I sat down with three painters who’d been part of a latter day group of seven that had taken on a project of painting at the Champlain Lookout every Friday through 2009, capturing the change of the seasons.

They had made notes on the conditions they experienced and the effect it had on them and I’ve included some of those below.

Karole Marois instigated the idea, having a decade or so ago painted a series of pieces exploring the changing environments of the Park and being an enthusiastic cyclist and skier in Gatineau Park when she isn’t painting.

Karl Schutt explained that the group had been meeting for Friday breakfasts for years and began to shift the location of their meals to various places near the Park before heading up to Champlain Lookout to dedicate time to paint.

As well as the changing views from the lookout, and the changing look of the Park around them, the group found they were exposed to both the elements and to various forms of living beings.

Pina Manoni-Rennick described how she erected defenses against the spring and early summer blackflies. As well as chemical defenses in the form of insect repellant, she needed to bundle herself up in a headnet. And still somehow the blackflies and mosquitoes seemed to find their way in. It got so bad that her nose grew red and swollen from the bites, one day after getting home she discovered caterpillars had inched their way inside her clothes; clearly an artist dedicated to her craft.

Karl Schutt said that as the hordes of biting bugs dispersed they were replaced by hordes of tourists.

Though the main objects of the paintings are landscapes, a few human subjects do appear, for example leaning on the wall overlooking the escarpment, so perhaps the tourists too had their influence. Karole Marois and Pina Manoni-Rennick admitted that although no blackflies were the subjects of the paintings, several did get encapsulated in the paint.

The painter s’ days were ruled by the weather and some days they would be enjoying the sunshine at breakfast time only to drive up into a cloud as they approached Champlain Lookout.

Karole Marois gained a minor obsession with the clouds, not only working them into her paintings, but even trying to take photos of the foggy obscurity that some days enveloped their perch.

But the clouds did part on most days and the result became an exhibit titled Points of View held over at the CUBE gallery.

Karl Schutt said that the exercise set a bit of a precedent for them in orienting the group’s work toward a specific exhibit to which each artist adopted a more uniform approach than they otherwise might have done.

Although they don’t plan at this point to return to a group project in the Park, Points of View has had an influence on a possible next project aimed at streetscapes in Ottawa. Painting by the artists will likely continue in the Park, but not as a group exercise.

Karole Marois emphasized the influence their time in the Park had in raising awareness of the need for protection. Early in the exhibit presentations from the Friends of Gatineau Park and MP Paul Dewar concerning Park protection took place at the Gallery.

The Artists

• Jay Anderson
• John Jarrett
• Olaf Krassnitzky
• Pina Manoni-Rennick
• Karole Marois
• Paul Schibli
• Karl Schutt

The Cube Gallery

• 1285 Wellington St. West
• 613.728.2111
• info@donmonet.ca

Extracts from artists daily notes:

May 1  2009 3 PM         20 °C         extremely windy

“ It’s very overcast and nature’s palette is very muted.” Paul Schibli

May 8 12 PM        17 °C

“ Great seeing the storm approaching and the cloud patterns and light that changed in seconds as I worked. ” Jay Anderson

“ My thoughts were: what am I looking at? Well it is Algonquin land over which there is still an active land claim dispute.” Olaf Krassnitzky

“ Trees now are coated in a spring yellow-green; others are tinged muted red.  And the evergreens offer up dark contrasts.  The farmers’ fields that cover the valley like a quilt of shades of green and tan recede into blue haze by the Ottawa River and beyond.” Paul Schibli

May 15 12 PM        15 °C         winds gusty

“ The black flies are unrelenting!  They’re stuck to the canvas and my palette; they crawl across the inside of my glasses.  And they bite! “ Paul Schibli

“ As soon as I placed the canvas on my easel the wind decided to pick up so my easel collapsed, the canvas flew on my face, the water container flipped over and I found myself on the ground try to grab what I could. “ Pina Manoni-Rennick.

May 29 11 AM        12 °C rain & clouds

“Lookout became “look in”!  All we could see was about 20 feet in front of us.” Jay Anderson

June 5 12 PM        20 °C

“ I decided to go the abstract route today, creating blue, mint green, purple and pinks to represent the different layers from the background to the foreground. ” Jay Anderson

“ Champlain Lookout is completely in the clouds, no view at all, mysterious, moody, grey. Like a watercolour. I love the change of scenery, ‘no greens’ is good.” Karole Marois

June 12 12 PM        24 °C sunny

“ I was surrounded by flies, not just house flies….but deer flies, and horse flies,  they were all buzzing around me.  I finished a watercolour between swatting and shooing the blasted insects. There were also caterpillars and these were crawling up everything including us.” Pina Manoni-Rennick

“Gorgeous weather and definitely a sky day.  Lots of billowy clouds making shadows on the landscape.” Jay Anderson

July 3 11 AM        18°C

“ From the intersection of Fortune & Champlain Pkwys, I drove into the clouds. There was an eerie white glow that illuminated the trees, as if to lead the way to the skies. Coming up here seems to help me look at the big picture” Karole Marois

Sept 11 12 PM   26 °C     sunny

“ It is quiet and eerie at the Lookout.  Students are back in school and the tourists are gone. ” Karole Marois

Oct 9 12 PM     5 °C

“ It is the 2nd week of the Fall Rhapsody, and the view from the Lookout is completely in fog.  Everything below in the Park is inflamed with coppers, reds and yellows.” Karole Marois

Nov 13 12 PM   10 °C sunny

“The Parkways are already closed for the winter.  I hiked with Bob Rennick from Camp Fortune to the Champlain Lookout.  It is calm at the top and the view is coloured with purples, raw siennas and viridians”. Karole Marois

Dec 11 2 PM       – 6 °C             sunny & windy

“With the first snow, I skied to Champlain Lookout with a mission to photograph the view for the other artists.  The wind is so powerful that I have trouble holding on to my camera” Karole Marois

Jan 13  2010 2:30 PM        – 7 °C      wind chill  – 14 °C

“ I skied the upper loop and saw very few skiers.  I could only hear branches breaking, a pileated woodpecker and my breathing. The view from the Lookout is grey and mysterious.” Karole Marois

Trail #17 winds its way between Keogan Lodge and the top of the hill above P7 at Kingsmere.

Skiers who learned the trails before the numbering system came into force refer to this trail as Frank’s Trail.

As I cast my eye over the old maps I see Frank’s Trail appearing on some, but not on others.

At first I assumed that this was because Frank’s Trail was cut more recently and perhaps I could find this Frank and get some first-hand information. But the real answer tells two interesting tales.

The Frank behind Frank’s Trail was Francis Amyot.

He died in 1962 so I’m out of luck as far as interviewing him goes.

That date for his demise also puts the lie to my assumption that Frank’s Trail was a fairly recent edition to the list of Gatineau Park ski trails.

According to the Ottawa Citizen the trail was in existence by the winter of 1936-37.

So why wasn’t it on any number of maps through the 40s and 50s?

The answer lies in the fact that most of the trail maps produced by the Federal District Commission contained information they got from the Ottawa Ski Club and Frank Amyot wasn’t a member of the Ottawa Ski Club. He was a member of the Cliffside Ski Club.

I don’t think it was spite that kept Frank’s name off the Ottawa Ski Club maps, it was more likely the fact that Cliffside trails were maintained by Cliffside members. On the one hand the Ottawa Ski Club wouldn’t want to take on extra trail maintenance and on the other hand it was only polite to let Cliffside take credit for their trails themselves.

I’d heard of the Cliffside ski club before and wondered why the Ottawa Ski Club had so much more of a presence in people’s memories.

I am guessing it might be a combination of reasons.

