Next time you’re at Mulvihill Lake here’s a story to tell your friends.
Mulvihill Lake is in Gatineau Park along the Champlain Parkway just half a kilometer beyond the parking lot below the MacKenzie King estate.
The Mulvihills moved into the Ottawa area in 1828, at least John Mulvihill did. He was attached to the military regiment stationed here. That was the 100th Regiment. Mulvihill wasn’t actually in the army he was a clerk during the time that John By was building the Rideau Canal, the construction of which was a military operation that began in 1826. Evidently John Mulvihill leased property from Colonel By in a location which is just about where the US Embassy stands today in downtown Ottawa. But none of this has anything to do with Gatineau Park or Mulvihill Lake.
It was John’s son Phillip who bought the property where Mulvihill Lake now lies. He bought it from from Jean-Baptiste Lauriault, Lariault being a name also visible on the signs around the trails near Mulvihill Lake.
Though you can’t easily tell when you’re on the ground, this area lies just below Kingsmere Lake; it’s the houses at Kingsmere you can see through the trees.
The niche in which the lake lies was once known as “The Hollow.” By this people meant a hollow in the hills of the Eardley Escarpment but the place was made even more of a hollow because at first there was no lake where Mulvihill Lake now lies.
In 1948 or ‘49 Basil (or Bud) Mulvihill brought in a bulldozer and hollowed out the earth to create the thing!
You might expect that someone would object to digging an artificial lake in Gatineau Park, but of course at the time this wasn’t part of the park. Someone did object though and that someone was William Lyon MacKenzie King. His big beef was that this artificial lake was cutting off part of the water supply to his beloved Bridal Veil Falls.
What’s a prime minister to do? Sue of course. Except Basil Mulvihill had something on his side; time. MacKenzie King died only a year later so his lawsuit never made it to court.
But Mulvihill Lake wasn’t finished with MacKenzie King yet. MacKenzie King loved his walk down to the falls and had the path widened and stone bridges built. Mulvihill Lake was trapped behind an earthen dam and in 1953 that dam broke sending a minor tidal wave of muddy water shooting down the hill to wash out MacKenzie King’s stone bridges.
Evidently for a while Mulvihill Lake was stocked with trout and people went fishing there. Now there is an observation platform out over the water where you can watch the frogs and minnows.
UPDATE: I now understand that the “observation platform” at Mulvihill Lake was installed in 1977 specifically as a place for wheelchair accessible fishing and that the stocking with trout was done to serve this purpose, but due to the shallowness of the lake, re-stocking needed to be done each year because the fish couldn’t survive when the lake temperature rose during the summers.
Thanks Charles!
It’s nice to hear people share stories like this one. I used to work at the Mackenzie King Estate, and this was one of my favorite stories to tell; especially when people complained about the pathetic waterfall.
It seems few know, including King, that the cave robs some of the waterfall flow. Imagine his surprise… -Mackenzie King Diary
my father bill mulvihill was very involved in the building of this lake. i have photos of the before and after. i even like to hearremember mckenzie king standing on what was a dam with his dog looking at the bulldozers. my uncle bud was certainly involved but not the sole builder. thank you. lorraine mulvihill welsford.