muslims now accounting for about 10 per cent of the population of Ottawa-Gatineau, or roughly 140,000 people, the Ottawa Mosque cannot accommodate them all at prayers. Consequently, additional mosques have opened across the region.

Eva Wahad and Dr. Farid Ahmed, the two Muslim pioneers who led the movement to build the first mosque in Ottawa, died in 2005 and 2021, respectively.

Sources:

Durrani, Palvashah, 2014. First Muslim Born in Ottawa: Visionary & Community Builder Eva Wahab, Muslim Link, 3 October.

Khalfan, Zufl M., 2021. Farid Ahmed: A Pioneer Muslim Passes Away, 20 December.

Ottawa Citizen, 1962. “Moslem Group Plans to Have Ottawa Mosque,” 5 April.

——————, 1969. “Muslim women are cooking up a mosque,” 8 February.

——————, 1970. “Religion can still save a troubled world,” 23 July.

——————, 1972. “Malaysia donates $5,000 to Ottawa mosque project,” 4 March.

——————, 1973. ‘City’s 1^st mosque plan gets all-clear,” 9 March.

——————, 1973. “Ottawa’s Muslims will get their mosque,” 9 June.

——————, 1975. “Moslems hold first prayers in new mosque,” 20 September.

——————, 1976. “Capital Diary,” 18 February.

——————, 1976. “Bhutto church visit disrupted,” 23 February.

——————, 1977, “Ottawa mosque nearly complete,” 5 February.

——————, 1977. “Moslems to mark their ‘Christmas.’” 22 February.

——————, 1977. “Open house,” 9 July.

Ottawa Journal, 1972. “City will hear call to Allah,” 2 June.

——————-, 1975. “Muslim pioneers build a future,” 17 May.

——————-, 1976. “Hard work built Mosque,” 9 December.

Ottawa Mosque, 2023. About OMA.

The Tragic Death of U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt

28 March 1950

President Truman appointed Lawrence Steinhardt to the post of U.S. Ambassador to Canada in October 1948. He was a career diplomat of considerable ability. After years of representing his country in some of the most difficult posts in the world, including the Soviet Union, Canada must have felt like a cake walk. Indeed, on his appointment, the ambassador told an Ottawa Journal reporter he looked forward to dropping a fishing line in the water and relaxing a bit. Duck hunting and skiing in the Gatineau hills also featured high on his “to-do” list in his new post. Steinhardt was no stranger to Canada. Before becoming a diplomat, he had travelled extensively throughout the country, visiting every province and the North West Territories. Accompanying him to Ottawa were his wife Dulcie and daughter Dulcie-Ann.

^{Laurence Steinhardt, 1892-1950, Wikipedia}

Steinhardt was born in 1892 in New York City. An economist and lawyer by training—a graduate of Columbia Law School—he came to prominence in 1932 when he worked in a senior position in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential election campaign. Following his election, Roosevelt asked Steinhardt to be the U.S. Minister to Sweden. He agreed, giving up a thriving legal practice with the New York firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and Marshall. In 1937, he became Ambassador to Peru. Subsequently, just days before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Steinhardt was in Moscow when Hitler launched his all-out attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. In early March 1942, he was made Ambassador to Turkey. This was a tricky assignment as Turkey had good diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany. It was Steinhardt’s job to keep Turkey neutral, matching wits against his German counterpart Franz von Papen who was trying to bring Turkey into the war as an ally of Germany. He also attended the 1943 Cairo Conference that brought together President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. From 1945 to 1948, Steinhardt was U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. He was in Prague when the Czech Communist Party assumed power in a coup d’état with the support of the Soviet Union.

After their arrival in Canada in late 1948, Ambassador Steinhardt and Mrs. Steinhardt were very active on the Ottawa diplomatic circuit, entertaining extensively. A popular couple, they were also lively participants in the community. Steinhardt was a member of both the Rideau Club and the Royal Ottawa Golf Club. In 1949, he donated the Steinhardt Trophy to the Dominion of Canada Rifle Association. He also spoke extensively to service and other organizations. At one such speech to the Canadian Club of Montreal, Steinhardt drew upon his experience in Czechoslovakia to describe life under communism. He and his wife toured extensively through Canada. A hockey enthusiast, Steinhardt travelled to West Point, New York in 1949 to watch the revival of the annual match between the Royal Military College and the United States Military Academy that had been suspended during the war. West Point won that first meeting, but RMC took the return match held in Kingston in mid-March 1950. Ambassador Steinhardt was present at that game as well, cheering on the American cadets in a losing cause. It wasn’t all fun and games, however. Ambassador Steinhardt was also a lead player in U.S.-Canada negotiations on halibut fisheries and the joint defence of the two countries.

^{Front page of the Ottawa Citizen, 28 March 1950}

On the morning of 28 March 1950, Ambassador Steinhardt got up early to take an 8:20 AM flight to New York City, via Montreal, with a later trip to Washington D.C. The evening before, he had been a guest of honour at a gala dinner hosted by Rotary International at the Château Laurier Hotel. There were five other persons on the two-engine Dakota C-47 transport aircraft that morning. Among them was Allan Harrington, age 20, the son of Julian Harrington, the U.S. Minister to Canada, who had hopped a ride to return to Randolph-Macon College located at Ashland, Virginia after spending spring break with his parents in Ottawa. Also on board were Lt-Col. W. F. Trueblood (35) of Kansas City, an exchange officer attached to RCAF headquarters in Ottawa, Captain Thomas Archibald (34) of Union Springs, Alabama, assistant air attaché at the U.S. Embassy and the pilot of the airplane, Lieutenant Mark Belanger (29) of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who sat in the co-pilot chair and was another exchange officer attached to RCAF headquarters, and Master Sergeant Gwyn A. Long, the crew chief of the flight.

After the usual pre-flight checks, the Dakota C-47, emblazoned with large white stars on the fuselage, took off from Rockcliffe Airport into a cloudless, bright sunny sky. The transport airplane was well known in Ottawa, frequently flying the ambassador and other embassy officials on official and private business. This was supposed to be another routine, “milk-run” flight.

Sadly, there was nothing routine about this flight. Scarcely minutes after take-off, the airplane began to experience difficulties. Its right engine burst into flame. Captain Archibald, the pilot, tried to turn the stricken craft towards Uplands Airport for an emergency landing, but to no avail. Observers on the ground, who included public school students from School #13 at Ramsayville, saw the airplane attempting to circle with flames coming out of one of its two engines. In a desperate attempt to save his craft and those on board, the pilot tried to land in a snow-covered farmer’s field. At low altitude, perhaps a few hundred feet at best, a lone parachute opened up as one person leapt from the stricken Dakota C-47. Seconds later, the airplane flipped on its back, went into a spin and exploded. One wing broke away from the fuselage while the rest of the craft plunged nose first into the slushy ground roughly three miles south of Ramsayville and seven miles from Ottawa. Thick black smoke rose up from the crash site.

The first person to reach the crash site was Russell Scharf who had witnessed the last moments of the Dakota C-47 along with his father Clem Scharf and Lester Kipp. Wreckage and personal belongings, including bits of metal, seat cushions, papers, luggage, sporting rifles and a set of bent and twisted golf clubs, were strewn over a wide area. Both wings had been sheared off with one sticking upright into the ground, the other lying about 35 feet away. An airplane engine was about two hundred yards away.

The lone survivor, Master Sergeant Long who had jumped from the doomed aircraft at the last moment, had come down heavily about 500 yards away from the wreckage. Apparently, his parachute only had time to make one swing in the air before he hit a snowbank. Despite suffering from burns as well as facial and leg injuries, Long managed to stumble over to Russell Scharf and the other rescuers. Long told them that their motor had “pranged” when the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude. After the engine exploded, the pilot told the passengers to keep calm and that he would try to give them enough room to jump. While Long was able to get some of the passengers to put on their parachutes, they seemed to freeze and were unwilling to jump. They said that the plane was too low and preferred to take their chances with an emergency landing in the field. Long, who was sobbing as he recounted this harrowing story, said that as the aircraft descended rapidly, he gave up trying to convince the others, opened the escape hatch, and leapt for his life. Russell Scarf escorted Long to a nearby farmhouse where an ambulance could be called to take him to the Air Force hospital.