The Ottawa Ski Club owned and operated Camp Fortune for many decades, they had thousands of members including the much written about Night Riders and Trail Riders, their one-time president wrote two books about the club.

None of these things was true of the Cliffside Ski Club.

But they did have Frank Amyot and he was nothing to look down your nose at.

Born in 1904 he was 32 when he competed in the 1936 Olympic Games as a canoeist and won the only gold medal Canada saw that Olympics.

He was the toast of the town.

So another question popped into my head. Was Frank’s Trail named in his honour or did he actually lay out the trail himself?

According to that article in the Ottawa Citizen, Frank’s Trail was explored and opened (possibly re-opened?) by Frank himself.

This supports the expectation that an honourific naming would have given us Amyot’s Trail instead of Frank’s Trail.

Though he died almost 50 years ago and left no children his name still turns up.

One memento of his Olympic victory was an oak seedling. The 1936 Olympics were the Berlin Olympics held under Hitler’s rule. Gold Medalists were awarded an oak seedling and newspaper reports indicate that Amyot’s may have been planted in an Ottawa City park.

Carleton Professor Klaus Pohle has been trying to find it for years. It would be a tree with more than an average story behind it.

From the Ottawa Citizen, December 17, 1936:

Frank’s Trail is named after Frank Amyot, outstanding Ottawa paddler, who was the only Canadian to capture an Olympic crown at the recent Olympiad. Amyot, who has been one of the leading members of the club for many seasons, found this trail on one of his many jaunts through the Gatineau woodland, and it was through many hours hard work on his part that it was rendered as good as it is.

There are two ways to get to Western Lodge, one via the Western Trail, now numbered 9, the other via Trail #2 which spurs off to descend from Ridge Road.

Both of these trails are longstanding. Surprisingly trail #2 is the older of the two having been there before the Lodge was. Trail #2 starts at P12 and is also known as the McCloskey Road (for clarification on this see comment below).

Prior to Western Lodge standing at its current spot the lookout it commands was known as McCloskey lookout.

At first Western Lodge wasn’t there, then it was, then it wasn’t again, and then it was once more.

When I say at first it wasn’t there, what I actually mean is that it was somewhere else.

After the Ottawa Ski Club built a lodge at Camp Fortune they were a little overwhelmed by the number of skiers who started to arrive and entertained several schemes for reducing the crowds there.

One of these was to build a lodge on the east side of the Gatineau River.

This didn’t sound as crazy at the time as it does today. Many skiers arrived by city bus to Old Chelsea and from there a ski to the Gatineau River is actually shorter than to Camp Fortune.

But the fact is that few people used the East Side Lodge, as it was known.

Information at the Canadian Ski Museum says that Western Lodge was built in 1930. What it doesn’t say is that Western Lodge had been East Side Lodge dragged across the frozen Gatineau River one previous winter and hauled up the McCloskey Road after the snow had gone.

A 1936 article though mentions that interest in Western Lodge had dropped off and by 1946 Western Lodge had been torn down for use as building material at Camp Fortune.

A 1947 story rumors that the building material might be going into a ski jump being built at Camp Fortune.

And yet, there it stands.

What inspired this lodge (that seems to have as many lives as a cat) to reappear?

I’m told it was reestablished by the Alpine Club of Canada who must have approached it from its steeper side (clarification in comments below).

In any case, by 1963 it is referenced again in the Ottawa Citizen as a place to ski to.

It seems to me that I came across something nostalgic about how the current Western Lodge lacks the signatures of old skiers that used to adorn the walls of the original. Knowing how often the original changed its form I hope there is solace in knowing those lost signatures weren’t the original originals.

I’d love to have anyone with other memories of Western Lodge add them here or send any old pictures to guidegatineau@gmail.com

Here are a few of the newspaper clipping mentioned, followed by a 1943 account from an Ottawa Ski Club guidebook.

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1933

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1936

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1946

From an Ottawa Ski Club guide book dated 1943:

There are quite a few points along the long ridge from Kingsmere to Meach Lake where a glimpse of the Ottawa Valley may be obtained but nowhere perhaps is it so sould satisfyin, as from that old look-out which is said to be unrivalled in the whole Gatineau Land – the old McClosky’s look-out.

Never crowded, the lodge is as peaceful as the trail, and soli comfort can be found there – provided one has had the precaution of bringing needed supplies, ad there is no cafeteria.

This lodge has an interesting history. It stood for a number of years on the east shore of the Gatineau river, opposite Tenaga, where it had been set up at the request of a couple dozen or so of highly select members who wanted to get away from the madding crowd and enjoy more privacy. The main argument advanced however was that it would divert the traffic away from Camp Fortune and avoid the necessity of adding a new wing to a building that had too many wings already. It would be used also as a half way stop by long distance skiers going from Wakefield to Ottawa along the shores of the Gatineau river. Money being only a secondary consideration in those days of prosperity, the lodge was built, and widely advertised. None of the things that were expected happened. The select people did not come, the long distance skiers took to slaloming, and the few who ventured across the Gatineau river found the place so private, so lonely, that they retraced their tracks in all haste to join the gay throng at Camp Fortune. When the number of visitors over a week-end dwindled to a corporal’s guard, it was decided to move the building over to a place where there would be no river to cross and the East side Lodge became the Western Lodge, another case of East meeting West.

The event went on for some time (and YouTube limits video uploads to 10 minutes) so what you see below are some of the parts of that event.

Here Arnold Midgley talks about how skiing first came to Ottawa. (apologies for the quality of the video – the camera was unmanned)

Here he goes on to talk about when skiing moved to Gatineau Park.

Mr. Midgley presented a series of photos and if we can get that series I’ll post it here too.

Following the photos Mr. Midgley answered questions from the audience gathered at 33 Scott (the Gatineau Park Visitor Centre). The follwing two videos are those Q&A sessions.

Julien Raby’s presentation was on the history of cross country ski patrolling in Gatineau Park. He presented in French. Videos covering his talk are still in preparation.

The following is a transcript of Mr. Midgley’s talk:

Arnold Midgley: I thought it would make a little sense to give context if I gave you just a little bit of a capsule summary of the history of the Ottawa Ski Club, and how they came to be in the Gatineau Park . People often got confused. They say, “The Ottawa Ski Club? Where do you ski in Ottawa?” People did ski in Ottawa. The early Norwegian settlers in this country, many of them came in the late 1800’s for the mining work in the north, particularly, and various centers across Canada.

Those who were in the Ottawa area brought their love of skiing with them. The Norwegians are fanatical about their love of skiing. They’re outdoors, in the open air as much as they can through the winter. They brought that love of skiing with them.

Some of the Norwegians who were particularly keen on one of the two aspects, that they thought of as sking.  Jumping and cross country were the two principle means of participating in skiing at that time. A group of the jumpers got together in 1910 and formed the Ottawa Ski Club in Rockcliffe Park, just around the corner from the Governor General’s. They built a little ski jump that they had fun on, and then they built a bigger one, and then they built a bigger one, and eventually they built big enough, with a tower structure on one side of the road. They would jump over the road, down the riverbank, land on the riverbank, and along the ice of the river. You’ll see that in some of the slides.

The first president of the Ottawa Ski Club was Sigurd Lockeberg, that many of you will remember for being in the park for some time. He was at Camp Fortune on a regular basis, until he died. He was the first president. They started with the ski jump in Rockcliffe Park. It got bigger and bigger. The big advantage of Rockcliffe Park was that you could get there on a public transport. You could get there on a streetcar.

