Ottawa History Hub
This podcast looks at the history of the city of Ottawa Ontario, since the last ice age to modern day! Visit our website at ottawahistoryhub.com.
Episodes
32 episodes
Introduction to Season 2
Season 2 continues the introduction to the world into which Ottawa would be born. This starts with the shift from French to English Imperialism, and the Crown finds itself in the middle of relations between Indigenous nations and American...
Indigenous Relations
This episode looks at the relationship between the Crown, the French subjects, the Anglo-American subjects, and the Indigenous nations of the newly expanded British holdings in North America
The Quebec Act
This episode looks at the Quebec Act and the political administration of Peak Quebec, and why it became known as one of the "Intolerable Acts" that justified the American Revolutionary War.
The Revolution Next Door
So... About 1776 and all that... We've all heard about the American Revolution, but what did that mean for those who didn't think it was such a great idea at the time? Loyalist people and Loyalist colonies had different experiences than t...
The Loyalists Approach Ottawa
The Crown was selling land and giving it away throughout the late 1700s, and some hearty settlers went beyond the Saint Laurence and Great Lakes, north of Kingston and west of Montreal. Roger Stevens becomes the first settler in what wou...
The Loyalists Come North
United Empire Loyalists were on the move. To England, to Florida and the Caribbean, but also northward to the Loyalist colonies of Nova Scotia and Quebec. They were to come in such numbers that two new provinces would end up being i...
From the Outside In
In this episode, we look at the circle of settlement closing in around what would become Ottawa. In the south by Loyalists, and from the east by way of Montreal.
Upper Canada
The Constitution of 1791 divided the great province of Quebec in two. Upriver was the creation of Upper Canada, and downriver was the new province of Lower Canada. There were new systems of governance and voting, that would influenc...
The Squire of Hull
Philemon Wright was the founder of Hull, the first settlement in the Ottawa area that could be called "urban". Migrating from Massachusetts in the winter of 1800, he and his family migrated the shoals of the Lower Canada and Upper Canada ...
The War of 1812 - Part 1
The War of 1812 was a central event in the foundation of the Canadas. It also served to settle the American War of Independence and bring a political norm to North America that there were two distinct countries, rather than Free and Occup...
The War of 1812 - Part 2
In this episode, we conclude the war part of the War of 1812, setting up the diminished status of the Indigenous allies, despite their heroic participation in the war, and establishing the justification for the Rideau Canal.
John By
There are few if any individuals who have had a greater impact on the settlement that would become Ottawa than Lt. Col. John By. This episode is a biography of the English engineer who is credited with the creation of the Rideau Canal and...
The Rideau Canal
The Rideau Waterway runs more than 200 kms from Lake Ontario to the Ottawa River, bypassing the Saint Laurence River, and allowing the British to access the Great Lakes without the dangers posed by the River’s chokepoint. This UNESCO site...
The Rideau Purchase
The land of the Rideau River and the Ottawa once belonged exclusively to the Algonquin, though several other Anishinaabe traders would travel through the area as well. But a price was paid for the land, and it was opened for white settlem...
The Rocky Road to Kingston
In this episode, we review a diary of a traveller from Bytown going on a trip south to Kingston, through the Rideau Valley. Along the way, he and his companions meet some of the characters who call the area home.
The Earl of Dalhousie
George Ramsay, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie and former Governor General of the Canadas played an important role in the development of Ottawa, by patronising John By, feuding with John LeBreton, and making space for turning the Bytown camp into a...
The Timber Town
Timberrrrrrrr! Lumber was the first industry in the Ottawa area after the fur trade and agriculture. How the different trees were used and brought to port was an integral part of the development of Bytown as a town, without which th...
Thomas MacKay
Thomas MacKay was a Scottish mason, industrialist, politician, and founder of New Edinburgh, among other things. He helped to build the Rideau Canal and invested his earnings in transforming Bytown from a work camp into a town. The ...
Early Bytown: 1826-1836
This episode walks through Bytown in its first decade. Starting in Wrightstown, we cross the Union Bridge to Richmond Landing, then into Upper Bytown, the military precinct, Lowertown, New Edinburgh, and Janeville, looking at the early to...
The Religious Mosaic
We’ve been using terms like Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, Protestant and Methodist so far, and in this episode we break down those terms to discuss what the different religious groups of early Bytown were and how they interacted with one an...
The Fur Trade Continues
The episode examines the fur trade’s continued role in the early 19th‑century Ottawa Valley. Though dominated by lumber, the region still relied on furs as a seasonal income source for settlers and Indigenous hunters. After the fall of New Fran...
Nicholas Sparks, The Prince of Bytown
Nicholas Sparks was an Irish immigrant who became one of Bytown’s leading citizen. Leveraging connections with the Wrights, Sparks was the richest man in Bytown throughout the life of the settlement. He married into the Wright famil...
Keeping Bytown Safe
In early Bytown, public safety emerged long before formal civic institutions. Responsibility for order initially fell to Lt. Col. John By, overseeing canal construction. His sappers acted as de facto police and firefighters, reflecting a ...