Meanwhile Clem Scharf and others combed the wreckage for bodies. They were able to recover two before the flames forced them back. Both bodies, one of whom was Lawrence Steinhardt, had their outer clothes burnt from them, their underwear smoldering. The rescuers covered them with snow to put out the flames. The ambassador, who had been wearing a parachute harness, had been found in the rear of the fuselage. The second body was found a few yards away. He was wearing golf shoes. A British Columbia travel folder was clutched in his hand. Clifford Buckman, a photographer for the Ottawa Citizen, describe the scene of the crash as “one hell of a mess.”

Dr. W.T. Shirreff, the Chief Coroner, arrived at the scene of the disaster at about 10:30 AM. Meanwhile, the Ontario Provincial Police kept back spectators and protected the site, while RCAF and Department of Transport officials combed the area for bodies and clues about the cause of the crash. All the bodies were recovered, though some were burnt beyond recognition. While waiting for the arrival of ambulances, they were covered by parachute silk found on the site and grey blankets. The bodies were later transported to the Rockcliffe Air Station Hospital and subsequently to the Hulse & Playfair Funeral Home.

The RCAF quickly ruled out the possibility of sabotage. A special U.S. Air Forces investigation team, led by General Victor E. Bertrandias, chief of the Flying Safety Division, flew to Ottawa from California to take charge of the military investigation of the crash.

Receiving news of the tragedy, the House of Commons extended sympathy to President Truman, the people of the United States as well as to Mrs. Steinhardt and her daughter and Mr. and Mrs. Julian Harrington. At Key West, Florida on the day of the crash, President Truman expressed his “deep regret” for the loss of a man who he held in high regard. He also sent a letter of condolences to Mrs. Steinhardt.

Laurence Steinhardt’s funeral was held a few days later at the Beth-El Chapel of Temple Emanu-El in New York City. He was eulogized as an “ardent patriot who served his country with consummate skill, forthright courage and rare diplomacy.” He was buried in the family mausoleum in Brooklyn.

Two weeks after the fatal crash, General Bertrandias announced that accident had been caused by a broken fuel line.

Sources:

Boston Globe, “Steinhardt Played Key Role as U.S. Trouble Shooter,” 28 March.

Buffalo News, 1950. “Steinhardt is Eulogized As Patriot as Funeral,” 1 April.

Burlington Free Press, 1950. Steinhardt Buried In Family Mausoleum,” 1 April.

Forth Worth Star-Telegram, 1950. “Steinhardt Death Crash Blamed on Fuel Line,” 13 April.

Ottawa Citizen, 1949. “Albertans Win Trophy on Protest,” 10 April.

——————, 1949. “Communism Censured,” 25 April.

——————, 1950. “RCAF Investigation Started,” 28 March.

——————, 1950. “Steinhardt Was Guest At Rotary Last Night,” 28 March.

——————-, 1950. “Lone Survivor,” 28 March.

Ottawa Journal, 1948. “New U.S. Ambassador Hopes To Find Peace, Quiet in Ottawa,” 22 October.

——————-, 1949. “Claxton Makes Visit To West Point,” 12 March.

——————-, 1950. “U.S. Ambassador Steinhardt One of Most Active Diplomats,” 28 March.

——————-, 1950. “U.S. Ambassador Steinhardt Dies With 4 Others in Ottawa Crash,” 28 March.

——————-, 1950. “They Almost Made It,” 28 Marc.

——————-, 1950. “House Extends Crash Sympathy,” 28 March.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 1950. “Steinhardt, 4 Aides Die In Flaming Crash,” 29 March.

Young Paul Anka

30 July 1941

^{Paul Anka, age 15, with his first record release on the RPM label, 1956, Lost Ottawa, City of Ottawa Archives, CA4035.2.}

Paul Anka, the famous singer and song writer, was born in Ottawa on 30 July 1941 to Andrew (Andy) and Camilia Anka. Andrew was the son of a Syrian immigrant who came to Canada in 1902, while Camila (née Tannis) was Lebanese by birth. The couple owned the New Locanda restaurant and lounge at 300 Laurier Avenue West. (The old Laconda burnt down.) The family home was a modest dwelling at 87 Clearview Avenue. The civically-minded Andrew was a director of the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, the Humane Society and St. Elijah’s Syrian Orthodox Church. He was also chairman of Ottawa’s School Safety Patrol in Ottawa. Son Paul was the oldest of three children. Miriam, three years his junior, and Andy Thomas, ten years younger, rounded out the family.

The future recording star first came to public attention in August 1949 when the Ottawa Journal reported that he won the bunny race for seven and eight-year-olds at track meet for children of McCann Park, Fisher Park and the Vets’ Centre held at Brantwood Beach on the Rideau River. Four years later, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Paul Anka, now aged eleven, scored a goal for the Ants in their 2-0 blanking of the Wasps in a Peewee hockey game. His first brush with the bright lights of New York occurred later that year, when he was one of one hundred boys who won a five-day all expense trip to New York City courtesy of a contest conducted by IGA stores in the Ottawa area.

Paul Anka’s musical career started in St. Elijah’s choir and in school music classes. In January 1956, the fourteen-year-old singer was the lead in a trio called The Bobbysoxers who played for a capacity house at the Fisher Park High School annual concert. Raymond Carrière and Gerald Barbeau were the other members of the teenage vocal group. A few weeks later, the threesome, now called The A-B-C Trio, performed at the annual Sportsmen’s Dinner. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Paul Anka, “a youngster with plenty of voice,” led the way “with the poise of a veteran.” Young Paul also proved his chops at the Fairmount Club located on Chemin de la Montagne in Hull on its regular Tuesday Talent Night. Winning first prize, he received a week-long gig at the Club despite his tender years.

During the summer of 1956, young Paul Anka persuaded his parents to let him go to Los Angeles to stay with an uncle. There, not dissuaded by naysayers, he visited recording houses, hoping to persuade one to audition a song that he had written called Blau-Wile-Deveest Fontaine, named after a South African town in a novel he was studying in school by John Buchan (also known as Lord Tweedsmuir, Canada’s Governor General from 1935 until his death in 1940). Remarkably, the record label RPM purchased the song and signed Anka to a contract. The single, with the song I Confess on the flip side also written by Paul, was released under the Regency label in Canada in late summer 1956. Blau-Wile-Deveest Fontaine became a favourite on Gord Atkinson’s CFRA show “Campus Corner.”   I Confess made it to the number two spot on Ottawa’s “Top with the Teens,” behind Love me by Elvis Presley. That December, Paul Anka starred in a Christmas party for 1,800 members of Ottawa’s School Safety Program. According to the Ottawa Citizen, Anka might have been Elvis Presley given the enthusiastic reception he received.

1957 was Anka’s break-out year. Instead of quickly fading like many aspiring performers, he built on his success. During another trip to New York, he performed songs that he had written and arranged for Don Costa of ABC-Paramount Records. Costa was impressed. In June of that year, Paramount released Diana, with Don’t Gamble With Love on the flip side in the United States. Anka’s inspiration for Diana, which tells of his love for an older woman, was his friend Diana Ayoub who lived on Kent Street. Diana was a smash sensation. Within a month of its release, 250,000 copies of the song had been sold. The disc went gold by October 1957, taking the number one spot on the UK’s Hit Parade and number two in the United States. Sales eventually topping out at more than 10 million copies.

Diana Ayoub met up with Paul in Montreal on his triumphal return to Canada from New York City just days after the song’s release in Canada on the Sparton label. The two appeared on the Tapp House, a CBC Montreal production, hosted by Jimmy Tapp. Anka described their relationship as “good friends.” He thought he was a little young to “go steady.”

^{Ottawa Citizen headline, 25 September 1957.}

Paul Anka didn’t rest on his laurels. After just a short break in Ottawa, he hit the road on a multi-city, six-week tour of the United States, culminating with his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on 8 September 1957, recorded at Madison Square Gardens in front of 18,000 fans. His performance of Diana brought the house down and sealed his celebrity status. The Ottawa Citizen described the now sixteen-year-old Anka as a “pint sized combination of Elvis Presley and Pat Boone,” full of charm and personality. Such was the positive response to Anka’s appearance, Ed Sullivan invited him back to perform two months later. In total, he was to make fifteen appearances on the iconic, weekly, variety show.

Despite the touring, Anka remained busy writing and composing. He released another song that summer, Tell Me That You Love Me, and wrote You Are My Destiny, both of which were to become hits in Canada, United States and the United Kingdom. Marking that important rite of passage for any sixteen-year-old boy, he also got his driver’s licence. One thing that Anka did not do was stay in school. Despite his father’s wish that he complete high school, this was not possible given his touring. By this time, he was making big money, pulling in at least $100,000 in 1957. These funds were placed in a trust that was managed by his parents.