People would go to Rockcliffe Park, and there was a circuit of jumpers for demonstration on weekends. They’d be one weekend in Toronto, one at the Three Rivers, one in Ottawa, one at Quebec City, and so on. They made this tour, and put on this demonstration of jumping. People would come, and many thousands to watch these daredevils jump these incredible distances.

At that time, the style of jumping was lots of arm waving, flapping, and it was like jumping down an elevator shaft. You jumped as high as you could, and then you fell until you landed down the hill. It was quite different than what you see on the Olympics today.

But, the big advantage was you could get there on public transport. Many people not only went to watch the jumping, but they learned to ski amongst the pine trees…they were little then… on the slopes at Rockcliffe Park. It was a very popular place to ski. My mother told me that she learned to ski, a little bit. She hated having her feet frozen all the time and she gave it up. It was a good thing.

I was fortunate my older brother, David, started skiing. He and his friends introduced me to skiing. I learned to ski on a golf course in the west end of Ottawa that isn’t there anymore, and quickly graduated to coming up to Camp Fortune. Again, by public transport. I could get a streetcar downtown to catch a bus, and then the bus would take me up to Lemay’s on the Kingsmere Road, or the Hull City bus would take me up to the Dunlop parking lot on Meach Lake Road, and we could ski in to Fortune from there.

The early days, though there was a bit of a hiatus in the Ottawa Ski Club operation in World War I. But after World War I, it gained popularity again. The people who were active at that time were more interested in cross country than they were ski jumping. Although the jump continued for quite a few more years, the center of operation of the ski club gradually moved up to Gatineau Park.

The new president of the Ski Club at that time was called Charles Mortureux. He was highly influential. He was a very keen canoeist in the summer and a very keen outdoors skier in the winter and he was obviously a good salesman because he interested a lot of people in coming with him on tours of Gatineau Park.

He made an arrangement with a farmer called Dunlop who, in by Chalet des Erables there’s a little flat area in there which was a meadow, it was his farm. He made an arrangement with Dunlop who used that space for the benefit of skiers who had come up from Ottawa. In the early days they would come mainly by train and they would come mainly to get off the train and ski cross country, across the fields to Camp Fortune, cook their lunch and ski home. That was a day’s outing. As they got better at cross country to get there they had more time at Camp Fortune and started to develop the trail network that we know now that’s so fantastic.

Doctor Zader North was a keen promoter of this. He bought a woodcutter’s shack that was on the top of what we know as Mort’s hill and he built a cabin, a beautiful cabin. It unfortunately suffered the fate of winter buildings in remote areas. It burned down sometime in the ’60s. I don’t remember the date. ‘66? Thank you.

There was another enterprising farmer named Murphy who had a farm up in the Kingsmere road. He would bring a sleigh down to Chelsea station. And those who didn’t want to make the cross‑country trek he would haul people in his sleigh up the Kingsmere road and they would go out in the property behind Eddie Quipp’s place, somewhere in there where there was some open ground, and they would go up and down the trails and of course climb into Fortune.

The Canadian Amateur Ski Association was formed in 1921. That’s the organizing committee, the organizing body for the sport of skiing in Canada. It was organized in 1921 mainly for people from this area. Mort amongst them ‑‑ Charles Mortureaux ‑‑ better known by the name Mort.

Touring was very popular, of course, as the trail systems grew the touring was popular and competitions began. Always young men particularly would challenge each other to see who was fastest. Quickly the competition circuit grew as well. There was a, a group was formed in the ’30s, late ’20s and early ’30s called the Night Riders. And it was a group of young men, mostly late high school, early university age and it was organized by a fellow named Joe Morin. Who was the right hand man in the organization of the ski club. They were engaged to maintain the trails, cut the trails, maintain the bridges and so on.

They basically kept the ski club facilities alive for many years. Gradually that, later on John Clifford was a Night Rider. John and his brother Harvey were both members of Night Riders under Bill Irving for many years if you remember. They were members of this volunteer team and there was quite camaraderie there. When John started building rope tows, some of the Night Riders were attracted to the Alpine aspects of skiing and more and more of the Night Riders became the maintainers of the hills and the lifts, rather than the trails.

A group in the ski club who were much more keen on the trail skiing organized themselves as the Trail Riders and first they had a bunk house in upper half of Lockeberg Lodge. Later they built the Rider’s Roost which is over behind the Chalet des Erables.

One of the other popular spots to ski during the day was Dome Hill, again accessible by public transport. You can take a streetcar to Wrightville and ski across a mile or two across the field. There was a story that I think that Julin was going to talk about… there was a young man who was feeling daring and he waited, hung around at the end of the day at Dome Hill, until everybody had gone so he can go off and have a run all by himself. He zoomed down the hill, he crashed and broke his leg. He was there overnight.

That was a start of another part of the story of skiing in the park right there that you’ll hear about later. The same group cut a trail basically on King Mountain for downhill races. I remember my first big downhill was on that track. We would climb up to pack the trail and then race our way down. That’s how you learn the course by climbing it.

The lodges were all built by volunteers, members of the club. It really was a club in the sense the members were actively operating it. There were many activities besides just the basic skiing, there was square dances and parties and celebrations and all kinds of things going on.

But the lodges themselves were physically built by the membership. First there was a small lodge where the Chalet des Erables is now. And then it was added to, and added to, burned down. They built a bigger one. It gradually was used for many years and it gradually was used for many years and burned down, too. The one that’s there now is the one that replaced it.

The lodges were recyclable to a great extent. Whenever the need for a lodge was low, and there was a need for a lodge somewhere else, they would physically disassemble the lodge here, take the material over there and build another one. So there was no wastage of materials. Some of those lodges have been recycled a few times. Pink’s Lake Lodge went through several versions over the years.

Eventually it was disassembled, taken to Fortune where it became Cassel Lodge at the foot of Pineau Hill, Art Pineau was keen on teaching youngsters to ski. He used to have classes on the lower slopes of what’s now Pineau Hill.

Sigurd Lockeberg continued his jumping ways and was instrumental in creating a series of jumps at Camp Fortune, including the 60‑meter hill where we had many good competitions under the auspices, or direction I should say, of my father‑in‑law, Fred Morris, where he was very active in the ski jumping program for many years. He kept the ski jumping program for many years. He kept that activity going for many years.

The Governor General Lord Alexander loved to ski, so I was a frequent visitor at Camp Fortune. One of the more recent lodges built under the ski club regime was Alexander’s club. That was built on the sunny side of the Fortune Valley.

Eventually a road was built in from Dunlop’s and people started to drive right to the area, and that era of a volunteer club, creating their own public benefits, gradually subsided and it became a commercial operation. Now of course, there’s been a huge rebirth in skiing, cross‑country skiing on the wonderful trails system we have in this area. It’s a tremendous benefit that we have so close to the natural habitat. It allows us to get out and enjoy the outdoors, as Mort than others visualized it. It’s wonderful to see these things come full circle.

For an outsider listening to people talking about skiing in Gatineau Park the most frequently mentioned places to ski are perhaps the parkways, followed by Ridge Road, followed by Burma Road.

Grab your official NCC trail map; I defy you to locate Burma Road anywhere on there.

What’s more, somewhere named Burma hardly sounds like a place that snow would accumulate.

This is where GuideGatineau earns its name and explains to you where the heck Burma Road is, how it earned the name Burma and why it’s now called Huron trail even though it doesn’t even go to Huron Shelter.

To start with, the trail that isn’t marked Burma or Huron on the official Gatineau Park map is the one marked Trail #3.

Before either Burma or Huron or the numbering system came on the scene there was yet another name associated with this trail; Alexander’s Road.

The Alexanders were a family who owned land to the south west of Meech Lake and their name was once quite important to visitors to what is now Gatineau Park.

