Watch for the last tugboat on the Gatineau River. You'll find it in a schoolyard. Chelsea Elementary School has more than 300 anglophone students from Chelsea and Cantley, an addition to its building, and a playground like no other. Best of all, it has a Home and School Association that has scooped the Outaouais.

The West Quebec School Board just finished a new wing to accommodate the growing population. That was the good news. The downside was that it had to destroy the playing field in the process. So the Home and School people set out to equip a new one with money they raised themselves, a considerable challenge. There were lots of ideas, but the biggest and best was acquiring one of the river tugs that manipulated logs down the Gatineau River.

With the century-old log drive now ending, it seemed that the historic and economic not to mention romantic heart of the Gatineau would become just a dusty page of history, and a design on the Cantley municipal logo. Groups and individuals wanted to save one of those boats so that future generations could have a three-dimensional reminder of one of the last great log drives in Canada. Only the Chelsea Home and School Association succeeded.

Patsy Holmes, who is a member of its executive, knew a lot about log drive days from her father, who worked for the Gatineau Boom Company. An approach was made to Canadian Pacific Forest Products, which ran the company and owned the tugs. They were caught by the idea and readily donated a tug that would be able to live out its retirement near where it spent its working days. Heavy equipment operator Maynard Robinson volunteered to get it from the river to the playground. Other volunteers will set it in place, adapt it for preservation, and prepare it as a living history lesson and a fun thing for a school playground. Dont expect to see just a tug on a sandpile.

The committee has plans not only for a dock and gangplank but for an authentic boom made from logs that rested for years in the Gatineau River. Of course, the history of the tug and the log drive is also being collected. The most precious part of the historic relic, the ship's wheel, will be stored safely for display in the school. The Home and School Committee may be forgiven for quiet self-congratulation that it is the only Outaouais school to pull off such a coup to preserve Quebec's history.

Nevertheless, it has not paused in its other work of developing an interesting and useful playground. The customary swings and slides, donated or made by volunteers, will be included, though ordinary equipment will have a hard time competing with a real river tug, even one that can go nowhere without its diesel engine.

This is more than an imaginative way to keep local history alive. The boom tugs were nationally immortalized when one was depicted on the last Canadian one dollar bill. Log drives down the rivers of Canada were a great part of Canadian history. The Gatineau saw one of the last. It will not be long until the tall stories of the draveurs fade from hearing and from memory. But the children of Chelsea school will remember their roots. Some of them may learn another lesson from that tug a lesson about the power of imagination, volunteer effort and the spirit of two communities. That beats government any day.

DG notes: Pic II was donated to the Western Quebec School Board and was converted to a play structure. It's located at the Chelsea Elementary School in Chelsea Qc near Hull.

ENLARGE to 1024 pixels wide ENLARGE to 2048 pixels wide

 

Hull #1207. June 2007.

ENLARGE to 1024 pixels wide ENLARGE to 2048 pixels wide

 

Hull #1207. June 2007.

ENLARGE to 1024 pixels wide ENLARGE to 2048 pixels wide

 

Hull #1207. June 2007.

ENLARGE to 1024 pixels wide ENLARGE to 2048 pixels wide

 

Pic II in Chelsea, Qu�bec, October 17, 2009 In front of anglophone elementary school, on Old Chelsea RD. Photo by Pierre Cantin. 74 OLD CHELSEA ROAD CHELSEA, QU�BEC J9B 1K9

ENLARGE to 1325 pixels wide

 

Pic II Google image by Paul Cullum, c. 2014

ENLARGE to 2048 pixels wide

 

Oct. 8, 2016. Pic II in Chelsea Qc. Photo by Eric Richard.

 

Pic II in Chelsea QC Sept. 12, 2019. Photos by Steve Briggs.

 

Contents: drop down & click!HOMERussel Vessel ListingFamous Russel BoatsRussel Company HistoryR-H News and BrochuresLogging Boat OperationBoat Photo CollectionsBoat Designs & BlueprintsRussel Video InterviewInside Russel Bros.Hull Number Index

For more Russel exhibits visit Owen Sound Marine & Rail Museum 1165 1st Ave West, Owen Sound, ON N4K 4K8
(519) 371-3333     http://marinerail.com