In November 1957, Paul Anka took second spot behind Elvis Presley in a poll conducted by Gord’s (Atkinson) Campus Corner, ahead of Pat Boone, Jimmy Rodgers and Ricky Nelson. He also performed at Ottawa’s Auditorium in front of a packed house in the “Biggest Show of Stars for ‘57’,” put on by Super Enterprises Inc. of Washington, D.C. Among the performers that night were the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Fats Domino, The Diamonds, and Lavern Baker. Tickets ranged from $1.50 to $3.50 in price. In the front row sat a dozen girls in red sweaters, all members of Chapter 13 of Paul Anka’s fan club. They looked after Paul’s 7-year-old brother, Andy, who also attended the show. They reserved, of course, their biggest screams that night for their idol. Fans danced in the Auditorium’s aisles, after the police gave up trying to keep them in their seats.

During the show that night, Paul Anka received his gold record for his song Diana. Ottawa’s Mayor Nelms also gave him a wristwatch on behalf of the Paramount Records. Sparton of Canada, under whose label the record came out in Canada, gave him a “Hi Fi.” In turn, Anka gave Don Costa of Paramount a hand-knitted sweater.

_{Ottawa street signs}

This marked just the start of an amazing career that continues to this day. (During the first half of 2024, you can see him in concert in Ontario, Florida and Massachusetts.)  While his popularity as a singer faded with the British Invasion of the 1960s and changing tastes, he enjoyed great success as a song writer, composing Puppy Love for Annette Funicello, My Way for Frank Sinatra, the theme song for the blockbuster movie The Longest Day about the Allied invasion of Normandy, which earned him and Academy Award nomination, and the theme song for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Among many other collaborations, he co-authored songs with Michael Jackson. He also appeared in many movies and television shows during his long and successful career.

Paul Anka was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2004, and was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2008. A street is named after him in Ottawa.

Sources:                                                               

Canadian Song Writers’ Hall of Fame, 2024, Paul Anka.

Ottawa Citizen, 1953. “Heavy Action In Westboro Kiwanis League,” 16 February.

——————, “100 City, District Boys Enjoy New York Tour,” 28 December.

——————, 1956. “Capacity House Witnesses Fisher Park High Concert,” 27 January.

——————, 1956. “Along Sport Row,” 23 February.

——————, 1956. “Floor Shows,” 17 May.

——————, 1956. “Young Recording Star,” 7 September.

——————, 1956. “Disc Jockey Data,” 26 September.

——————, 1957. “‘Family’ of 1,800 Enjoys Monster Yule Party,” 18 February.

——————, 1957. “Local Boy Paul Anka Makes Good – Record,” 18 June.

——————, 1957. “Young Paul Anka’s Song Diana Climbs Steadily,” 20 July.

——————, 1957. “An Afternoon With Anka—Elvis and Pat In One!, 25 September.

——————, 1957. “Paul Gets Golden Record,” 26 October.

——————, 1957. “Gord’s Campus Corner,” 10 November.

——————, 1957. “Starts Belt Out Rock ‘N’ Roll Rhythm For Seven Thousand Ecstatic Fans,” 19 November.

Ottawa Journal, 1949. “Children of Three Playgrounds Compete at Brantwood Beach,” 5 August.

——————-, 1951. “New Laconda Makes Its Bow,” 13 June.

——————-, 1956. “Art Tommy Named Area’s Athlete of Year,” 23 February.

——————-, 1957. “Paul Anka Hits Top Spot In New York Show World,” 19 July.

——————-, 1957. “6,700 Acclaim Paul Anka In Noisy ‘Show of Stars.’” 19 November.

Paul Anka.com, 2024. Biography.

The Ed Sullivan Show, 75 Years, 2024. Artists – Paul Anka.

Where’s Upper Town?

27 February 1912

Residents and tourists alike are familiar with Ottawa’s Lowertown. It’s the home of the popular and historic Byward Market, and a host of trendy boutiques and restaurants. It is also a predominantly Francophone, working-class, residential area that dates back two hundred years. But if there is a Lowertown, shouldn’t there be an Upper Town somewhere?

There used to be. When Bytown, the village that was to become Ottawa, was settled by soldiers and construction workers building the Rideau Canal in the late 1820s, it consisted of two communities—Lower Town and Upper Town. On the eastern side of Sappers’ Bridge, which crossed the Canal roughly where the Plaza Bridge is today, was Lower Town (or Lowertown, as it is now more commonly spelt). On the other side of Sappers’ Bridge to the west of Barricks Hill (now known as Parliament Hill) was Upper Town, centred roughly where the Supreme Court is located today. Lower Town, the bigger of the two communities, had a population of about 1,500 persons in 1840. Most were French or Irish, Roman Catholic and poor. Upper Town was largely English, Protestant and wealthy, with a population of about 500 souls. The two enclaves, less than one-half mile apart, were linked by a single road, later known as Wellington Street, that wended is way around Barricks Hill and over Sappers’ Bridge.

^{Source: Bytown or Bust}

By the end of the 19^th century, Ottawa had long outgrown these two founding communities, with residential and business districts established southward toward today’s Queensway, and into Sandy Hill, westward to LeBreton Flats, and eastward toward New Edinburgh. But like Lowertown today, Upper Town remained a distinct neighbourhood, complete with businesses, shops, grocery stores, hotels, bars, restaurants and private homes.  Many of Ottawa’s elite lived in Upper Town mansions overlooking the Ottawa River, with views of the Chaudière Falls, and the Gatineau Hills. Among its illustrious residents were George Étienne Cartier, co-premier of the Province of Canada with John A. Macdonald (1858-1862), Alexander Mackenzie, Canada’s prime minister from 1873 to 1878, Allan Gilmour, the lumber baron, and Robert Devlin, owner of the eponymous department store. The Ottawa Curling Club and rink was also located in Upper Town, as was the Dominion Observatory sited on Cliff Street (formerly Rear Street) high on the bluff overlooking the Ottawa River. In 1905, it later moved to the Experimental Farm to get away from the lights and smoke of Ottawa-Hull that obscured the night sky.

^{Upper Town, c. 1894, Wellington Street northward, stretching from Water Street (extension of Bay Street) to Bank Street. Detail, Map of Ottawa, 1894, Source Ottawahh.}

It was the growth of the federal public service that ultimately doomed Upper Town. When Ottawa became the capital of the new Dominion of Canada in 1867, all of government, its members of Parliament, senators and civil servants, was housed on Parliament Hill in the West, Central and East Blocks. However, within a few decades, these offices were insufficient. The federal government began leasing space in privately-owned buildings across the city. The cost of leasing space was high. A 1912 article in the Ottawa Journal noted that the government’s annual cost of renting space in Ottawa amounted to more than $150,000. At the prevailing 3.5 per cent interest rate, this was equivalent to paying interest on $5 million, easily sufficient to construct a lot of new government buildings.

The looming need for additional space for the federal public service was acknowledged by both the government and opposition parties. In 1903, Robert Borden, then leader of the Conservative opposition, said that he favoured tearing down the Supreme Court building, then nestled into the western foot of Parliament Hill on Bnk Street, and building a new departmental block on that site. Others argued that the lot was too small. Charles Marcil, Liberal member of parliament for the Quebec riding of Bonaventure, and later speaker of the House of Commons from 1909 to 1911, had a novel suggestion. He proposed the conversion of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill for departmental offices and the construction of a new legislature building elsewhere in Ottawa.

For years, attention focused on Sussex Street as the site for the new governmental block. One plan was to build it on the western side of the street, extending across Mackenzie Avenue and biting into a 90-foot-deep stretch of Major’s Hill Park. To this end, the government acquired all the land on Sussex Street from what was then Lindsay’s department store (later known as the Daly building) to the Royal Mint at a cost of $700,000. Architectural designs were prepared for this site.

But in early 1912, Frederick D. Monk, the Minister of Public Works in Robert Borden’s new Conservative government, announced that he was dissatisfied with this location and was looking elsewhere. The Citizen opined that the inappropriateness of the site had been obvious from the start. The topography of the Sussex Street site meant that the rear of the building would tower over the front of the structure and would dwarf the low-rise buildings on the other side of the street. As well, it meant the loss of more of parkland—a significant issue as the southern part of Major’s Hill Park had already been controversially sacrificed for the construction of the Château Laurier Hotel.