An article in the Ottawa Citizen dated August 25, 1917 mentions Mr. Alexander of Meech Lake buying another Ford to add to his fleet of cars for hire. “Increasing passenger traffic between Chelsea and the Lake is the reason of the extra car.”

The Alexander Road was not what became Burma Road but instead ran between Ridge Road and Meech Lake.

The short Trail #12 that runs from behind Shilly Shally down across Trail #9 to Trail #3 is all that remains of the Alexander Road; which in newspaper references of the 1960s is called Alex Road.

But it was the Alexander Road that was the genesis of the Burma Road.

In 1961 the Ottawa Ski Club Trail Riders set out to reopen the overgrown and mostly forgotten Alexander Road.

Here are a couple of images of the Trail Riders from the year before, in 1960, working on the Western trail (now #9) kindly provided by Michael MacConaill

As the work progressed the crew kept getting diverted off their intended course when they encountered already cleared work roads.

Why cut through brush when a little detour was already wide open?

Thus over two seasons the trail that was supposed to be the Alexander Road and was supposed to run between Ridge Road and Meech Lake wandered off course eventually resulting in a trail that ran perpendicular to that, between the Fortune Parkway near Fortune Lake, to The Ramparts, before hooking back to Ridge Road.

Cutting trails is tough work.

The crew involved in that tough work was headed by Ferdy Chapman and included Michael MacConaill and Doug Martin who were one day recovering their strength with Rosemary Gilliat in the original Shilly Shally; they had spent the day constructing a bridge over one of the creeks along the trail.  (Note: you can see an image of Shilly Shally vintage 1960 by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of that post)

“Bridge” might be a high complement for the corduroy assembly of logs that were actually used.

As tired workers often do they commiserated on how hard they had to work.

1961 was four years after the release of the blockbuster film Bridge on the River Kwai which had won seven Academy Awards.

The film depicts prisoners of war being forced by their Japanese captors to build a bridge.

Our Gatineau Park trail builders joked that they were being worked as hard as those POWs had been.

Geographically the River Kwai is in Thailand but in the movie the bridge was part of the Burma Railway construction project—Burma being north-west of Thailand—and so it seemed natural that this new trail in Gatineau Park should be called the Burma Road.

And yet today, once you’ve tucked your official NCC map into your pocket and glance up at the sign posted at the foot of Trail #3, you will notice no sign saying Burma, but instead one saying Huron.

Why is that?

In fact the Huron Trail was originally yet another trail that ran in yet another direction.

Its southern end was near the Huron lookout on the Champlain Parkway but it looped around toward the north-west—crossing the Burma Road twice as Burma looped north-east—and ended where the old McCloskey Farm had been; now the area where Trails#18, #20 and #21 come together. (Trail #18 is shown on a 1967 map to be a final spur of Huron Trail leading back to Ridge Road, however Michael MacConaill remembers this short trail as Walter’s Trail after Walter Roche).

Both Burma and Huron Trails were ski trails.

One of the things about ski trails is that they often make for pretty unattractive hiking trails when the swamps and lakes they cross change from beautiful white snow to bog and deep water.

For this reason the National Capital Commission in the 1970s undertook to encourage hiking by realigning what had been Burma to avoid the wetter spots and borrow a few drier sections from Huron Trail.

In so doing the Huron name was also borrowed and that’s why you see it on the signs. The eastern section of Trail #21 was originally where the Huron Trail ran.

But that was almost 40 years ago. Why is it that people still insist on calling Trail #3 the Burma Road?

One of the reasons is that Burma Road wasn’t just any old ski trail.

When it was first cut it was one of only very few trails reaching west of the Fortune Parkway. As such it was heavily used, including for Ottawa Ski Club racing. As old racers often become coaches and organizers for young racers word of mouth has carried Burma forward so that among many serious skiers Burma is the more familiar name.

Text, pictures, and archival newspaper articles follow.

Long before Gatineau Park was Gatineau Park there were signs that people needed to think about the safety of those who used the outdoors for recreation.

Some of the earliest recreational users were members of the Ottawa Ski Club for whom it became a pleasant routine to catch a streetcar to a place called Ironside along the Gatineau River, then start an outing from a clubhouse they had there at a place called Dome Shaped Hill.

Modern maps still show Ironside at the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Joseph and Rue Jean Proulx and Dome Shaped Hill lives on in Club de Golf le Dome but Highway 5 now makes these locations impractical places for ski access to Gatineau Park.

On Thursday February 12, 1942 when all the other skiers were schussing back to catch the streetcar home after a day on the trails Walter Arthur Boult thought he’d take one more loop to finish the day. Unfortunately he fell and broke his leg and spent a very uncomfortable night in the snow, nearly losing both feet to frostbite.

This incident may have helped prompt the first ski patrol and rescue team that was organized the following winter.

The ski patrol that formed in 1943 had no equipment and asked for advice from skiers north of Montreal on how to build rescue sleds. Injured skiers were often brought out of the park using horse and sleigh.

Eventually Gatineau Park ski patrols and first aid centered itself out of a building called the Riders Roost; still in existence and located further up the valley from the present Camp Fortune location.

This was a central location to many ski trails in Gatineau Park and emergency response crews could head out quickly to injured skiers. It was only in the last few years that the emergency rescue centre has moved from the Riders Roost. In 2007 operations became centered in a utility building beside P8.

In some ways this represents a jumping off point that makes the trail network even more accessible. Whereas the Fortune Valley was central to the original Ottawa Ski Club trails, these days many—perhaps more—skiers made use of the parkways and the new emergency response location gives quick access to rescue crews using snowmobiles for rapid response.

Because back country ski trails in the park are not groomed it is possible that in deep snow snowmobiles might get stuck. For this reason Gatineau Park has acquired a special rescue sled for extracting injured back country skiers with a team on snowshoes.

I had the chance to talk to some of the rescue team recently and to check out their gear. Things have advanced quite a bit since the day Walter Boult spent his night in the snow. The special rescue sled now sports warm sleeping bags and insulating pads, splints and bandages, chemical warming pouches as well as an oxygen tank, defibrillator and rescuers who know how to use all this stuff.

Thanks to Matthieu Lemay, Camille Leclerc and Jean-Guy Beaumier who gave me the royal treatment as they displayed the gear. Thanks well as Daniel Blais who got strapped into the rescue sled during the demonstration.

Here are some images from my visit with the rescue team followed by newspaper clippings from back when the ski patrol started.

First though, here’s a photo from Herbert Marshall’s book How Skiing Came to the Gatineau (1972). In the book the image has the caption

Ski Patrol (now Ottawa Ski Club Aid and Rescue Patrol: “OSCAR”) bringing a casualty to the first aid station on “Bloodwagon” as it was popularly termed.

This is the newly outfitted rescue sled in it’s configuration to be towed behind the snowmobile.

It can be quickly decoupled from the skidoo and transformed into a human powered first aid sled.

It has a keel at the back to keep it running straight and not swinging wildly behind the snowmobile. It also has teflon runners that make it easier to drag across pavement and other non-slippy obstacles.

And of course it’s packed with cool gear for saving lives.

Gradually Improving (Ottawa Citizen, February 18, 1942)

The condition of Walter Arthur Boult, 22-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Boult 117 Laurier street Hull, who nearly froze to death last Thursday when he broke a leg on the Dome Hill ski trail is gradually improving, it Is reported at the sacred Heart hospital. Doctors now hope to save his two feet which were severely frozen. HIs broken leg was placed in a cost yesterday by Dr. J. C. Rossignol. [editorial comment: doesn't there seem to be some irony in this physician's name?]

