The earliest description of the site of Ottawa is that of Samuel de Champlain, in his Voyages. In June 1613, on his way up the river, he came to a tributary on the south side, "at the mouth of which is a marvellous fall. For it descends a height of twenty or twenty-five fathoms with such impetuosity that it makes an arch nearly four hundred paces broad. The savages take pleasure in passing under it, not wetting themselves, except from the spray that is thrown off." This was the Rideau falls, but a good deal of allowance must be made for exaggera tion in Champlain's account. Continuing up the river, "we passed," he says, "a fall, a league from there, which is half a league broad and has a descent of six or seven fathoms. There are many little islands. The water falls in one place with such force upon a rock that it has hollowed out in course of time a large and deep basin, in which the water has a circular motion and forms large eddies in the middle, so that the savages call it Asticou, which signifies boiler. This cataract produces such a noise in this basin that it is heard for more than two leagues." The present name, Chaudiere, is the French equivalent of the old Indian name.
For two hundred years and more after Champlain's first visit the Chaudiere portage was the main thoroughfare from Montreal to the great western fur country; but it was not until 1800 that any permanent settlement was made in the vicinity. In that year Philemon Wright, of Woburn, Massachusetts, built a home for himself at the foot of the portage, on the Quebec side of the river, where the city of Hull now stands; but for some time the precipitous cliffs on the south side seem to have discouraged settlement there. Finally about 1820 one Nicholas Sparks moved over the river and cleared a farm in what is now the heart of Ottawa. Seven years later Colonel John By, R.E., was sent out to build a canal from a point below the Chaudiere falls to King ston on Lake Ontario. The canal, completed at a cost of $2,500,
000 has never been of any great commercial importance ; it has never been called upon to fulfil its primary object, as a military work to enable gun-boats and military supplies to reach the lakes from Montreal without being exposed to attack along the St. Lawrence frontier. The building of the canal created a fair sized settlement at its Ottawa end, which came to be known as Bytown. As the lumber trade developed Bytown rapidly in creased in wealth and importance. In 1854 it was incorporated as a city, the name being changed to Ottawa; and four years later Queen Victoria selected Ottawa as the capital of Canada. Ottawa was admirably situated for a capital from a political and military point of view ; but there is reason to believe that the deciding factor was the pressure exerted by the four other rival claimants, Montreal, Quebec, Toronto and Kingston, any three of which would have fiercely resented the selection of the fourth. The first session of parliament in Ottawa was opened in 1865.
D. Edgar, Canada and its Capital (Toronto, 1898) ; A. S. Bradley, Canada in the Twentieth Century (1903), pp. 130-540; Gertrude Kenny, "Some Account of Bytown," Transactions, vol. i., Women's Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa; Mrs. H. J. Friel, "The Rideau Canal and the Founder of Bytown," ibid. ; M. Jamieson, "A glimpse of our city fifty years ago," ibid.; J. M. Oxley, "The Capital of Canada," New England Magazine, N.S., 22, 315-323 ; Godfrey T. Vigne, Six Months in America (1832) , pp. 191-198 ; Andrew Wilson, History of Old Bytown (Ottawa, 1876) ; Charles Pope, Incidents connected with Ottawa (Ottawa, 1868) ; Wm. P. Lett, Recollections of Bytown (Ottawa, 1874) ; Wm. S. Hunter, Ottawa Scenery (Ottawa, 1855) ; Joseph Tasse, Vallee de l'Outaouais (Montreal, 1873) ; A. H. D. Ross, Ottawa Past and Present (Toronto, 1927).
(L. J. B.)