Monthly Archives: May 2010

After the sold-out Ottawa Race Weekend, from TriRudy, Julia reminds readers:

This year marks the 28th year of the Meech Lake Triathlon in memory of Ottawa’s most dedicated race volunteer, Mike Collingwood.

First entry deadline: June 1st. Price goes up from $60 to $70.

The Date: Saturday, July 3th

Location: Gatineau Park

Distances: 1200m Swim, 22 km Bike, 6.5km Run

Race Benefits: Wave start swim in beautiful Meech Lake.

Roads closed for the wonderfully challenging Gatineau Park Bike and Run loop.

One of the few remaining pure triathlons left.

One race, one course, one challenge.

Enter now at: www.meechlaketri.ca

After a group of critical posts some weeks ago posted at TriRudy saying that the RCMP were coming down unnecessarily hard on Gatineau Park cyclists, today’s TriRudy post leads with:

…Thursday, three friends and I rode up to Champlain Lookout. We stopped briefly for a snack when we were approached by two RCMP officers who came over to “chat us up”. They stated that they had recently been assigned to patrol the Gatineau Park for the summer. Our group stopped longer than expected, enjoying very pleasant conversation, on a variety of subjects, with constables Lee and Woolley. I would say, supported by my cycling companions, that the RCMP has made a good choice in assigning these two officers to patrol the park.

From Tall Tree Cycles: On Wednesday June 2 there will be a fund-raiser ride from Gamelin to the junction of the Champlain and Fortune parkways. Blastoff 6pm. Entry fee by donation with a $5 minimum.

I’ve noticed two new web resources with a Gatineau Park focus appear over the last few weeks.

First, a page called “Gatineau Park Hikes” has appeared at gatineauhikes.com but so far all it says is “coming soon.”

Second, on Facebook two pages have popped up. One is called “Gatineau Park” and the other “Gatineau Hills.” They both have the same opening text, saying:

Our goal is to make this Community Page the best collection of shared knowledge on this topic. If you have a passion for [PAGE NAME], sign up and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for your help…

Where PAGE NAME is the only thing that differs. Curiously there is a third similar page called “National Capital Commission.” At the moment all three of these pages appear simply to automatically draw other global posts using the key words. So of course some GuideGatineau Facebook posts appear there too.

I’ll be interested to see what’s coming with these.

Kris Westwood in his Ottawa Sun blog has just reported that Steve McLaughlin, the NCC manager responsible for recreation in Gatineau Park will be trying to work with the mountain biking community to try to build and manage trails. This was the direction indicated earlier by the NCC – IMBA MOU but it’s wonderful to hear the talk directly from the newly installed manager himself.

According to Kris’ article Steve felt that the past enforcement approach made the NCC a bit of a dinosaur and believes there are places where bikers and the NCC can work together toward making the park a great place to ride without threatening its ecosystems.

Kris also reports that the NCC will host a meeting to discuss this at 6:30 p.m. at Relais Plein Air on Cite des Jeunes Blvd.

In the article some of the illegal mountain biking trails were called “spectacular.” The image of the bicycle bridge below is one of those “spectacular” examples and shows that however bad a rap the NCC has taken for coming down in a heavy-handed way on park users in the past, some of those users were certainly colouring outside the lines and NCC enforcement was justified.

The NCC has just issued a press release emphasizing that beaches are not yet open for swimming and letting us know that June 18 is the first day that the Gatineau Park beaches will be open for swimming.

You can see their press release here.

Kris Westwood is writing a blog for the Ottawa Sun with a focus on cycling (he is a former Canadian national team cyclist). His column is called The Spokesman.

A week ago Kris wrote about bicycle/car conflict in Gatineau Park and indicated he’d be speaking to various players who are working to smooth these points of user friction on the parkways. I’m interested to see the material he comes up with.

In conjunction with this week’s GuideGatineau video on the little creepy-crawlies, Charles Thériault  of Le Droit did a piece on Wednesday.

JP Murray sent me a note indicating that on May 25th Bill C-20 was given second reading in the House of Commons. For the truly committed you can read all about it in Hansard (which is thankfully a PDF and can be searched).

If I’ve got this right this means that Bill C-37 went to committee where a bunch of amendments were proposed, but the prorogation of parliament killed the bill and none of those were taken into account when the bill was reintroduced as C-20. With second reading it goes back to committee.

C-20 deals with changes to the law governing the NCC generally as well as Gatineau Park specific issues. The boundary of the park is dealt with in some detail yet, as was pointed out by opposition MP Marcel Proulx, the earlier committee discussing C-37 were not provided with any detailed maps showing what the 22 pages of boundary description. Proulx also suggested that park protection should not mean preventing people from having access to the park (within limits).

Reference was made by opposition MP Richard Nadeau to the amendment suggestions of CPAWS and GPPC.

Doug Cowden died last week at 81 and with him went untold memories of Gatineau Park. This is a call to action.

Our sympathies to Doug’s family and friends.

When I say “untold memories” I mean both “untold” in the sense of “innumerable” and, more to the point “untold” meaning “unrecorded.”

Doug Cowden was a historic link to Gatineau Park because it was his family’s farm that occupied the Meech Creek Valley and gave Cowden Road there it’s name; and Doug Cowden’s grandfather was an Alexander of Alexanders Road that once lead down to Meech Lake and begat the Burma Road and Huron Trail (#3).

In the 1960s Sheila Thomson spent time with Gatineau Park seniors of the day and made copious notes of the stories they told. I’ve found the results of her work both interesting and helpful. This is officially called “oral history.” I’ve been in touch with the Gatineau Valley Historical Society and have also talked to the Friends of Gatineau Park and I learn that there are already moves afoot to improve our ability to capture these valuable memories.

Last month Sheila’s husband Harry Thomson died. He’d had a cabin in Meech Creek Valley for many years and had before that had a cabin at Fortune Lake; another loss. Sheila herself is the person who revealed to us the origin of the name of Shilly Shally Lodge.

Call to Action: Please let me know if you are interested in volunteering in an effort to gather oral history while those who can tell us are still around.

This may mean doing audio recordings over tea, it may mean transcribing audio to text, it may mean other things. I’m still learning about what initiatives are already underway and the best methodologies for capturing this kind of material, so I’ll keep those who express interest informed as I figure it out.