Hope to Organize Local Ski Patrol (Ottawa Citizen, October 20, 1943)

Bill Irving who heads the Night Riders of the Canyon, has under consideration formation of a ski patrol to look after persons injured on ski trails of the Gatineau.

Ski patrols have been organized by many ski clubs in the United States and as a result experienced first aid men are always available during the hours of the day when ski traffic on downhill runs and trails is at its peak.

Irving has in mind constructing three or four first aid toboggans with canvas frames, similar to those in use in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal, and placing them at strategic trail points sucha s on the Merry-Go-Round trail and half way to Western lodge.

Last season first aid men of the Ottawa Ski Club and the Night Riders did yeoman service in aiding injured skiers and the formation of a ski patrol would do much to add to the comfort of those unfortunate enough to suffer injury on the ski runs.

Ottawa Ski Patrol, 24 Strong, To Look After Injured Athletes (Ottawa Citizen, November 17, 1943)

An Ottawa Ski Patrol Comprising twenty-four crack skiers was organized last week-end at the annual general meeting of the Night Riders of the Canyon, held at Camp Fortune lodge in the Gatineau Hills.

The patrol, which will be led by Bill Irving, will be given a course in first aid and will patrol Gatineau ski trails during the winter season so that injured skiers will be given almost immediate attention.

Plans are now under way to have the Ottawa Ski Patrol affiliate with the National Ski Patrol System of the National Ski Association in the United States and the Ottawa group will wear an armband similar to those worn by members of the United States patrol system. The armband has yellow lettering on a blue background.

It is hoped that the Ottawa Ski Club will provide the patrol with several hospital sleds and Montreal ski officials have been contacted to secure further information about the type of hospital sleds in use in the Laurentian mountain ski country.

Herbert Marshall, vice-president of the O.S.C., was a visitor to Camp Fortune lodge last weekend and was surprised by the great amount of work carried out on the trails by the Night Riders.

Ottawa Ski Patrol Sets Up Station (Ottawa Citizen, February 16, 1944)

Due to the many skiers now skiing from Camp Fortune to the end or the Wrightvllle carline, the

Ottawa Ski Patrol have set up a first aid station, with equipment., at an inn Just before Pink Lake.

The ski patrol seems to have been reformed in 1951. Click here for another clipping from that year.

Video Transcript followed by several old newspaper clippings: In the late 1950s the Gatineau Park Parkway system was constructed. First the Fortune Parkway, then the Gatineau Parkway without the North Loop running past Penguin to the base of the Fortune Parkway. Instead that first Gatineau Parkway included what is now known as the Champlain Parkway; that North Loop was added last.

This parkway network was laid down just in time for Bombardier to invent the skidoo and a 1963 article in the Ottawa Citizen estimated that 40 people owned skidoos near Gatineau Park that year, and had started to use them in the park.

By 1965 rules had been put in place as to where snowmobiles could go in the park and in 1967 designated areas for snowmobile use were defined.

In parallel with these developments a renaissance was happening in cross-country skiing.

During the first half of the twentieth century skiing enthusiasm had been sparked first by ski jumping, then by ski touring but by the ‘50s had strongly embraced alpine skiing.

Through the latter part of the 1960s cross-country skiing was regaining popularity. There were many Ottawa Ski Club trails in the Gatineau Hills but there were also these parkways, and wouldn’t you know it, skiing was easy along parkways that weren’t as steep as some of the Ottawa Ski Club trails and where a skidoo had packed the snow.

So by 1970 the number of skiers and the number of snowmobilers out and about in the park on a weekend was significant enough that they began to come into conflict.

The NCC opted for the skiers against howls of protest from the snowmobilers and skiers have been toodling up and down the parkways ever since.

What follows extracts from numerous old newspaper articles about snowmobile – skier conflicts in the Park; particularly the name calling that went on.

Hull’s Merry Men in Midnight Ride (Ottawa Citizen December 26, 1963)

CAPITAL CAPERS: Those new snow-scooters are the latest plaything for many people in Hull and there are an estimated 40 in the Wrightville area already. The scooters, whose trade name is ski-doo were given an acid test this week. Dr. Bob Bisson, 200 pounds, Dick Henderson, almost as heavy, and Claude Gougeon weighing nearly 300 pounds undertook a midnight ride on I single machine that far outstrips  that of the late Paul Revere. Wearing  thermal underwear against the bone-chilling Gatineau Hill trails, the trio set forth Thursday night as the distant Peace Tower raised both hands in alarm. Bent on enjoying some Christmas conviviality with a friend who resides in the remote Mine Road area, they travelled via Gamelin Boulevard, the unplowed NCC Parkway and arrived at the friend’s home via a little known cross-country trail.

“It’s bad enough to be awakened from a sound sleep in the dead of a winter’s night to the sound of what could only be an outboard motor· boat plying the lake you know to be frozen six feet deep,” said the Mine Road man, “but to see what actually did arrive was even worse – three two hundred pounders on one bike gilding over the snow like portly ghosts!” His rest was destined to be disturbed once again that night. The Bisson merry men became lost returning home in the dark wilderness of the Notch Road, travelled in a circle, and put-putted Into the hapless Mine Road man’s yard an hour later, “We’re not waiting until next Christmas for somebody to give us compasses,” apologized the good doctor.

A number of the following articles talk about noise and it was pointed out to me by one of the longtime users of the park who experienced the emergence of the skidoo phenomenon that the original machines did not have mufflers. A Bombardier spokesman has said that one of those original skidoos made as much noise as 124 present day models.

Skidoos and Skiers Don’t Mix (Ottawa Citizen February 1, 1967)

Editor Citizen- Along with many other families who toured the Gatineau ski trails last weekend we were unpleasantly surprised to find that motor toboggans had been allowed on the last stretch of NCC parkway that had been closed to them. Opening of this Fortune Lake stretch of the parkway between Riviera Lookout and Meach Lake Road eliminates the last little corner of the park free from the unpleasant noise and nuisance of these vehicles.

This NCC decision will not only annoy and discourage the increasing number of families who seek the peace and quiet of the Gatineau on weekends but it will constitute a very real danger to cross-country racers and hundreds of youngsters who have to cross the Parkway as they tour the Ottawa Ski Club trails in quest of long-distance badges.

Meeting the speeding motor toboggan head-on along a narrow trail or trying to navigate a challenging hill when confined to deep vehicle tracks presents hazards that will rightly daunt the keenest of skiers.

Snowmobile Enthusiasts Allotted Fun Locations (Ottawa Citizen November 21, 1968)

The National Capital Commission has allotted 10 areas in the capital and Gatineau Park for snowmobiler enthusiasts. Five areas are in the park…

Snowmobile Ban Impractical (Ottawa Citizen October 1, 1970)

Don’t be surprised, if one of these days, you read and advertisement calling for tenders for the erection of a fence, say 10 or 15 feet high, around Gatineau Park.

Because that’s just about the next move the National Capital Commission will make if the trend they seem to be caught up in continues.

The latest step by the NCC, in what appears to be a move to keep people out of the park, was announced yesterday by Douglas Fullerton, NCC commission chairman.  It prohibits, without reservation, the use of snowmobiles in the park and the greenbelt area.

Not too long ago, the NCC turned down a proposal to establish another ski area in the park.

The latest restrictions will no doubt result in strong protests by the various snowmobile clubs in the area and it is to be hoped that they will be given attention by the elected representatives of the taxpayers, who, it is hoped, may exercise some control over the NCC.

A Weak Excuse: Prevention of pollution and preservation of vegetation and wildlife are given by the NCC as the main reasons for the snowmobile ban and as far as I am concerned these reasons are just a front. It will be readily admitted by the snowmobilers that a few irresponsible people in their numbers do in fact cause damage in the park.

