Monday, July 23rd 2001
Moving on to Ottawa & Visit to the "Chutes Cologne"


Enough from Pembroke! we are moving on to the capital of Canada; Ottawa. We decided not to take the obvious route, the 17. This road is very busy and dangerous. A more scenic route seemed to be more appropriate. We took the Route 148 at the other side of the Ottawa river (in French Quebec...) which lead us among the very typical Canadian farms and little houses on huge pieces of land. All very quiet and relaxing....

roadban.jpg (8597 bytes)

On the route we took, we passed by the so called "Chutes Cologne". We had heard good things on this little exhibition/park and took our time to make a little detour.

canjul2401.jpg (22994 bytes)canjul2402.jpg (18169 bytes)

The welcome is very pleasant and set up very professional with a well equipped visitor center with lots of background information and a video room. What are these Cologne Falls all about than?

canjul2403.jpg (12832 bytes)canjul2404.jpg (21476 bytes)

It is all about logging. In the middle of the last century, enormous activities were developed on the cutting of timber. During fall, the men went into the forest for the cutting and in spring, when the river was filled to the max, the trees were transported through the rivers to Quebec for further transportation to England. The boat you see above were used by the timber teams to follow the trees (or logs) in the water and make sure that jams were dissolved and the wood kept flowing. In the early days the trees were already cut into square pieces in the forest itself. Above you see some original samples...

canjul2405.jpg (15491 bytes)canjul2406.jpg (23893 bytes)

At this point the trees had to pass the waterfalls and therefore a special slide was built next to the waterfalls. You will see that a few pictures on. The metal construction is a left over water powered sawing machine....

canjul2407.jpg (17118 bytes)canjul2408.jpg (26238 bytes)

The dam was built to control jams of logs lower in the river. When the logs jammed, water was hold up and later on flushed down, trying to release the jam.canjul2409.jpg (15383 bytes)canjul2411.jpg (19955 bytes)

At the right you can see the slide where the trees  passed the falls

These little house is the so called slide masters cabin. Controlling the sliding of the logs and getting fee for use of the slide from other companies
canjul2410.jpg (16208 bytes)

 

canjul2412.jpg (21079 bytes)canjul2413.jpg (21276 bytes)

A few nice shots of the falls and the bottom of the slide and the Gorges downstream

canjul2414.jpg (23812 bytes)

Believe it or not, but this stove was the "portable" stove used by the cook who followed the timber teams at the river banks. It was transported by 4 men and the boats shown above...... Good food was an important measurement of a successful logging operation!

canjul2415.jpg (14122 bytes)

Every visitors was asked to put a pin on the map where he or she was coming from. Nice idea and it showed clearly that most visitors were coming from Europe and eastern USA/Canada. By the way, during the 1-2 hours we were in the park, we only saw 3 other families around, a pity this is kept so "secret",  it was really worth visiting !

canjul2416.jpg (13611 bytes)

 

From here, we followed the country side for another 150 km for our final destination Ottawa. Tomorrow we do city hiking again !

canjul2417.jpg (11309 bytes)

 

 


Back to Journal Index