The Dacey Mine Car - a gift to Cantley
It all began over a year ago when Cantley’s Nelson Lawlor generously offered to donate an historic mine car to Cantley 1889. He had one condition - that it be restored and installed near Cantley’s tugboat in Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips to tell about Cantley’s significant mining heritage.
See also The Echo of Cantley articles Celebrate Cantley’s Mining Era and the
Celebration of Cantley’s mining heritage and the official unveiling of Cantley’s Mine Car and plaque event.
Videos:
The Tugboat Project
Logging on the Gatineau River is an important part of Cantley's history; its symbol, the tugboat, proudly serves as emblem on the Cantley flag and logo. We want to feature our own original tugboat, restoring it from its current location on the shore of the Gatineau River (at the base of Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips) to a place of honour, in Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips, where it would stand, silhouetted against the Outaouais skyline and the ripples of the river.
Back to dry Land: Cantley's Tugboat Helps our Heritage News - November 27, 2012
Videos:
See also "Le Champagne" on the Russel Brothers Archive.
Gatineau River Log Drive
The last drive - article from the Canadian Geographic, December 1991. (PDF 2.2 MB)
Photo Display:
We have developed a photo archive of the historical landscapes, people and their livelihoods, and buildings of Cantley. With the generous support of the Municipality, some of the finest of the old photos are on permanent display in Cantley's Townhall (8 ch River) whenever there are no temporary historical exhibits showing.
Notecards for Sale
Click to view
To commemorate Cantley 1889’s major projects in Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips
Notecards $3 each or 2 cards for $5
Click to view
To commemorate Cantley's logging, mining and farming heritage.
Notecards $3 each or 2 cards for $5Ongoing Projects
Oral History:
We are building an oral history of Cantley, through the voices of our most venerable citizens who actually remember Cantley's earliest days, or the way it was told to them by the original settlers. Some of our members are visiting, interviewing and are recording the voices of our oldest citizens and their stories for history.
Historical Places:
We have compiled a list of Cantley’s historic and significant places. Our goal is to research and photograph these sites. We hope to educate people about their heritage value and to archive the information for future generations. Also ongoing is our interest in toponymy. We answer inquiries from the Municipality of Cantley and individuals about place names.
Research:
We are continually researching all aspects of Cantley's history and are working to catalogue this with the archives of the Gatineau Valley Historical Society.
Promote our Heritage:
We inform Cantley citizens about Cantley's heritage, its historical places, people and issues, in our monthly column in the "ECHO of Cantley" newspaper (which is distributed monthly to every household in Cantley). We plan public events and meetings and work with other organizations to help promote our heritage in various ways.
Collaborative Projects
Cantley 1889 has collaborated on projects with the following organizations:
- The Echo of Cantley
- Gatineau Valley Historical Society
- Fairbairn House Heritage Centre
- Theatre Wakefield
- Les Amis du Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips
- The Municipality of Cantley
- Centre local de développement des Collines-de- l'Outaouais (CLD)
- La Grange de la Gatineau
The Cantley Echo (echocantley.ca) – Every month since 2010, Cantley’s community newspaper has donated space for Cantley 1889’s bilingual articles (except months of January), also providing the excellent services of its translator and graphic designer. This enables us to inform residents about Cantley’s history and matters concerning local heritage.
We have a close relationship to the Gatineau Valley Historical Society (www.gvhs.ca) whose archives include Cantley and for whose invaluable help and support in many ways, especially with our web site, we are very grateful. In 2017, we participated in the GVHS Remembrance Day Ceremony.
We collaborated with GVHS, FOG, La Grange de la Gatineau and other groups on the special Heritage Paddle Day, June 10, 2012 (which marked the 50th anniversary of GVHS). Also to mark the occasion, GVHS and Cantley 1889 worked together to produce Gatineau River Heritage Paddle: A Guide.
Fairbairn House Heritage Centre (www.fairbairn.ca): We have a close relationship with Fairbairn House Heritage Centre. In 2016, we collaborated on the mining video created by Cantley youth, “A Cantley Story: The Mica Mine” and its premiere viewing (May 2017). In 2016 -2017, we researched Cantley’s women pioneers for the “Notable Women Exhibit” (2017-2018).
Theatre Wakefield (OurHiddenHills.weebly.com): “Spread the Word – Heritage Animation Project” (2016-2017). We organized meetings, workshops and researched Cantley’s historical characters (including interviewing local elders) to provide material for Ian Tamblyn’s musical play “A Summer...A Fair”. We hosted the première performance of this play (July 22, 2017) and helped with the final Cantley performance on September 9, 2017
Les Amis du Parc Mary-Anne-Phillips – volunteers helped with our Tugboat (2012-2014) and Mine Car (2015-2017) projects.
The Municipality of Cantley officially recognizes Cantley 1889 as a volunteer organization. We work closely on various projects and events.
We are grateful to the Centre local de développement des Collines-de- l'Outaouais (CLD) for helping to fund our Tugboat and Mine Car Projects.
We are grateful to La Grange de la Gatineau for providing support and meeting space for our meetings and events.
Cantley 1889 is grateful to the many local volunteers who donated their time and expertise to the Mine Car and Tugboat projects and to videographer Pierre Belisle for his photography projects and videos.