But to close the area completely to snowmobilers for this reason just doesn’t make sense. If the NCC can justify it for this reason then campers, fishermen and just plain tourists may as well forget about the Gatineau because in future they won’t be able to use it.

The Gatineau area in question is about the only open recreation area for thousands of people in the National Capital area, both in winter and in summer. Instead of closing it to them the NCC might better improve facilities so that more that may be able to make more use of it.

It is fine for various and distant so called conservation groups to demand that the Gatineau Park be kept as a wilderness area but in my opinion this just isn’t practical in this area.

There are many other parks, provincial and federal, which adapt themselves to wilderness areas and can be preserved as such.

Practicality would seem to demand that the Gatineau be developed into a multi-use year-around park where as many people as possible can take part in as many activities as possible.

Maligned Group: To get back to the snowmobilers in particular. Due to the rapid increase in the popularity of this pastime those engaged in it are fast approaching the description of being overly maligned.

They are, the vast majority of them at least, sensible, thoughtful people who do respect the rights of others and the properties on which they travel.

They have formed themselves into clubs and associations and are themselves policing the actions of their fellow members. Like any other fast growing sport, snowmobiling has had its share of accidents and incidents and these have received widespread publicity.

What hasn’t been publicized is the sane and reasonable use of the machines.

There are thousands of people who have spent money to purchase machines and they certainly deserve the right to use them in the areas in which they live.

Snowmobile clubs in the area are getting together to fight the latest move. I hope their actions meet with success.

Park Snowmobile ban sparks bitter protests (Ottawa Citizen October 1, 1970)

Area snowmobilers are outraged by the ban on their winter fun machines from Gatineau Park.

“I never thought it would come to this,” said Guy Morin, president of the Eskimo Club, the region’s largest snowmobiling organization with a membership of 200 families.

He predicted a strong protest, likely spearheaded by the Association of Snowmobile Clubs of Western Quebec, which speaks for about 15 clubs.

The ban was announced Wednesday by National Capital Commission chairman Douglas Fullerton.

A prohibition against snowmobiles in the park has actually been in effect since 1965, with certain concessions.

“But snowmobiles would drive up the Parkway (unplowed during the winter months) and branch off into the park,” said Mr. Fullerton.

Plowing parkway: Should the enthusiasts choose to disregard the ban, they’ll be seriously hampered by another decision announced by the NCC – the plowing of the lower Gatineau Parkway from Gamelin Boulevard through to the Old Chelsea cut-off then to the Meach Lake Road.  This will ease traffic on Highway 11 and no doubt make area skiers as happy as the snowmobiles are angry.

Prevention of pollution and preservation of vegetation and wildlife were cited by Mr. Fullerton as the main reasons for closing the park to snowmobilers who were already banned from NCC parkways.

Mr. Morin said he couldn’t understand why “suddenly, we’re intolerable” after the NCC over the past few years has “provided and fixed up a chalet (an old house at Harrington Lake), built a tunnel underneath the old Chelsea Road, widened the road into Beamish Hill and built parking lots for snowmobilers.”

He said his associates would have supported severe penalties for lawbreaking snowmobilers had the NCC established a set of stringent regulations.

“When we go into the park, we don’t act like a bunch of fools.  If we see a deer, then we take pictures of him and stop the machines to make sure he isn’t scared,” said Mr. Morin.

“Do you really think this law will stop snowmobiling in the park?” he asked.

Mr. Fullerton agrees enforcement will be difficult.  He said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “will be getting a couple of snowmobiles.”

He said there were 500 snowmobiles in the Gatineau Park on an average winter weekend afternoon.

Mr. Morin predicted they’d be back with the first inch of snow come winter.

The park is ideal in the earlier part of the season because its landscape is flat, without streams, lakes and stumps.  Later, when waters freeze over, snowmobilers may head further away or go to cottages.

Hard on Business: Mike Parent, owner of Hull Motor Sport, who last year sold 250 snowmobiles, says the ban will probably have a bad effect on business.

“But snowmobilers will still go into the park.  The RCMP better get some machines.  These people will know their way around in there.  They know all the trails.”

Mr. Morin said his phone was ringing all afternoon and promised a mass meeting to “create a strong counter-wave.”

The closest suitable areas outside the Gatineau Park are Luskville, Masham and Wakefield.

Countering Mr. Fullerton’s charge that snowmobiles pollute, Mr. Morin said “The only time you can smell them is when there are 50 in a row.”

Pat Powers, president of the Papineau Snowmobile Association, charged that the movie was “ridiculous.”

“As for pollution, they better start looking at the effect of outboard motors on lakes.”

Snowmobile ban prompts cheers, tears (Ottawa Citizen October 7, 1970)

Editor, Citizen: Hurray for Christopher Young’s sensible remarks about snowmobiles in Saturday’s citizen. Many fine trails laid down years ago gy cross-country skiers have been taken over by snowmobiles and ruined.

When I came to Ottawa and began skiing in the Gatineau Park I felt sure this must be one of the finest spots for trail skiing in Canada. But last year the noise of snowmobiles on the parkway was so intense that it was no longer pleasant to travel some of the trails in the lower section of the park.

As you pointed out, it requires real courage to resist the pressure that have been increasing to open up the park. I hope The Citizen will support efforts to restrict uses to those which will not destroy its semi-wilderness character.

Cars are worse: Editor, Citizen: As a responsible snowmobile owner and operator, I wish to register a protest on the ban against snowmobiling in the Gatineau Park.

Snowmobile engines of one and two cylinders will not cause as much pollution as the four six and eight cylinder engines in automobiles taking skiers to the hills. The automobiles have studded snow tires, but would still skid and run off the road and break trees. Calcium will be used to keep the roads open and I’m sure it will pollute the small streams and lakes. Air Canada is allowed to fly aircraft over the area on sightseeing trips, polluting the air as well. I can still recall oil slicks on the water surface after a motor boat has gone by.

Unfortunately there are a few individuals who operate their machines in a similar manner to the few irresponsible automobile drivers who screech away from stop lights and roar along the highways disregarding the traffic laws. Why not allow the many responsible snowmobilers to use the park and provide the RCMP with snowmobiles to patrol against bad snowmobiling as they patrol the various parkways and drives in Ottawa and the surrounding area?

Polluted logic: Editor, Citizen: Tenders are hereby called for erection of a 15-foot fence around Tom Sarsfield’s twisted logic in his Oct. 1 column. Far from keeping people out of Gatineau Park this winter, Mr. Fullerton’s long overdue ban on snowmobiles will at last provide the people of this area who don’t need a snarling machine under their bottoms to enjoy the outdoors  in winter, with one haven from the all-pervasive cacophony. Multi-use doesn’t work very well when one group of users destroys the enjoyment of all the others.

After reading Mr. Sarsfield’s “Snowmobilers smile” column of Jan. 15 of the hundreds of miles of available trails, it’s hard to work up a convincing heartbleed over the loss of 20-odd miles in Gatineau Park. Surely a little more balanced perspective on this subject is in order.

Toast to peace: Editor, Citizen: I am proud of the NCC and Mr. Fullerton for the decisive way in which they banned snowmobiles from the Gatineau. Here’s to a crisp, clear, QUIET winter’s day…CHEERS!

‘Bird-watchers’ Hull council pins blame for snowmobile ban (Ottawa Citizen October 7, 1970)

A mind-your-own business attitude was adopted Tuesday by Hull council regarding the National Capital Commission’s recent ban on snowmobiles in Gatineau Park.

Council unanimously endorsed a recommendation formally protesting the ban.  Ald. Jean-Marie Seguin said the NCC’s action was provoked by a group of Ottawa “nature lovers” and “bird watchers.”

