The Ottawa Valley stretches from the outskirts of Ottawa northwest along the Ottawa River to the edge of Algonquin Park and beyond. It is one of the oldest settled regions in Ontario, with a history of European habitation stretching back to the early seventeenth century. And it is full of forgotten places.
This is not surprising when you consider the valley's history. For nearly two hundred years, the region was the centre of one of the world's largest lumber industries. Thousands of men worked the winter timber camps, and hundreds of mills processed the logs that floated down the Ottawa and its tributaries every spring. When the old-growth timber was exhausted in the early twentieth century, the industry collapsed, and with it went many of the communities it had supported.
The Lumber Legacy
The most visible forgotten places in the valley are the remains of the lumber mills. These were not small operations. The J.R. Booth mill in Ottawa was once the largest in the world, and mills at places like Arnprior, Braeside, and Pembroke were enormous by any standard. Their stone and concrete foundations are still visible along the riverbanks, some of them large enough to be mistaken for castle ruins.
Beyond the mills, the lumber industry left behind a network of depot farms, river improvement structures, and camp sites scattered across thousands of square kilometres of forest. Depot farms raised hay and oats to feed the horses that hauled timber in winter. Their clearings are still visible from the air, even where the forest has been growing back for a century. Stone and concrete dams built to control water levels for log drives remain on many of the valley's smaller rivers.
Stone foundations of a former lumber mill along the Ottawa River, one of hundreds of similar sites in the valley.
Settlement Ghosts
The valley's colonization roads, built in the 1850s and 1860s to encourage settlement, created dozens of small communities that were never meant to last. The Opeongo Road, running west from Farrell's Landing on the Madawaska to Barry's Bay, was the most ambitious of these projects. Free land grants along its route attracted hundreds of families, many of them recent immigrants from Ireland and Germany.
The soil along the Opeongo Road was poor, and many settlers struggled from the start. Some supplemented their farm income by working in the lumber camps during winter. When the timber industry declined, these families lost their backup income, and many abandoned their farms. Today, driving the Opeongo Line between Dacre and Barry's Bay, you pass through long stretches of forest that were once cleared farmland. The old stone fences are still there, running through the trees on both sides of the road.
Similar stories played out along the Addington Road further south and the Peterson Road to the north. Each of these colonization roads has its own collection of forgotten settlements. Places like Brudenell, Rockingham, and Mount St. Patrick were once thriving villages. Some have survived in diminished form. Others exist only as a church, a cemetery, or a name on a road sign.
Hidden Cemeteries
Perhaps the most haunting of the valley's forgotten places are its hidden cemeteries. Small family burial plots are scattered across the countryside, often on former farmland that has long since returned to forest. These cemeteries are easy to miss. A few weathered headstones leaning at odd angles, surrounded by a rusting iron fence or a collapsed stone wall, half-hidden in the trees.
Some of these cemeteries have been documented and are maintained by local historical societies. Many have not. They are simply there, in the woods, their inscriptions slowly becoming illegible. The names on the stones, when you can read them, tell the story of the valley's settlement: Irish, Scottish, German, Polish, and French families who came to this corner of Ontario looking for a better life.
Exploring the Valley
The Ottawa Valley is one of the best regions in Ontario for finding forgotten places. The combination of a long settlement history, a boom-and-bust economy, and a rugged landscape means that abandoned sites are common and often well-preserved. The dry climate of the valley's interior and the durability of the stone construction used by early settlers means that ruins can survive for well over a century.
Good starting points include the Petawawa area, where military history overlaps with lumber and settlement history, and the Madawaska Valley around Barry's Bay, where the Opeongo Road settlements left behind extensive ruins. The area around Petawawa's old bridges also offers excellent opportunities for roadside exploration.
For those interested in the valley's hidden history, local museums and archives are invaluable. The Champlain Trail Museum in Pembroke, the Arnprior and District Museum, and the various township archives hold photographs, maps, and records that can help you understand what you are seeing in the field.