Other locations were placed on the table, including the eastern side of Sussex Street between Rideau Street and St. Patrick Street, the south side of Wellington Street, starting from the Rideau Club at the corner of Metcalfe Street, to O’Connor Street, and an Upper Town site on the northern side of Wellington Street from Bank Street as far west as the Perley Home for Incurables (formerly the home of the lumber baron, George Perley, located roughly where the Library and Archives building is today).

^{Upper Town, 299-303 Wellington Street, A. Workman & Company, 1912, Library and Archives Canada, 3600256.}

It was this last option won the day. According to Andrew Elliott, an archivist at Library and Archives Canada, on 27 February 1912, the federal government expropriated all properties in Upper Town on the northern side of Wellington Street from Bank to Bay Streets, northward to the edge of the Ottawa River. The notice of expropriation was filed at the Ottawa Registry Office a few days later. In early March, an article appeared in the Ottawa Journal saying that a departmental building would be constructed between Kent, Bank and Wellington Street and the Ottawa River. Almost immediately, the government set to work organizing surveys and appraisals of the properties and planning for the future. Thankfully, photographs were taken of all the expropriated buildings so that we know what the Upper Town community was like. These photographs can be found at Library and Archives Canada.

^{287-291 Wellington Street, north, including the Vandome Hotel, 1912, LAC 3600253.}

The expropriation of these businesses and homes has also been wonderfully described in a series of articles by Andrew Elliott that were published in late 2015 and early 2016. See Streetscape Memory Bank. The precise location of these structures placed on a current map of Ottawa can be viewed on Kevin Ballantyne’s fascinating blog Ottawa’s Bygone Buildings.

As Andrew Elliott described in his articles, Upper Town in the early 20^th century was a compact, mixed-use community. Although it had poor residents and was the site of refuges for the vulnerable like the Perley Home and the Home for Friendless Women, it was still the home of Ottawa’s elite. Consequently, when the area was expropriated by the Borden government, both rich and poor were affected, unlike later expropriations in working-class Lowertown and LeBreton Flats during the 1960s.

Despite the purchase of the land costing more than $1 million, and all the planning done up to that point, the government did not move quickly to construct the first of many new governmental buildings planned for the area. Indeed, it took fifteen years for construction to begin owing to changing government priorities and dithering. In the meantime, the government collected rents on some of the expropriated buildings, moved government departments into others, and used still more for storage. With the expectation that they would shortly be demolished, these buildings received minimal maintenance and slowly deteriorated. The vitality of this once-bustling commercial and residential area ebbed away.

Part of the delay in constructing new departmental buildings slated for this site was due to the outbreak of World War I; constructing new buildings for the public service was no longer a priority. Rebuilding the Centre Block on Parliament Hill after the disastrous fire that gutted the structure in February 1916 would also have taken priority over other buildings. The new Centre Block wouldn’t be finished until the mid-1920s.

^{Home of John Manuel (previously that of Allan Gilmour), 34 Vittoria Street, 1912, LAC 3600233.}

The demolition of Upper Town occurred in stages. The first area to fall under the wrecker’s ball was the large lot of land at the corner of Wellington, Bank and Vittoria streets to make way for the construction of the château-style, neo-Gothic Confederation Building. Its cornerstone was officially laid on Dominion Day 1927 by the Governor General, Lord Willingdon. However, it was a bit of a sham. According to the Citizen, “a small bit of masonry [had] been built to permit this ceremony.”  Construction really didn’t begin in earnest until late1928, following the awarding the construction contract to Peter Lyall Construction Company for $2.5 million. It was only then that many of the existing buildings on the site were demolished.

Gone to make way for the Confederation Building were the Capital Hotel and the Almonte House Hotel, and two commercial buildings, located on the north side of Wellington, west of Bank Street, that housed a watchmaker, a dressmaker, a locksmith a barber, and a clothier.  Among the private homes demolished, included the former home of William Pugsley, the Minister of Public Works from 1907-1911 at 12 Bank Street and the palatial house of John Manuel at 34 Vittoria Street. Manuel’s house had originally been built by Allan Gilmour, the lumber baron, who bequeathed the property to Manuel on his death in 1895. Manuel had been a senior official in Gilmour’s lumber company, and at one time was the largest shareholder in the Canadian Bank of Commerce.

^{Confederation Building, 3 August 1929, LAC 4931888.}

The Confederation Building was ready for occupation in early 1931. Its first tenants were the Department of Agriculture, the Auditor General, and Indian Affairs.

^{Bank of British North America building, 1912, LAC 3600213.}

Initially planned as the headquarters of the R.C.M.P., construction of the second departmental block, later known as the Justice Building, didn’t get underway until 1935. By this stage, the original buildings on the site were in very bad shape. A 1931 housing report said that most tenants had moved out, and the buildings were no longer habitable. There were repeated calls for the government to do something. Through 1935 and 1936, the buildings on Wellington Street, east of Kent, as well as the structures on the northern part of Kent Street were finally demolished. The last to go was the old head office of the Bank of British North America located between the Confederation and Justice Buildings. Prime Minister Mackenzie King liked the front door arch of the bank so much that he bought it from the wrecking company. We can see it today at the folly he created at Kingsmere, his country home, in the Gatineau Hills. Other buildings demolished to make way for the Justice Building included two large commercial buildings that fronted onto Wellington Street at the corner of Kent Street, and a number of homes on Kent and Vittoria Streets.

The Justice building, built in the château-neo-Gothic-style to blend in with its neighbour, the Confederation Building, was ready for occupancy in 1938.

Buildings on Wellington Street to the west of Kent Street all the way to Lyon Street soon followed into history, with their demolition beginning in September 1936 to prepare the site for the new Supreme Court Building. Gone were the former premises of A.A. Fournier at 327-333 Wellington Street, which for a time had been the headquarters of the 3^rd Divisional Signals Corps, the Vandome Hotel, the Wellington Apartments as well as a number of residences. Also to fall to the wrecking ball was the former rink and club house of the Ottawa Curling Club. Before its demolition, the club had housed units of the Ottawa Garrison. Homes on Vittoria and Cliff Streets, including the former Devlin residence, with its magnificent view of the Chaudière Falls, were also demolished.

_{Home of Robert J. Devlin, 41 Cliff Street, 1894, LAC 3422971.}

The cornerstone of the château-style Supreme Court building was laid in May 1939 by Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI on their Royal Tour of Canada. While ready for occupancy in 1940, the Supreme Court Justices didn’t move into their new quarters until 1946 as their palatial new accommodations had been given over to the burgeoning war-time public service for the duration.

^{Perley Home for Incurables, formerly home of George Perley, LAC, 3422939.}

The last of the 1912 expropriated buildings to be demolished was the old Perley Home in 1944. After its residents had moved out to more modern accommodations in 1915, it had been repurposed for departmental use. For a time, it was a hostel for returning soldiers. It also housed the Livestock Branch of the Department of Agriculture. In 1943, the Ottawa Electric Railway (the streetcar service) got permission to build a loop on its grounds. After the Home was demolished, the land was left vacant until the Public Archives Building (now Library and Archives Canada) was constructed on that site during the 1960s.

Today, nothing survives of Ottawa’s historic Upper Town. What was once a bustling commercial and residential area is now the home of government buildings—beautiful but lifeless after dark.

Sources:

Ballantyne, Kevin, 2024. Ottawa’s Bygone Buildings.

Elliott, Andrew, 2015-2016. Streetscape Memory Bank, Apt613.ca.

GIS Services Carleton, 2023. “1901 Ottawa Fire Insurance Plans.”

Ottawa Citizen, 1907. ‘The Hotel Question Again,” 14 August.

——————, 1911. “For New Block?” 3 June.

——————, 1912. “The Sussex Street Bungle,” 4 January.

——————, 1912. “Million Dollar Appropriation For New Departmental Block,” 6 January.

——————, 1912. “Parliamentary Estimates Provide $1,500,000 For Start On The New Departmental Government Block,” 27 December.

——————, 1923. “Another Departmental Block?”, 19 January.

——————, 1930. Active Start On Elaborate Plans Coming May 1,” 14 April.

——————, 1931. “Few Houses Or Apartments Are Vacant In City,” 8 January.

——————, 1931. “New Confederation Building Now Ready for Occupation,” 28 February.