He chided the NCC for ceding to such pressure and added: “I’m sure that if Full organization suddenly put pressure on the NCC to alter conditions along Island Park Drive we’d never hear the end of it.”

The park should be at the disposal of Outaouais Region residents, even if it belongs to the NCC.”  He suggested a compromise whereby the NCC would allow snowmobiles in certain areas of the park while restricting their use in others.

As for NCC claims that snowmobiles destroy young trees, Ald. Seguin countered with: “There are so many trees in Gatineau Park that I don’t see how snowmobiles could ever wipe them out.”

Ald. Paul-Emile Poulin, who proposed the resolution, said the ban would be “detrimental to Hull.”

Ald. Poulin said that about 2,000 snowmobilers descend on the park every weekend during winter.  In addition, there are about 10,000 snowmobile owners in the Hull area and most of these make occasional use of the park.

“You can’t tell all these people to just go away,” he said.  His answer to the tree argument was: “Cars constantly destroy trees, bushes and other plant, and nobody closes the roads.”

Keep it quiet (Ottawa Citizen October 9, 1970)

Editor, Citizen: 1 wish to express my complete approval of the NCC’s decision to ban snowmobiles from the Gatineau Park.

I do not share the opinion of The Citizen’s fish and game editor that spending money to purchase machines confers any right to use them in the Gatineau Park. No matter how sanely

or reasonably the machines are used, they are noisy and somewhat smelly and cannot help but disrupt the peace and tranquility of a winter day in the park.

In my opinion the Gatineau Park should be first and foremost a sanctuary where one can temporarily get away from the ubiquitous machine. As a mechanical engineer I appreciate the value of machinery in modern life – but please, not in Gatineau Park.

“Ban the ban” Quebec backs snowmobilers over Park use (Ottawa Citizen November 20, 1970)

QUEBEC-The Quebec government has asked the National Capital Commission to lift its ban on snowmobiles in Gatineau Park.

Oswald Parent, mlnister without portfolio responsible for relations with the NCC, said Thursday “it is absolutely unacceptable” thal the vehicles are banned in the park located in Quebec while snowmobiles are allowed In Quebec’s provincial parks.

Letters or protest: He has sent letters of protest to federal cabinet minister Robert Andras and NCC chairman Douglas Fullerton, demanding the ban be lifted. “The federal government should do as we do,” he said. “We’ve licenced snowmobiles in our parks and they are under strict surveillance of special patrols. Offenders lose their permit if they break regulations.”

“If they provided adequate policing and set aside special trails, there would be no problems,” said Gatineau member Roy Fournier. He’s received numerous protests from snowmobile fans in Hull who will be denied the access to the park this winter.

“What are they trying to do anyway?” Mr. Fournier asked. “Do they want to turn the park into a wildlife refuge or something? It was built for people.”

“To deprive the use of this park during winter when snowmobiling is one of the few sports for the whole family would be to go against a popular wish that is fully justified,” Mr. Parent, Liberal member for Hull, sys in his letter to Mr. Fullerton.

Special patrols: Mr. Parent says there are snowmobile trails set up in “almost all the provincial parks” as well as a special snowmobile patrol to help out stranded snowmobilers, and overnight cabins which have been built in several places. Food and coffee is served at these spots.

It costs snowmobilers a dollar a day of five dollars a year for the provincial permit.

I recently joined about 30 other people in a snowshoe under the stars guided by volunteers from the Friends of Gatineau Park. There are more of these events coming up in the future so check the schedule if you’re interested.

We met at the Visitor Centre in Old Chelsea and for the price of $10 for “Friends” members, $15 for non-members we were lent snowshoes if we didn’t have our own. Our guides Andrée-Anne and Jack spent 15 minutes talking about the winter woods that we would be snowshoeing through. They showed us pictures of otter tracks and slides, beaver cut trees,  snowshoe hare tracks and snow fleas or springtails; all of which were things seen in daylight along the trail that we were about to embark on. Before leaving on our walk they generously gave everyone a Werther’s Original candy but cruelly told us not to eat it.

You can hear some of the pre-departure chat here in not-quite-ideal audio.

We broke into a Francophone and an Anglophone group each with a pair of “sweepers” assigned to pull up the rear of the line of people to be sure no one got lost in the woods, and headed into the night. We started by walking from the visitor centre past the sugar shack and across the bridge to the sugarbush trail, nipping across the Meech Lake Road quite safely with Jack in his highly reflective emergency rescue jacket. This brought us to the joint start of ski trail #1 and snowshoe trail #60. Only there did we strap on our snowshoes.

Many of the people participating in the outing had never snowshoed or been out at night in the winter woods before. Putting on borrowed snowshoes for the first time in the dark can take a little patience but fortunately it wasn’t too cold so people’s fingers didn’t get frozen and groups formed around people with headlamps as we helped one another buckle into our racquettes.

Our first stop was at a tiny piece of open water where a stream is visible at the edge of the path. Earlier in the day Jack had been out to scout what could be seen and here he’d noticed otter tracks. The warm weather had degraded their sharpness and it was harder to see them in the lamplight but the proved a good stimulus for discussion of how otters survive the cold weather in the water and on snow. One of the interesting things about otters is how they enjoy themselves. Being a water-creature there is no reason for them to climb up to the top of the hills that surround the lakes and streams of Gatineau Park, but they do; and the reason they do it is just for the pure fun of sliding down again. They launch themselves more sleek than an Olympic bobsled (maybe skeleton racer is more appropriate since they go head first) and steer themselves through the trees gracefully on their bellies.

As we strode up toward a second stopping place I noticed how noisy a sport snowshoeing is. Modern snowshoes do kind of resemble a drum-head and as all of us thumped and clattered through the hard packed trail the din was surprising. That’s one of the reasons why when Jack showed us some coyote tracks and talk turned to wolves and coyotes, no one freaked out when someone voiced their realization that there were coyotes and wolves in the woods around us.

Jack talked to us about the fact that fresh snow is about 97% air. (You’ll note that Jack has a lot to say in my narrative because he led the Anglophone group. It’s not that Andrée-Anne was mute, I just wasn’t with her group to hear her. In fact the Francophone group took some time longer to circle trail #60 and return to the sugarshack for hot chocolate so I accused Andrée-Anne of actually talking more; she denied it. Perhaps it was that old bane of translators that French takes something like 20% more room on the page to express the same content.) …more than 90% air. His point being that snow is an excellent insulator and that even when it is a bone chilling -40°C above the snow there are mice and shrews and the like running around in crystalline tunnels above the leaf litter beneath the snow and having a fine old time of it. This is important for their survival since their teeny bodies have a relatively teenier mass-to-body-surface-area-ratio and can’t retain heat very long when they come to the surface. This is where we were invited to take out our Worther’s Original candies because each of these weighs about 5 grams and the little beasties beneath the snow weigh in at 2 to 6 grams.

Snowshoe hares were explained to have such a light touch as they bounded over the snow that they exerted a mere 12 grams per square centimeter on the surface. This compared with 100 g/cm² for a housecat, 34 g/cm² for a lynx, and an unthinkable pressure for we snowshoers. Which explains why we had drum-heads tied to our feet.

Hares were also said to eat their own poo. Jack demonstrated by popping little pellets from a baggie into his mouth. Why would hares do such a thing? Why would Jack do such a thing? Hares do it because they aren’t cows and they don’t have numerous stomachs to pass and repass their food in an attempt to extract as much energy from it as possible. Thus digesting for a second time requires them to gobble up their own pellets. Jack did it for dramatic effect. What a dedicated nature guide! Oh, they were glossette raisins – maybe that’s why we were being guided in the dark.

