We receive too many Bibles and they take up too much storage space.  We do not take any more Bibles but we recommend that they be sent to the Christian Salvage Mission which is located in Hamilton.  They deliver Bibles to Christian Missions around the world.

If you have a Bible that you want to give away, let us see the Bible at the Pontiac Archives so that we can scan the vital information.   Then deliver it to Mr Schlievert who will send them to Hamilton:   

Christian Salvage Mission, c/o M. Roy Schlievert, 3 Edward St., Arnprior, Ontario.   Phone 613-623-2476

The book Logging and Lumbering in the Ottawa Valley, Lumber Kings & Shantyment  is available for purchase at $24.95 at bookstores.  It contains the most authorative information on the Ottawa Valley lumber industry.

Gordie Graham, from Pontiac High School in Shawville has brought his Grade 11 history class to the Pontiac Archives to research the history of the municipalities in Pontiac County.   We are waiting at the Archives for copies of their projects.   Perhaps they will enter the contest.

For more information about the InHerit program, contact Director Dwane Wilkin dwane@qahn.org.   There are photography and essay contests as well.  C LC Aboriginal and Intergenerational Initiatives Coordinator Sabrina Bonfonti www.learnquebec.ca/clc.

Tim Horton’s Camp Voyageur leader Myriam Lacerte invited Venetia Crawford and Barbara Haughton to tell the camp councillors about the ghost town, Pontiac Village which was originally located by the camp site. Pontiac Village developed at the foot of Chats Falls on the Ottawa River during the logging days.  Log slides were built over the falls, steamships landed at the foot of the falls, a horse railway was built around the falls and there was an attempt to open a canal to bypass the falls.   That was called the Georgian Bay Canal  – intended to open a passage for boats from Montreal to Georgian Bay on the Great Lakes ( a shorter route by about 300 miles than by St Lawrence).  After hearing the stories, we explored the abandoned buildings and looked at the enormous rock cut, the beginning of the canal.  We concluded by reading a play about the area The Pontiac Highway.

Brenda Everson has videoed this story on You Tube — Historian 1938 Chat Falls trailer  -   47 seconds.  Check it out.   She intends to do a longer video next summer.

Closed on Thursday, December 15, 2011, at 4 pm

Open on Tuesday, January 10, 2012, at 9 am.

Happy Holidays

Walter Brown from Smiths Falls brought us an updated version of his genealogical records, 180,000 entries. He has been supporting our work since we started in 1987.

He attended all four days of our open house from July 5 – 8, gathering more data and helping researchers.

Pierre Louis Lapointe and his wife Marielle came from Montreal to see how the Pontiac Archives have progressed since 1987 when he helped us form the Pontiac Archives.  Lapointe worked at the Centre regionale des Archives nationales du Quebec en Outaouais from 1977 to 1989.

Then he moved to Quebec City to be an archivist at the Archives nationales du Quebec until he retired. He recently moved to Montreal where he is now working on the history of Buckingham.

We showed them all our holdings. Then Venetia Crawford dressed up as Marguerite Charlesbois who married Joseph Mondoin in 1786 and settled at Mondion Point on Pontiac Bay below the Chats Falls on the Ottawa River and told her story.

Elsie Sparrow dressed as Mary Jane Sparling who married John Black in 1853 in Thorne Township in the County of Ottawa.

Their first two years they lived in a tent.  They had 10 children.  When five of them died quite young, they adopted a home child, William Sparrow.

Lorna Reynolds from Norway Bay, Qc, donated Dori Tripp’s book The Book of Agnes.

Reporters from The Equity came to interview us during the week. 

John Maitland was a Scot.  He became a preacher in Ireland.  He moved to Uncle James Maitland’s farm on the Rideau River at Kilmarnock.  Six or seven children were born in Clarendon, Qc, where J. Pendergast asked him to set up a school in 1834.

George McLean from Campbell’ s Bay, Qc, was the first person to drive a truck across North America in 1911.

Alligators of the North  by Harry B Barrett & Clarence F Coons.

Peter Haughton from Bristol, Qc has the alligator from Simcoe at his lumber museum at Haughton’s Bay on the Ottawa River for the summer of 1911.

New material is available on a weekly basis.  Volunteers will be happy to assist you with your project.  

The building is air conditioned and very comfortable on hot days.   Food is available within the block. 

 Free parking is available with entrance from King Street to parking lot on south side of Pontiac Library and Pontiac Archives.