——————, 1936. “Old Bank Building Being Torn Down,” 16 March.

——————, 1936. “Premier King Buys Porchway To Adorn Home at Kingsmere,” 10 April.

——————, 1936. “Sweeping Changes In Uptown District Are To Be Carried Out,” 17 September.

——————, 1936. “Another Group of Ottawa Landmarks Soon To Disappear,” 22 September.

——————, 1944. “Old Perley Home To Be Torn Down,” 19 June.

Ottawa Journal. 1903. “New Office Buildings,” 21 May.

——————-. 1906. “Departmental Block Designs,” 28 September.

——————-. 1909. “Government’s New Building,” 19 October.

——————-. 1909. “Ottawa Buildings Day In House Of Commons,” 27 November.

——————-. 1912. “The Old Gov’t Had Definitely Abandoned The Sussex Street Site,” 17 January.

——————-. 1912. “Big Palace Of Justice On Sussex Street Site,” 6 March.

——————-. 1912. “Ministry Employs S.G. Todd,” 1 May.

——————-. 1912. “Planning For New Building,” 7 August.

——————-. 1927. “To Take Two Years To Erect Hugh New Government Building To House The Civil Service,” 28 April.

——————-. 1928. “Award Contract For Building Of Big Gov’t Block,” 6 April.

——————-. 1928. “Work On Government Block Will Require 1,500 Men,” 6 September.

——————-. 1928. “To Start October 8,” 1 October.

——————-. 1929. “Beginning Work Early Next Year on New Building,” 4 June.

——————-, 1929. “13 Families Are Told To Vacate December First,” 5 November.

——————-, 1932. “Inquiry Court Named To Fix Origins Of Fire,” 25 April.

——————-, 1933. “Important Agenda For City Council,” 1 May.

——————-, 1937. “Many Buildings Owned By State,” 19 July.

——————-, 1937. “Garrison Unit In New Quarters,” 20 July. ——————-, 1938. “Several Large Demolition Projects,” 23 February.

Cradle Hockey League

7 September 1967

^{The Cradle Hockey League at the Ottawa Auditorium, 1964, Ross Dunn, Wikipedia.}

There is a small, unassuming urban park at the corner of Beech Street and Champagne Avenue South, containing an asphalt basketball court, an area used for road hockey and bike polo, a wading pool, some picnic tables and a bocce ball pit. In the winter time, there is an outdoor hockey rink. This unprepossessing, but well used neighbour park is named in honour of Ev Tremblay who lived much of his life at his modest home at nearby 160 Beech Street. Now largely forgotten, Ev Tremblay operated a window-cleaning business by day. But by night and during the weekends, he was a sporting superhero, working tirelessly to bring sport to Ottawa children. During the early 1950s, he organized and ran Ottawa’s Junior Football League that had just been revived following its demise during World War II. While this was itself a major undertaking, he became much better known as the founder of Ottawa’s Cradle Hockey League that gave thousands of Ottawa youngsters an opportunity to play minor hockey. Some went on to play professionally for the National Hockey League.

Like most things, it started out small. In 1953, he and a friend, Bill Addy, began to provide outside recreation for youngsters in Ottawa’s orphanages. Apparently, at this time, city authorities did little to promote any kind of sporting activity. Tremblay and Addy endeavoured to rectify this omission by building rinks behind the orphanages. Fearing official disapproval, firemen flooded the rinks in the middle of the night.

In 1955-56, Tremblay, as president, and Addy, as vice-president, launched the Cradle Hockey League to give all of Ottawa’s boys the chance to play organized minor hockey. Initially starting with youngsters aged eight to twelve, the league expanded to include older boys up to roughly age eighteen. The children were divided into divisions based on their age—Mosquito, Peewee, Minor Bantam, Bantam and Junior “B.” All boys were guaranteed at least 30 minutes of playtime per game with each shift no more than three minutes long. There were eighteen games to the regular season, with all teams guaranteed to make it to the first playoff round. Ice-time and sweaters were provided free to the players, thanks in large part to corporate sponsors. Bob Campeau of the Campeau Construction Company was a major contributor. All games were held on Saturdays at the Auditorium on Argyle Avenue. Hundreds of boys signed up. Sam Berger, a City of Ottawa controller, donated a trophy for the winner of an East-West All Star Game called the Silver Seven Memorial Trophy in honour of the original Ottawa Hockey Club.

^{Clipping from the Ottawa Citizen, 28 February 1957, Photo by Bill Newton. From left to right: Rudy Gagne secretary, Hap Shouldice, referee-in-chief, Ev Tremblay, president, and Bill Eddy, vice-president.}

Needless to say, the organization and operation of such a league was hugely time-consuming. In a 1959 Citizen interview, Tremblay, said that he devoted four hours per day to the League during the two-month season, not counting a nine-hour shift at the Auditorium every Saturday. Of course, he wasn’t alone.  There were many other volunteers from all walks of life. Tremblay noted that on a typical Saturday one could see “a deputy minister, a colonel, a couple of lawyers and a doctor” cleaning off the ice at the Auditorium. Sadly, Bill Addy, the co-founder of the league, died in 1957. The position of vice-president of the Cradle Hockey League was filled by Tim Coghlan.

The league focused on boys; it was the 1950s after all. However, there was one girl daring enough to break the “ice ceiling,” foreshadowing the revival of women’s hockey in the 1970s. Ten-year-old Dee Dee Hamilton played for two seasons in the mid-1950s. Her opportunity came by chance. She often skated at the Auditorium with her brothers before the start of league play. One Saturday, the goalie for St. Pat’s Orphanage got hurt. Being the only available, suitably-aged person wearing skates she was enlisted to fill in between the posts. She never looked back. Over the next two years, Ev Tremblay provided equipment and moral support, as well as fended off objections. In her two-year career, Dee Dee recorded five shut-outs. She even played in the 1957 All-Star Game held at the Forum in Montreal, during one of the intermissions of a Major Junior A game between the Montreal Junior Canadiens and the Peterborough Petes. Dee Dee was the sole girl among more than 800 boys. As an adult, she commented that she never heard a disparaging word from the boys.

^{Clipping from the Ottawa Citizen, 29 December 1956, Photo by Bill Newton. Dee Dee Hamilton (centre) with other league players, David Given (left) and Paul Rochon (right) at the launch of the 1957 season. Surrounding the league players (left to right) are league sponsors — Bob Campeau (Campeau Construction Company), Mel Scobie (Milk Foundation of Ottawa), Ev Tremblay, and Don Finnie (President of the Kinsmen’s Club).}

Through the 1960s, the Cradle Hockey League gained in popularity. At its peak in the 1960s, more than 1,200 boys were participating divided into roughly 70 teams. Inevitably, there were critics. Despite pressure, Ev Tremblay refused to join the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, preferring the Cradle Hockey League to remain autonomous. He wasn’t interested in boys eventually becoming professional hockey players. Tremblay believed it was better boys to move up the ranks of the Cradle League and play Junior hockey in Ottawa. He wanted big league scouts to stay away until boys finished high school.

Some people also called Tremblay a “dictator,” and that he ran the operation to suit himself rather than the youngsters. However, as a Citizen journalist noted, these critics hadn’t offered to organize schedules or ice times, (something that had to be done by hand in these pre-computer days), or help out at the office.

In the middle of the 1967 hockey season, a sports commentator at an Ottawa radio station implied financial irregularities at the league. He wondered where the $5 registration fee went, if the players’ ice time and sweaters were paid for by corporate sponsors. He also alleged that the league had received “thousands” from professional leagues. Fortunately, others came to the rescue, helping to repair damaged reputations. The Ottawa Citizen pointed out that funds from sponsors went directly to suppliers and the arena, and did not pass through the hands of the league. Also, of the $5 per player registration fee, $1 went to pay for insurance. The remainder covered other league expenses, including the cost of pucks, scorekeepers, timers, and office operations. As for the alleged thousands received from the pro leagues, the reality was that one NHL player had donated $630 to a local team, which in turn gave the money to the Cradle Hockey League. Overall, the league was actually $3,000 in the red, with the overdraft guaranteed by none other than Ev Tremblay and Tim Coghlan.

Despite the controversy, league play went on as usual, with the league championships held mid-March. The 1967 league winners were—Mosquito: Carleton Flyers over Britannia; Peewee: Aylmer over Elmvale; Minor Bantam: Manor Park over Tecumseh Chiefs; Bantam: Bel Air over Aylmer; and Junior “B”: Imperials over Alta Vista.

