The Ottawa Valley is rich in forgotten places because the region's economy has cycled through boom and bust multiple times. The lumber era built communities that the post-lumber economy could not sustain. Government colonization schemes settled families on land that could not feed them. Railways connected towns that eventually lost their reason to exist. What remains is scattered through the forests and back roads of Renfrew and Lanark counties: foundations, cemeteries, mill ruins, and the quiet evidence of lives lived in places that no longer function.
Balaclava
Balaclava is the best-known ghost town in the Ottawa Valley, located on the Madawaska River about 90 minutes west of Ottawa. The village was a sawmill community from the 1860s through the early 1900s. The old mill foundation on the river is substantial — cut stone walls that give a sense of the operation's scale. The general store building still stands, along with several houses in various states of collapse. A handful of residents remain in the area, so this is not fully abandoned, but the commercial heart of the village is gone.
The Balaclava cemetery, on the hill above the village, is the most telling artifact. The headstones cluster in the 1870s-1920s, with very few after that. The community peaked with the lumber trade and declined when the timber ran out. Walking the cemetery with dates in mind gives you the demographic history of the town without reading a word of text beyond the stones.
Access: drive to Balaclava via County Road 513 from Renfrew. The village is visible from the road. Respect private property boundaries. The cemetery is publicly accessible.
Bonnechere River Mill Sites
The Bonnechere River between Golden Lake and Eganville powered several mills in the 1800s. Dam remnants, mill foundations, and the engineered features of the river's lumber-drive era are visible at multiple points along the river. The most accessible sites are near the Bonnechere Caves, where the river's geology (exposed 500-million-year-old limestone) combines with industrial archaeology to create an interesting landscape. Crib dam remnants are visible at low water levels in late summer.
Opeongo Road Communities
The Opeongo Colonization Road, built starting in 1852, brought settlers into the Shield country south of the Petawawa area. Communities like Opeongo, Brudenell, and Rockingham were established along the road. Opeongo itself is now a near-ghost town — a handful of residents, a cemetery, and the remnants of a community that the Shield could not sustain. The road between Dacre and Killaloe passes through terrain that was once more populated than it is today, and cemetery sites along the route mark communities that have otherwise vanished.
Abandoned Farm Clearings
Throughout the valley, particularly in the Shield transition zone south of Highway 17, you will encounter old farm clearings in the forest. The pattern is distinctive: a rectangular clearing with mature cedars (which colonize abandoned fields), stone fence lines, a cellar depression, and sometimes a well. These are the homesteads of families who took up free-grant land in the 1850s-1880s and abandoned it within a generation or two. The clearings are slowly closing as forest reclaims the fields. In another 50 years, many will be indistinguishable from the surrounding bush.
Valley Rail Corridors
The OA&PS Railway corridor through the valley and the various branch lines that served lumber operations have left walkable railbed through the forest. The Algonquin Trail conversion covers some of the OA&PS route, but many branch lines and spur routes remain unconverted and explorable. Look for them on historical maps and follow the grade through the bush.