Cantley 1889’s volunteers have written more than 150 monthly articles of local historical interest for publication in The Echo of Cantley, a non-profit bilingual organization that produces Cantley's only community newspaper.
The following article is reprinted here with permission from in The Echo of Cantley, Volume 36 no 1, July 2024.
In the 1980s, Cantley citizens chose the tugboat to symbolize their determination and strength pushing through all obstacles threatening Cantley’s rural identity and against Cantley’s forced amalgamation with Gatineau.
In 1987, Cantley’s “Phantom Mayor” Charbonneau asked Cantley’s Pierre Meilleur to design Cantley’s first logo depicting a tugboat to be used on Cantley’s flag and for many purposes during Cantley’s “Battle for Independence”. The tugboat quickly became a source of pride and solidarity for Cantley citizens. A beautiful topiary tugboat, sculpted from evergreen shrubs by talented horticulturalist Jacques Leblanc, stood proudly in front of the Townhall near our municipal flag for many years.
Today’s revised logo and flag show the tugboat sailing across blue waves as if guiding or protecting our green hills above and farmlands below. Three evergreen trees of differing sizes stand above to symbolize our magnificent forests as well as our young growing families.
Gatineau River logging ended in 1991. In 1996, Cantley thought it very fitting to purchase E. Champagne, one of the Gatineau Boom Company’s redundant tugboats. Recently, a clerical error in her original registration was discovered showing her name, Le Champagne, had been copied incorrectly with the initial E. Unfortunately, it is too late to correct her five descriptive plaques installed by Cantley 1889 10 years ago.
Le Champagne was built in 1960 as a “warping tugboat”. She could pull up to 4,000 cords of logs with her winch which could hold two kilometres of steel cable. She is flat-bottomed so able to pull herself over land. She was the one tugboat of the fleet with a front “rake” for pushing the logs. Like most Gatineau River tugboats, Russel Brothers Ltd. of Owen Sound, Ontario, manufactured her. The company also built two of the 1950s Maid of the Mist Niagara Falls tour boats and the tugboats in the Malak Karsh photograph shown on the former Canadian one-dollar bill.
Sadly, Le Champagne sat on the shore of Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips for the next 16 years, leaking oil and debris into the river, used and abused by fishermen, party-makers, graffiti artists and vandals. In 2011, volunteers of our new heritage group, Cantley 1889, decided to rescue and restore the tugboat in the park. The Municipality said this would be too expensive, friends thought it an impossibility, and one letter of complaint suggested history not be disturbed by removing it from the river.
One Saturday morning in April 2011, we met with Léo Vanasse, foreman of the Chelsea-Cantley team of rivermen for 40 years. He reminisced about his logging days and provided facts about the working life of Le Champagne. He motivated us to devise a plan for moving the tugboat from the shore up to the top of the hill in Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips. The MRC enthusiastically supported our idea and offered some funding. It took us three years to clean, relocate, restore, weld and paint the tugboat, to landscape and to create and install her five descriptive plaques.
On September 14, 2014, we organized an official “opening” celebration for the revitalized Le Champagne in her new resting place. We tracked down and invited most rivermen who had worked with tugboats off Cantley’s shores. It was a memorable and emotional time for everyone, especially listening to fond memories of Le Champagne and the bygone logging days. At the ribbon-cutting, Mayor Madeleine Brunette spoke these words:
“The tugboat is an important symbol from Cantley’s past…now our official municipal logo.
At today’s special celebration…the tugboat represents the dream of citizens who strongly believed it was necessary and meaningful to give a second life to this boat. They put their hearts, their energy and their will into it, proving “when you really believe in something, anything is possible.”
The tugboat inspired Cantley 1889 volunteers just as it inspired Cantley citizens in the 1980’s.
appropriate that Le Champagne was celebrated in 2014, the 25th anniversary year of Cantley’s Independence!
Please visit: Le Champagne in Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips, 47 Chemin Summer, Cantley
and
Cantley 1889’s Virtual Museum for videos and articles about Le Champagne and the Gatineau River: cantley1889.smugmug.com/Musee-Virtuel-Virtual-Museum/Fluvial-River.