Cantley's 1889 Articles in The Echo of Cantley

Cantley’s Groundwater and Aquifers

John Almstedt

Recently, Cantley's hydrology has been of great interest to citizens concerned with effects of densification on our municipality. Understanding more about aquifers and groundwater helps us keep our water potable and support a healthy ecosystem. Groundwater is part of the water cycle, circulating water from land, ocean, and atmosphere in a never-ending closed circuit. There's a need to learn how to conserve, manage and protect groundwater and its aquifers.

Knowing Cantley’s geological origins helps to understand our hydrology. Cantley is part of the Canadian Shield, the largest mass of exposed Precambrian rock in the world, composed of ancient crystalline rocks like granite that were modified by the Champlain Sea and glaciers. About 12,000 years ago, the weight of glacial ice depressing the land combined with glacial meltwater caused the Atlantic Ocean flood inland. This created the Champlain Sea which covered much of our region. About 12,000 years ago, as the melting glacier retreated, it allowed the depressed bedrock to rise and shed the waters of the sea leaving behind a cover of clay. Today Leda clay is found along the Gatineau River shoreline, mouth of Blackburn Creek and lower areas of Cantley. Glaciers shaped our landscape by scouring and eroding the crystalline bedrock and producing till composed of rocks, gravel, sand and silt spread on top of the entire landscape.

The many cracks and fissures in the bedrock, together with the glacial residue, are the geological components of Cantley's hydrogeology through which groundwater and aquifers flow. Most wells are within 100 metres from the surface. Drilling deeper has the risk of the water becoming progressively more saline from the remnants of the Champlain Sea.

Cantley's groundwater is pumped from shallow glacial deposit aquifers and from deeper fractured crystalline bedrock. The main geochemical processes affecting groundwater chemistry are the Champlain Sea invasion, “cation exchange” and freshwater recharge.

In areas of gentler rolling hills, Cantley's groundwater is usually slow moving. This increases the mineral content of potable water as it moves through the pores and cracks of the rocks and explains why deeper, older waters can be highly mineralized. Chemical analyses of groundwater indicate numerous water types related to colour, smell, taste and safety such as varying amounts of uranium and radon gas in the water that might require reverse osmosis filtering.

The area between Montée-de-la-Source and Mont Cascades illustrates how groundwater plays an important role in the water cycle. It charges aquifers with surface water from lakes and wetlands while discharging water to the surface on hot dry summer days. Wetlands are especially important in this exchange since their vegetation reduces erosion and helps maintain healthy habitats which, in turn, enhance transpiration.

In this same area, vegetation also plays an important role in the water cycle by contributing moisture to the atmosphere through transpiration and evaporation. As well, it disperses fungal spores and pollen grains into the air which act as nuclei for condensation of water in clouds. During a two-week period in the summer of 2024, a noticeable interaction existed between the sun and forest. Mornings began with bright cloudless sunrises in a dew laden forest. By early afternoons, clouds began to appear that resulted in late afternoon showers leaving the forest refreshed for the next day. This is a good example of nature creating and maintaining conditions in which they grow best. Tourism-recreation zoning with nearby agriculture makes this Mont-Cascades area ideal for special environmental protection.

We should be inspired to take good care of our hydrology just as farmers like Cantley’s McClelland family has done for more than a century. It had shallow wells of less than six metres deep and used cisterns for both well water and rainwater capture. Its systems not only provided water for the family and farmhouse but also for herds of 25 to 40 head of cattle, six or seven horses, and chickens and hogs without ever going dry.