Unbeknownst to all, these were to be the last championships of the Cradle Hockey League.

Days later, Ev Tremblay suffered a serious heart attack that severely incapacitated him. He was forced to step back from the league’s operations. While the league might have been able to overcome this catastrophe, it couldn’t beat the closure of the Auditorium where the league played each Saturday. For some years, the league had been operating on borrowed time at the old Aud. Bought by the YM-YWCA in 1960 to be the site of the new Ottawa “Y”, the Aud was slated for eventual demolition. It had been kept open only by the good graces of the YM-YWCA owing to their commitment to youth, as they waited for the funding needed to commence construction on their new quarters. However, the old building was a money pit. By 1967, the Y had had enough.

Rumours began to circulate that the league was about to fold. On 7 September 1967, a convalescing Ev Tremblay confirmed the speculation at a press conference held at St. Mary’s Parish Hall. He cited his ill health and, more importantly, the difficulty in finding a home for the league once the Auditorium was demolished. (It was to come under the wrecking ball the following month.) Vice-President Tim Coghlan, now running the league estimated that the league needed at least eighteen hours of prime weekend ice time to operate effectively; something near impossible to find with the closure of the Auditorium. As well, the best time slots in other indoor rinks were already taken up by community associations.

Despite the demise of the Cradle Hockey League, it was not the end of minor hockey in Ottawa. Tim Coghlan, supported by family members who worked as scorers and timekeepers as well as office clerks, stepped up to create the Metro Hockey League. While considerably scaled down from the Cradle Hockey League, the Metro League commenced operations in late 1967. That inaugural season, there were 28 teams with more than 500 players in the 10-15 age group. However, instead of games conveniently held in one location on Saturdays, they were spread around Ottawa’s community rinks on weekends and during weekday evenings at times not always suitable for young players.

Ev Tremblay’s contribution to minor hockey was recognized in February 1968 when he was awarded the Bob Maki Memorial Trophy as Ottawa’s outstanding sportsman of 1967. Sadly, however, his health continued to deteriorate, putting a strain on his personal finances. In May 1968, a benefit was held for him at the Hull Arena, featuring a hockey game between the RA All Stars and the Smith Fall’s Bears. Also performing at the event was Ottawa figure skater Linda Carbonetto who had represented Canada at the World Championships and the Olympics.

Tremblay suffered a second, this time fatal, heart attack in October 1969. He was only 48 years of age. His passing left a huge hole in Ottawa’s minor hockey community. However, he left a considerable legacy. Recognized as the “father” of the Cradle Hockey League, he introduced roughly 10,000 boys to the game of hockey. More than a dozen made it to the National Hockey League, including Murray Wilson, Mike Corrigan, Doug Wilson, Darryl Edestrand, Jim McKenney, and Ron Ellis. Ellis played sixteen seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs and was a member of the 1967 team that won the Stanley Cup. He also played for Canada in the historic 1972 series against the Russians.

Sources:

Ottawa Citizen, 1954. “Junior Football League in Sound Hands,” 30 October.

——————, 1957. “Cradle Loop Takes Steps To Avoid ‘Benchwarming,’” 28 February.

——————, 1959, “That Ev Tremblay – He’s Quite A Guy,” 30 January.

——————, 1965. “Cradle Hockey Executive Busy,” 21 May.

——————, 1967. “Cradle League Scores,” 3 January.

——————, 1967. “Implications need cleanup,” 20 February.

——————, 1967. “End of the Cradle League,” 2 August.

——————, 1967. “New Minor metro hockey league organized,” 7 September.

——————, 1967. “Cradle Loop bows out officially,” 8 September.

——————, 1968. “Tremblay bill Monday,” 3 April.

——————, 1970. “Sportsman’s contribution remembered,” 25 May.

——————, 1977. “She was the talk of the town,” 12 February.

——————, 2011. Dee Dee Was ahead of time,” 15 April.

Ottawa Journal, 1957. “The Death of Bill Addy,” 16 October.

——————-, 1967. “Cradle Hockey League Crowns Teams from Aylmer Quebec,” 18 March.

——————-, 1967. “Hockey Days Are Here Again,” 27 June.

——————-, 1967. “Metro Hockey League, A Family Operation,” 25 November.

——————-, 1968. “Honor Ev Tremblay,” 7 February.

——————-, 1969. “Ev Tremblay Dies at 48,” 31 October.

Pope John Paul II

19 September 1984

^{Pope John Paul II in Canada, 1984, LAC, 4444461, author unknown.}

Karol Cardinal Wojtyla of Poland was elected supreme pontiff, the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State on 16 October 1978. He chose the name John Paul II as a tribute to his predecessor, John Paul I who had died just 33 days after himself being elected Pope in August 1978. Pope Jean Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years.

Almost immediately, Pope John Paul II began travelling, ministering to the Catholic faithful around the world. His first international visit was to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January 1979. Later that year, he travelled to his native Poland which at the time was still run by the Communist Party.

He came to Canada in 1984 for a twelve-day, cross-country, pastoral visit, the first Pope ever to visit this country. However, it wasn’t the man’s first trip to the country. Cardinal Wojtyla had spent time in Canada in 1968. Then the Archbishop Metropolitan of Krakow, he was invited on a tour of the country by the Canadian Polish Conference. Newly appointed Cardinal Priest by Pope Paul VI in 1967, he toured Polish parishes in Alberta. He also visited Ottawa.

The first papal visit to Canada began on 9 September 1984 when Pope John Paul arrived by airplane at Quebec City. Security was tight during his twelve-day stay in Canada. Three years earlier, a Turkish gunman had shot and severely wounded him in an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square. Reportedly, 25,000 RCMP, provincial and municipal police covered his trip with security blanket. The cost of the papal visit, including security, was approximately $50 million, of which $30 million was paid for by the federal government, with the remaining $20 million covered by the Catholic Church. Each diocese that the Pope visited was responsible for their share of the expenses.

In addition to Quebec City, the Pope visited major cities from coast to coast, including Montreal, Toronto, Moncton, Halifax, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Yellowknife, Vancouver and, finally, Ottawa where his tour ended. He made more than 30 major speeches in both English and French. His one regret was his inability to stop at Fort Simpson, owing to fog and a tight schedule, disappointing thousands of mostly Indigenous people. Native leaders from Fort Simpson declined the Pope’s invitation to meet later in Ottawa. Unable to speak in public to First Nations due to the schedule change, the Pope broadcasted his speech instead. It was an attempt at reconciliation.

Knowing what we know now about what happened in residential schools, many of which were run by the Catholic Church, his speech did not go very far. While saying that Indians, Inuit and Métis had repeatedly been the victims of injustice and admitting that Catholic missionaries had made mistakes, he reportedly extolled their contribution over the past four centuries, opining that they always had the best interest of native peoples at heart.

The Pope’s visit to Ottawa began on 19 September. While short, approximately 30 hours, it was jam-packed with events. He arrived mid-afternoon at Uplands Airport where he was greeted by Prime Minister Mulroney and his wife Mila, as well as senior Church officials. He was then whisked away by limousine to the marina at Dow’s Lake on the Rideau Canal. There, he boarded a specially-built, blue and white barge for the first ever papal water parade. On board, the Pope was protected by two tonnes of bullet-proof glass. RCMP officers captained and crewed the watercraft. They had earlier x-rayed its pontoons to ensure against possible bombs. Divers also searched the canal for mines.

_{The Papal Barge on the Rideau Canal, 19 September 1984, Source: Lost Ottawa, author unknown.}

Travelling along the Rideau Canal to the downtown Conference Centre (the former Union Station) at a leisurely 10 miles per hour, the Pontiff was cheered by as many as 200,000 people who lined his route 30 persons deep in some places. Classical music played over loudspeakers strategically placed along the canal’s length. While the Pope had a chair, he stood, waving and blessing the crowd with the sign of the cross.

For security reasons, the outer two lanes of the Queensway, which crossed above the canal, were closed to traffic. Four other bridges over the canal—Bronson Avenue, Bank Street, Laurier Avenue and Mackenzie King—were reserved for girl guides and boy scouts. The Pretoria Street drawbridge was raised to allow the Pope’s barge and accompanying flotilla of boats to proceed underneath. In case of possible mechanical difficulties, the bridge was raised early so that there would be time for emergency repairs.

