Gatineau Valley Historical SocietyChelsea, Quebec
The William Fairbairn House: A Witness to Change Along the Gatineau The lumber industry in the Gatineau Valley
Transcription of handwritten diary:
"August 11, 1859
Left mills got started from Kirks with canoe at half past 7 reached Lapκche at 10 o'clock [arranged] with [ ] Chamberlin to [ ] house for £100 reached Paugan at 3 o'clock leaving the [4] Indians to take the canoe to [ ]. Mr. Moffat surveyor went on with me to [ ] arrived at 8 o'clock told [ ] to go to the mills on Saturday [ ].
August 13
Breakfast started ½ past 5 o'clock reached Desert at 10 a.m., had dinner and started with surveyor to find the [ ].
August 14, Sunday
Left Desert ½ past 5 a.m. for Joseph Farm accompanied by surveyor [ ] 4 Indians could [ ] to [show] the position of the farm in the Townships after [ ] a while got the division line between Kensington [ ] but could find no posts [ ].
August 16
The crops on Joseph's Farm look very well, a large quantity of potatoes from appearance should serve 2 shanties the foreman [ ].
August 18
Left Desert for up river found [ ] Eddy improvement all in good order some loose stones must be removed from bottom of slide paddled up 4 [Wilson Chute] [ ] went by portage [ ] to the new farm found the crops [ ] looking well gave orders for cutting all the Beaver Bay in the locality showed them how to divide the new houses returned to camp in the evening raining very hard got wet through and did not get dry.
August 19
Started early reached Baskatong 6 p.m. [ ] of hay say 30 tons the oats look beautiful [ ] farm in good order buildings [ ] satisfactory [ ].
August 20
Left Baskatong Farm at 10 o'clock a.m. arrived at [ ] ½ past 12 took dinner and proceeded to the [ ] appears to be 1/2 of the Gatineau and is wide and beautiful with nice clean [banks] here and there [ ] of the river the banks are giving way and show pure yellow sand. Reached Hamilton Farm at dark 20 miles from the mouth [ ].
August 22, Monday
Started after breakfast at 6 a.m. paddled up [ ] the 27 ½ miles from mouth [ ] portaged into Grasshopper River and from that into La Riviθre de [ ] continued until we reached Bark Lake [ ] 8 miles and camped on an island [ ].
August 23
Left camp at 6 a.m. paddled up the Lake Bark. Lake is very [ ] in width and varies from Ό mile to 8 or 10 and filled with islands the general course of the lake is for about 20 miles west and for 40 or 50 miles north [ ] there appears to be large quantities of pine on both sides - on the south west side and towards the Desert and Coulonge the Indians report on large quantity of pine timber [ ] at the head of the Coulonge is principally red pine [ ] good white pine and would come down the south branch of the [ ] into Bark Lake [ ].
August 27
This morning [ ] find a good deal of timber in two different [ ] and along the side of the Lake River the timber on this lower end is much better than that on the upper trees much longer and much [ ] I do not think that all this limit would produce 30,000 good logs after dinner started to come down the Jean de Terre through the rapids and [ ] and reached about 33 miles from the mouth [ ]."
Book excerpt:
"Learning the lumber business kept me out of doors exposed to all kinds of weather, freezing in the woods in below-zero cold or broiling in the reverberating heat of the lumber piles in summer, soaked with water and bitten by black-flies and mosquitoes in the spring, soaked with rain and river and muskeg in the autumn. Breakfast came at 5 a.m. in the shanties, and dog-tired bodies were flat in the bunks by eight in the evening. [ ].
In the winter the walk from the shanty out to the places where the crews were cutting was also a trial. Winds howled in the open places, and we used to swear the temperature went down to 60Ί below. Under those conditions, it took a half an hour to go a mile. [ ].
The meals were rather trying to a shanty-dweller who wasn't engaged in heavy manual labour, for they were planned to nourish a hard-working man. They were very high calorie foods, to provide energy that was expended at rapid rates in the Canadian winters, or on the drive and the sweep in the spring and autumn. "Heartburn" was a frequent experience for me. Picture a bowl of white beans floating in lard as breakfast cereal, followed by fried fat salt-pork, with a slice of pie to follow, all washed down with a pannikin of Japanese green tea that had probably boiled for hours, with no milk to cut the acid! [ ]. Lunch in the woods usually consisted in cold boiled salt-pork, lots of shanty-made bread, and some more of the green tea, boiled over a camp-fire at the lunch-site. Back in camp, evening meal was like the breakfast menu, except that there would be "sea-pie" or baked beans. Desserts included well-stewed prunes, dried apricots or apples, and on occasion raisin pie. [ ]."
Book extract:
"It is trite to say it, but nonetheless, how times have changed! The Indians ranged all over the lands where we cut. I recall one day at the Bark Lake post when there appeared up the lake a big flotilla of canoes. As it came near one could distinguish their identity: these were Abenaki from the upper headwaters of the Ottawa, whole families of them, coming to trade at our post. Music filled the air from gramophones in some of the canoes."