Ottawa Valley
Because of the surrounding shield, the valley is narrow at its western end and then becomes increasingly wide (mainly on the Ontario side of the river) as it progresses eastward.
From west to east, communities in the Ottawa Valley include Mattawa, Deep River (with nearby Chalk River, the site of Canada's nuclear reactor program), Petawawa (a major Canadian military base), Pembroke (where Samuel de Champlain landed briefly), Fort Coulonge, Shawville, Renfrew, Quyon, Arnprior, Ottawa (the nation's capital), Rockland, L'Orignal, Hawkesbury, and Rigaud and Almonte, Round Lake Centre, Dacre, Douglas, Hyndford, Scotch Bush, Osceola and Barr Line.
[1] The entire territory south of the Ottawa river was conquered by the Iroquois during the French-Indian War/Seven Years' War, who then left it to the British Crown when they relocated to upstate New York.
Ardoch Algonquin First Nation is one such community located in the Ottawa Valley fighting for the return of the land they lost to the Iroquois.
As a relatively recent adaptation resulting from the economic pressures of the encroachment of non-native settling of the valley, the Algonquin First Nation is unevenly distributed within their territory.
After the arrival of European settlers in North America, the first major industry of the Ottawa Valley was fur trading.
It was thought to have been first settled by the Algonquian peoples and the name comes from their language meaning "where one hears the noise of the water".
Samuel de Champlain passed through the area and it was used as an important location for the Hudson's Bay Company.
Samuel de Champlain spent the years between 1613 and 1615 traveling the Ottawa River with Algonquin and Huron guides.
Regional English accents are rare west of Québec, but because of its isolation before the arrival of the railways and also by the mixture of the dominant French, Irish and Scottish populations, the valley at one time developed a distinctive dialect, referred to as the Ottawa Valley Twang.
Legendary performer and songwriter Mac Beattie and the Melodiers were also large influences on keeping the Ottawa Valley's musical culture vibrant and living.
Today, many performers keep the musical traditions alive, including Gail Gavan, Terry McLeish, April Verch and Trevor Grahl.
Among the well-known people who hail from the Ottawa Valley, are former governor-general and broadcaster Adrienne Clarkson, Alanis Morissette, Margaret Atwood, Lorne Greene, railroad builder Michael James Heney,Guy Lafleur,Bryan Murray, Terry Murray, Frank Finnigan, Bruce Cockburn, Peter Jennings, Ryan Reynolds, Matthew Perry, Dan Aykroyd, Mark Redman, Norm Macdonald, Tom Green, Rich Little, Paul Anka, Alan Verch and Princess Margriet, sister of Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Barbara Ann Scott was world figure skating champion and won the gold medal at St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1948.
Skier Ann Heggtveit won a gold medal at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.
Elizabeth Manley won the silver medal for women's figure skating at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988.
Francis Amyott, from the Britannia Club, won the single canoeing event when it was held for the first time at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936.
Indeed, it is the home not only of the once prominent Senators, which folded in 1934 and came back in 1992, but also of such famous NHL builders as Tommy Gorman and Ambrose O'Brien.
The CTC is the home of the "Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame", several restaurants, a fitness complex and several businesses.
Many of the members of the Senator's coaching and management staff in 2010 hail from, or have strong connections to, the town of Shawville.
The Ottawa Valley's Renfrew Millionaires, the creation of lumber baron O'Brien, was a small-town professional hockey team that won the league championship in 1910.
The River watershed had unlimited resources, loose regulations, and cheap labour pools which allowed the entrepreneurs to quickly increase control over the timber trade.
Many people involved in the logging industry took advantage of the waterway and built their empires because of the fast-moving waters and forests along the River.
The name Petawawa comes from the Algonquin language meaning “where one hears a noise like this.” More than 400 species of animals live in the Ottawa Valley.