After the 45-minute water journey to the Conference Centre, Pope John Paul disembarked from the papal barge and entered the “popemobile”—a modified, white pick-up truck in which the Pope could stand or sit visible to spectators in a bullet-proof, plexiglass box. From the Conference Centre, he was conveyed to the Couvent des Servantes de Jésus-Marie on Laurier Street in Hull. More than 50,000 people lined his route. At the convent, he conduced a mass that was broadcasted live over a large screen television to more than 5,000 persons at Parc Jacques-Cartier. After the mass, the Pope met two inmates at the Hull jail as a symbolic gesture to all Canadian convicts. That evening, the Pope was the guest of honour at a private reception at Rideau Hall hosted by Governor General Jean Sauvé.

Spending the night at the Apostolic Nunciature in Rockcliffe Park, the Pope started his day early with a brief ceremony during which the Knights of Columbus presented the Pontiff with a cheque for $1 million. Starting at 7:00am, he was serenaded for an hour by 70 children dressed in red and white uniforms singing choral music in English and Polish. The children were part of the St. Hyacinthe Church Choir under the direction of Polish Ursuline sisters. The choristers received a personal blessing and hugs from the Pontiff.

Forty minutes behind schedule, the pope left the nunciature at 8:40am for Notre Dame Basilica to give a personal thank you to the volunteers who had made his cross-Canada journey possible. Thousands packed the sidewalks and the grounds of the basilica in order to get a glimpse of the Pope. Inside, the congregation of 500 sang “Our Father” in Latin. 

The next event was a crucial meeting with 127 Canadian cardinals, archbishops and bishops at the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity on Bruyère Street. Outside on the sidewalk were patients from the Elizabeth Bruyère Health Centre and St. Vincent’s Hospital waiting, in some cases several hours, wrapped in blankets to see and hopefully speak to the Pope.

The 3½ hour meeting with senior Canadian Church officials was conducted behind closed doors. However, it was revealed that topics of discussion included social activism, a peace role for bishops, the crisis in religious manpower as fewer and fewer men were becoming priests, and the need for a greater emphasis on traditional gospel teaching.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Pope John Paul was whisked away by motorcade to the grand finale of his Canadian tour—an open-air mass at LeBreton Flats. Despite poor weather, people had begun to congregate on the site the night before, bringing lawn chairs, sleeping bags, food and umbrellas. By the time of the Pope’s arrival, thirty minutes late, the crowd had swelled to over 250,000. To manage the hordes, volunteers shepherded the faithful or the before the curious into fifty “pews” of 5,000 persons. Fortuitously, with the arrival of the Pope, the clouds parted and the sun began to shine.

Pope John spoke of the historical importance of the Ottawa region, the United Nations and the arms race—“the breathtaking spiral of armaments” that brought a real threat of death to many and diverted funds from economic development.

The actual Mass began at 4:30pm. Amongst the quarter million worshippers in attendance, were Prime Minister Mulroney and his wife. Adding colour to the event were the Knights of Columbus who stood on guard in their black robes and plumed hats. At the end of the Mass, the Pope thanked Ottawa for its hospitality on his “pilgrimage of faith, hope and love.” As he walked to his limousine, he blessed and touched people.

At the airport, before boarding a chartered flight for the return journey to Rome, the Pope gave a farewell speech. He expressed his disappointment about not being able to go to Fort Simpson and invited himself for a return visit. Three years later, he honoured his vow when he went to Fort Simpson to meet with the Indigenous communities in the North. Pope John Paul made a third visit to Canada in 2002 to attend World Youth Days in Toronto.

In July 2022, Pope Francis came to Canada on a six-day tour, including stops in Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit. At Maskwacis, Alberta he met with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to apologize for the role members of the Catholic Church played in the residential schools. He said “I have come to your native lands to tell you in person of my sorrow, to implore God’s forgiveness, healing and reconciliation, to express my closeness and to pray with you and for you.” He called his trip “a penitential pilgrimage,” and begged “forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.”

Sources:

CBC News, 2022. “‘I am deeply sorry’: Full text of residential school apology from Pope Francis,” 25 July.

CTV News, 2022. “A timeline of previous papal visits to Canada,” 26 July.

Ottawa Citizen, 1984. “You’ll have many chances to see the Pope in Ottawa,” 8 September.

——————, 1984. “12 historic days in Canada,” 8 September.

——————, 1894. “Popeboat makes first big splash,” 15 September.

——————, 1984. “Mass sites like mini police states,” 17 September.

——————, 1984. “Pope-watchers begin lining canal 10 hours before boat cruise,” 19 September.

——————, 1984. “Fog cancels John Paul’s visit to Fort Simpson,” 19 September.

——————, 1984. “Natives’ wait ends in disappointment,” 19 September.

——————, 1984. “Overhead, underwater around the corner—the police will be watching you,” 19 September.

——————, 1984. “Canal trip first ever papal parade on water,” 19 September.

——————, 1984. “Pope awakens to music of young choir,” 20 September.

——————, 1984. “Bishops, Pope hold vital talks,” 20 September.

——————, 1984. “A capital welcome for John Paul,” 20 September.

——————, 1984. “Thousands hold vigil at LeBreton mass site,” 20 September.

——————, 1984. “Pontiff says he hopes to return,” 21 September.

Edmonton Journal, 1968. “Polish cardinal coming,” 3 September.

Rendezvous Rideau

16 March 1983

At 9:30am on Wednesday, 16 March 1983, after more that a decade of bickering, controversy, and plan revisions, the Rideau Centre was finally ready for business.  A glittering opening ceremony was held in the Eaton Court to mark the occasion. An all-star political cast was on hand to share in the glory, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Ontario Premier Bill Davis, Regional Chair Andy Haydon, and Ottawa’s Mayor Marion Dewar. Representing the private sector were the project’s owners, Fredrik Eaton, president of the Eaton’s department store chain, Joe Barnicke, president of J.J. Barnicke, and Bernie Herman, chairman of Citicom Inc. To ensure nobody’s nose was out of joint, each simultaneously wielded a pair of scissors to cut the ribbon to officially open the shopping mall. With that, Ottawa’s town crier, Daniel Richer, dressed in eighteenth century rig complete with lace ruffles and a tricorn hat, declared the Rideau Centre open in front of about 500 VIPs, store clerks and a few shoppers who managed to sneak into the event. Musical entertainment was provided by the band of the Governor General’s Foot Guards.

_{Besserer Street Post Office and parking lot, c. 1970, now approximate site of the Westin Hotel and Rideau Centre, author unknown, Pinterest. Note the 1967 Confederation Centenary Maple Leaf on the eastern side of the old Union Station.}

The genesis of the project dated back to mid-October 1972 when the then Finance Minister John Turner announced on behalf of Ron Basford, the Minister of State for Urban Affairs that the Federal government would spearhead a massive scheme to revitalise the Rideau Street area.

This part of the city, just steps away from Parliament Hill, was long overdue for a revamping. Plans to do so littered the ground like autumn leaves. In 1949, Jacques Gréber, the French city planner and author of the eponymous Gréber Plan for rejuvenating and beautifying Ottawa had recommended, among other things, that the City of Ottawa build a new city hall on the eastern bank of the Rideau Canal. The idea was later killed by Mayor Charlotte Whitton. Subsequently, the “Parkin Plan” developed in the 1960s called for the construction of office buildings, a convention centre, a hotel, and a shopping mall underneath Confederation Square. Like many such grandiose plans, it disappeared without a trace. Meanwhile, Rideau Street became increasingly shop-worn, its merchants’ market share of Ottawa business dropping from 43 per cent to 21 per cent between 1961 and 1971 and was to fall to only 12 per cent by 1978 owing to the growing popularity of suburban shopping centres.

According to John Turner, the 1972 federal proposal was “the most sweeping yet advanced to reshape the national capital core.” It was indeed ambitious. The proposed Rideau-area rejuvenation covered roughly fifty acres of land stretching from the Byward Market in the north to the Defence headquarters located at Nicholas Street and the Rideau Canal in the south. Turner said that tenders would be called shortly for a group of buildings and covered malls on land the National Capital Commission already owned to the south of Rideau Street. He said that the project would include one million square feet of federal government office space, a covered shopping mall, a hotel, theatres, small urban parks, and an all-income mix of new housing. There would also be a pedestrian mall along Rideau Street. He admitted that the project would require the co-operation of all levels of government as well as the private sector.