Hares and other winter adapted animals change colour in winter not only so that their new white look gives them camouflage. It turns out that a white surface has a lower emissivity for heat loss and just by being white keeps these animals warmer.

We talked of birds; of how ruffled grouse dive under the snow to use its insulation qualities; of how they sometimes burst, flapping loudly, from a seemingly unblemished blanket of new snow, killing the passing snowshoer by giving them a heart attack. Of course the poor bird hiding in the snow was likely near heart attack itself as it heard the thundering snowshoer approaching.

A tree festooned with huge gaping holes showed evidence of the pileated woodpecker (pileated: pronounced “pie-lee-ate-ed” or “pill-ee-ate-ed” equally correctly; from Latin pilleatus meaning “wearing a felt cap”). How big are those birds? Guesses ranged from the size of a chickadee to the size of a chicken (my submission having seen the monsters) but Jack claimed they were the size of a crow and may be the biggest woodpecker species in North America (the ivory billed woodpecker might be bigger down Florida way, but then again it might be extinct.)

Eventually we all galumphed back to the sugarshack for hot coco and I asked people what they thought of the outing. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and some said they planned to bring their kids back for a similar daylight tour.

Events like this are run both by the Friends of Gatineau Park and by Gatineau Park itself. The fees collected by the “Friends” are used to fund grants for research projects that take place in the park; such as Carleton University’s Jeff Dawson’s project on bats or the Canadian Museum of Nature’s André Martel’s investigations on clams.

You can join the “Friends” for $15 a year and support their work.

Jo-Ann Holden has been running a photo-blog called Musician on Skis for several years. There she posts photos pretty much daily and mostly about people or scenery from Gatineau Park where she spends as much time as she can.

I interviewed Jo-Ann in the Renaud cabin where we stopped for a little lunch during a ski we did together. The photos shown in the video are all taken from those she has posted over the past year.

Click to see more because I’ve not only posted a transcript and piece of old map, I’ve got some extracts from documents about this trail dating from the 1930s and 1940s.

Although I usually ski Trail #8 starting from Kingsmere, this historic trail was usually accessed by Ottawa Ski Club Members from their base at Camp Fortune, so I’ll tell you about what was Scottish about this Highland trail starting from the north-western end.

Click map to see full size.

The creator of the trail wasn’t Scottish at all. He was the famous trail builder Joe Morin.

But the rocky terrain of Gatineau Park reminded those skiers of 1930 of the Scottish Highlands; either that or they did a lot of drinking as they worked, based on the whiskey-related names of some of the trail features.

Moving south along #8 from Ridge Road the first big downhill was once known as Doch and Doris. This is an expression from Gaelic that refers to that last drink before you go; it literally means “drink at the door.”

There was a popular song by this name; here’s a video of it.

The modern trail edges very close to the Champlain Parkway before climbing up to a corner that once had a great view of the Ottawa Valley and was named Old Man Joe’s Lookout; after the trail’s creator.

The trail then heads east and the next little downhill also relates to drinking; it was known as A Wee Drop.

There still is a lookout at the big rock just east of there and that lookout was known as King or Kingsmere Lookout and looks out at King Mountain.

Continuing toward Kingsmere there is a long hill once known as the Highland Fling. In the 1930s the Highland Fling ended at the base of the first big descent but by the 1950s was considered to extend all the way to where a house has now been built in a stream valley once known as Glen McTavish.

At the time there was no Champlain Parkway and the exact route of now trail #8 down this valley could possibly follow what was George’s Trail way back when.

Extract from the 1930-31 edition of Canadian Ski-ing:

Captain Joe Morin, with a detail of hardy Gatineau pioneers, each and everyone of whom swings a wicked axe, conducted his annual fall offensive against the volunteer growth that each year threatens to encroach on our trails and clearings. Old routes were cleared out, bridges and culverts built, corners rounded and banked and hips and hollows cut and filled… A new route to the west of Camp Fortune, called the Highland trail which includes the Highland Fling, the Haggis, and other typical Caledonian features, proved immensely popular with the daredevil element.

Extract from the 1943 Ottawa Ski Club Guide:

Hoot mon! If ye hae a drappie O’ Scots blood in your veins ye dinna want to miss this trail. ‘Twill remind ye O’ the clear auld heather hills and misty glens O’ Bonnie Scotland, and faintly in your ears you’ll hear the haunting strains O’ the pibroch! [According to the OED “pibroch: A type of music for the Scottish bagpipes “ or more rarely bagpipes themselves.] But even if you are a Sassenach of the deepest dye, [Again from the OED “Sassenach: The name given by the Gaelic inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland to their ‘Saxon’ or English neighbours.”] the rugged rugged beauty of this terrain will hold you spellbound.

Surely this was a playground of the gods when the Ice Age was slowly releasing the ancient Laurentians from its cold grasp! You can see where they ripped the mountains apart just for the fun of it, leaving gaping chasms and precipitous walls of sheer rock. Huge boulders weighing tons lie strewn at the side of the trail where the gods left them after a game of duck-on-the-rock. The majestic grandeur of it all brings a feeling of awe and wonder to man, and his imagination runs riot …

But enough of wordy descriptions. You will be anxious to know how to reach this hinterlandof natural beauty.

Take the trail up Bonnie Brae [an unrelated Scottish reference] – the same as for the Merry-go-round [now trail #11] but just ignore the Horse Race and continue straight ahead. Soon you will find yourself on a twisty little hill that cuts across the Ridge road and enters a pine grove. This is the start of the Highland trail.

It might be mentioned here that this trail, despite its Scottish place-names, was laid out by Capt. Joe Morin, a French Canadian. Capt. Morin who was last heard of in Florida (in the footsteps of Ponce de Leon?[the first European in Florida]) will be long remembered for his yeoman service in trail-cutting as well as for his founding that noble band of volunteers known as the Night Riders.

After picking your way through a ragged “bad lands” of stumps, all the woodcutters left of a noble pine brush, you come to the Doch and Doris. This is a lovely run with a pause in the middle just before a sharp left turn. The trail then winds upwards around the mountain until suddenly you find yourself at Old Man Joe’s lookout. Standing here with one foot on a cloud you can see a wide arc of the countryside including Aylmer and Constance Bay. On a clear day it’s a magnificent sight.

Soon afterwards you descend A Wee Drop. There is more steep climbing, then Kingsmere lookout. Here you can see King’s Mountain straight across and Black Lake straight down. It is hard to say how great the drop is to the lake, but I’d say the rock that tops the lookout would be an excellent take-off for parachute jumpers.

Now is the time to see that all your trappings and accoutrement are secure, for you are now at the top of the famous Highland Fling. This is the appropriate name given to a series of zig-zag runs where you descend three or four hundred feet in about a third of a mile. And if you never

before sympathized with John Gilpin [a literary character who’s horse ran away with him 10 miles to the next town], you will after this. Once you push off there are no stops. Of course, it has been known for skiers to stop for a rest a couple of times on the way down. You may get it glimpse of them lying here and there in the snow as you hurry along. But this is pure laziness, and is not to be recommended.

When you gradually come to a stop you are where George’s trail converges, right behind Grime’s hill This is the end of the Highland. If you want to return to Camp Fortune you can climb back George’s or take the first trail left and continue on the Lower Highland and back in by the Canyon, but this is much longer. But perhaps you are homeward bound. In that case proceed down Grimes’ to Kingsmere road where you have the choice of going back to Old Chelsea for a bus or taking the Pink Lake trail to Wrightville.

- J.S.P.  (Highland trail: length approx. 2 miles, time ¾ to 1¼ hours.)