Most people know Petawawa as a military town, and that is accurate as far as it goes. But the area has history that predates the base by centuries, and the base itself has accumulated layers of forgotten infrastructure, abandoned camps, and buried stories that most residents never encounter. The military's control of a vast land area has, paradoxically, preserved sites that would have been bulldozed for subdivisions anywhere else in southern Ontario.
Before the Base
The confluence of the Petawawa and Ottawa Rivers was an Algonquin gathering and portage site long before European settlement. The name Petawawa derives from the Algonquin word for "where one hears the noise of the water," referring to the rapids and falls on the Petawawa River upstream of the mouth. Early European settlers established farms along the Ottawa River in the mid-1800s, and a small community existed at the river mouth before the military arrived in 1905.
When the federal government expropriated land for the military camp, several farming families were displaced. The foundations of their homesteads are still visible in forested areas of the base, marked by fieldstone cellars, old wells, and the distinctive pattern of mature apple trees in otherwise natural forest — the remnants of farmstead orchards that have persisted for over a century.
The Log-Drive Era
Before the military, the Petawawa River was a major lumber highway. Millions of board feet of white pine were floated down the river to mills at the Ottawa River. The river was engineered for this purpose: dams, timber slides, and boom structures controlled the flow of logs. Remnants of this infrastructure exist along the river, particularly upstream in what is now the northwestern corner of Algonquin Park. Crib dam remnants, iron bolts set in rock, and cleared portage paths are visible along the river corridor.
The most significant log-drive infrastructure is at the named rapids: Devil's Chute, Crooked Chute, and Rollway. These were the dangerous sections where logs jammed and men died. The engineered features around these rapids — wing walls, bypass channels, and blasting scars — tell the story of how the lumber industry literally reshaped the river to move timber.
Internment Camp Remnants
The WWI and WWII internment operations at Petawawa left physical traces that are mostly hidden within the base property. Building foundations from the internment-era barracks, guard structures, and work camps exist but are not publicly accessible without military permission. The memorial cairn on the base is the most visible acknowledgment of this history.
Less visible is the labour these internees performed. Roads, cleared areas, and infrastructure foundations built by internee labour during both wars are still in use on the base. The work was unpaid (or paid at token rates) and performed under guard. This is not a comfortable history, but it is a real one, and the physical evidence of it is embedded in the base's landscape.
Cold War Infrastructure
During the Cold War, Petawawa had infrastructure that is now partially decommissioned and partially repurposed. Training areas designed for simulated European battlefield conditions, bunker complexes, and communications infrastructure from the nuclear preparedness era exist within the base. Some of this material is still in use; some is abandoned. The Foymount radar station, while not on the base itself, was operationally connected to Petawawa's Cold War mission.
The Accidental Preservation
The irony of military land control is that it has preserved more pre-settlement and early-settlement landscape than any other mechanism in the region. Outside the base, the Ottawa Valley has been logged, farmed, developed, and otherwise transformed. Inside the base, large areas of forest remain relatively undisturbed because they serve as training areas. This has preserved not only historical sites but ecological features — the Petawawa Research Forest, located on base lands, has been a continuous forestry research site since 1918.