People were immediately suspicious. As the announcement took place less that two weeks before a closely-contested General Election, many though it was just a ploy to win votes. Not surprisingly, Turner denied that the project, which he called Rideau Square, was an “election goodie.” What galled many was the lack of co-ordination with other levels of government. Charles MacNaughton, Ontario’s provincial treasurer and minister of inter-governmental affairs, called Rideau Square “an example of bad faith” and a unilateral federal initiative.

_{The Grand Hotel is on the right at the corner of Rideau Street and Sussex. It was demolished to make way for Colonel By Drive. The Transportation building in the centre of the photograph was conserved and was integrated into the Rideau Centre. Lost Ottawa, Library and Archives Canada.}

The project stalled, and was almost cancelled several times. The regional government worried about the impact of closing Rideau Street on transportation. Ottawa City Hall worried about its likely share of the costs. Gloucester and Nepean officials worried that the project, whose name quickly morphed to Rideau Centre, would take away commercial development from outlying communities. Sandy Hill residents worried that a big development would compromise the quality of life in their community. There were also heritage concerns. These were all legitimate issues, but the result was delay after delay.

Federal government priorities also changed. Instead of needing one million square feet of new government office space, plans were scaled back, first to 700,000 then to nothing, with the government opting instead to spread its footprint to the Quebec side of the Ottawa River with the building of Les Terrasses de la Chaudière in Hull, the new home to thousands of federal public servants. Work also stalled over who would pay for the $32.5 million Congress Centre. There were also delays as the government worked out a deal with the private sector over the transfer of land from the federal government to Viking-Rideau, the private development company owned by Eaton’s, J. J. Barnicke and Citicom Inc.

The $250 million construction project finally got underway in June 1981 but it was a much scaled down compared to the original plans proposed by John Turner. Not only were the office towers gone, so were the housing developments and urban parks, among other things. To make way for the new shopping emporium, conference centre and hotel, existing buildings were torn down on the site. The wrecking ball went after the Besserer Post Office, the Grand Hotel, and many retail outlets, including Wolf Shoes, which relocated to L’Esplanade Laurier, and Edelson’s Jewellery Store, which moved to a new location on Rideau Street. Saved was the old Transportation Building, which had “temporarily” housed Ottawa’s City Hall following a fire that destroyed its Elgin Street address in 1931 until the Green Island City Hall was completed in 1958. The Transportation Building, standing at the corner of Rideau Street and Colonel By Drive, was integrated into the Rideau Centre.

Before workmen could start building the Rideau Centre, the site had to be reinforced as it used to be the location of the eastern part of the Rideau Canal Basin, the spot where barges and boats used to turn around. It had been filled in with rubble in the late nineteenth century when trains were first run through this area. Some 200,000 tons of stone were brought in to reinforce the ground before construction of the Centre’s foundations could begin.

Roughly one thousand workers laboured for twenty-one months to build the shopping centre and adjacent conference centre and a new Westin Hotel. To erect the Rideau Centre itself, more than 4,500 tons of structural steel was used along with 80,000 cubic metres of poured concrete. The shopping centre consisted of three tiered concourses with the flagship Eaton Department Store covering 247,000 square feet. A further 375,000 square feet of floor space was available for other retailers. There were cinemas, restaurants, a landscaped roof garden and underground parking for 1,560 cars. The new mall was linked to the adjacent Ogilvy’s Department Store on the southern side of Rideau Street, and to The Bay Department Store on the northern side of Rideau Street by two fully-enclosed skywalks.

To stay competitive with the new shopping centre being built across the street, the Bay revamped its store on Rideau, the former Freiman’s Department Store, renovating the old building and expanding its floor space by 50 per cent at a cost of $20 million. In a deal with the City of Ottawa, Freiman Street (formerly Mosgrove Street) that ran beside The Bay from Rideau Street to George Street in the Byward Market was closed over and integrated with the department store. Renamed the Freiman Mall, the enclosed passageway provided covered, public access to pedestrians from Rideau Street to George Street twenty-four hours a day. Mayor Marion Dewar officially opened the Freiman Mall two months after the opening of the Rideau Centre with the unveiling of a plaque honouring A.J. Freiman and his family, who had originally owned the adjacent department store before it was bought by the Hudson Bay Company in 1972.

^{One of the entrances to the Rideau Centre from Rideau Street. The old Transportation Building is on the right. July 2023, Google Streetview.}

Just months before the gala opening of the Rideau Centre, the project was hit by another controversy. After having been known as the “Rideau Centre” for almost a decade, the principal owner, Eaton’s Department Stores, decided that its official name would be the “Rideau Eaton Centre.” City residents were outraged. Mayor Dewar protested to everybody she could think of, including the head of the NCC and the federal government. Ogilvy’s Department Store, which was integrated into the Rideau Centre was appalled. A senior corporate official said that every time they advertised, they would also be advertising Eaton’s.

Fredrik Eaton initially rejected this criticism, saying that the issue had been blown out of proportion, and that the name Eaton was synonymous with quality merchandise. However, the pressure became too great. Popular demand won the day, and the mall officially became the “Rideau Centre.”

Opening day was a huge success. After bugles blared, there were customary congratulatory speeches by the politicians. Prime Minster Trudeau jokingly asked store owners not to allow his three sons to buy bubble gum on credit. Afterwards, an estimated 150,000 eager shoppers flooded into the shops and restaurants to get a glimpse of downtown Ottawa’s new shopping destination. In addition to the flagship Eaton store, which had scooped the official Centre’s opening by opening for business the previous day, more than 180 retail outlets were ready to take eager shoppers’ money. Cash registers rang, with the Centre’s first sale recorded just seconds after the opening bell.

Most shoppers were favourably impressed by the Rideau Centre’s architecture and facilities, likening it to a mini version of Toronto’s Eaton’s Centre. Some thought it was confusing and difficult to navigate, perhaps purposely so to keep shoppers in the building as long as possible. Some complained about the lack of sufficient parking. The largest complaint on opening day was about the restaurants. If somebody wanted a glass of wine or a beaker of beer, they were out of luck as nobody had received a liquor licence in time for the grand opening.

With the passage of time, can one say the Rideau Centre was a success? As a destination shopping centre, the answer is a qualified yes as its success was at the expense of stores elsewhere, including shops on Sparks Street. Moreover, Caplan’s, a big department store on Rideau Street, failed in July 1984, in part a victim of the Rideau Centre’s success. Ogilvy’s struggled on for a few more years, but it too succumbed in 1992. Its building was then left vacant for twenty years. Even within the Centre, retailers found it hard going. The Eaton Department store chain, which anchored the Rideau Centre, failed in 1999, its outlets taken over by Sears Canada, or shut down. In turn, when Sears failed in 2014, the anchor store in the Rideau Centre was taken over by Norstrom, a big American retailer.  In June 2023, Norstrom also closed when the American parent shuttered all its Canadian stores.

As for Rideau Street, the Rideau Centre did not spark a shopping renaissance as hoped. The decline continued. There are now few upscale stores left apart from, say, Urban Outfitters and Letellier Shoes. But if you are looking for a place to buy your cannabis, get a tattoo, or a payday loan, before heading off to Dollarama, it’s the place for you.

Sources:

Ottawa Citizen, 1977. “Private sector holding Rideau Centre bag,” 21 May.

——————, 1981. “Long-disputed Rideau Centre stalled again,” 5 March.

——————, 1982. “Relocated owners waiting and seeing,” 11 July.

——————, 1983. “Centre name change can’t be stopped,” 11 November.

——————, 1983. “By any other name, it’s Rideau Centre,” 12 November.

——————, 1983. “Dewar okayed change: Eaton,” 12 November.

——————, 1983. “Opening Ceremonies at Centre Rideau Centre,” 9 March.

——————, 1983. “History of Rideau Centre Development,” 15 March.

——————, 1983. “Shoppers flock to Easton’s sneak peak preview,” 15 March.

——————, 1983. “Trumpet fanfare opens Rideau Centre,” 16 March.

——————, 1983. “Rideau Centre just the beginning of downtown revival,” 16 March.

——————, 1983. “Rideau Centre – A new look for downtown,” 17 March.

Ottawa Journal, 1972. “New look set for Rideau Street area,” 18 October.

——————-, 1972. “Rideau Square plan cited as example of bad faith,” 21 November.

——————-, 1976. “Think big about Rideau Centre, 27 February.