Newsmaker Events
 

On September 17 the City of Gatineau, in conjunction with the Société d'histoire de l'Outaouais (SHO), organized a guided walk around the Brewery Creek heritage sector.  The commentator was Michel Prévost, President of the SHO.

Lowell Montague, musician from Venosta in the Gatineau Hills, is hoping to find a museum that will accept, restore and display the Pratt Transpositor Organ, originally from in St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church in Chapeau.  He acquired the organ in 2004 and it is currently stored in a garage behind the Ottawa Folklore Centre on Bank Street.  Montague points out that only four or five such organs were ever made.  This one was the first one to be placed in St. Alphonsus Church.

News of the Mick Armitage Band's visit to Ireland.  On October 12 the Band will be at the West Wicklow Pub in Blessington, and on October 13 at the Gardenia Pub in Brittas.For information call 613-226-9178, and visit the website www.mickarmitageband.com and join the Band on this adventure.

On August 29 Sinfonia Ottawa is giving the first performance in 300 years of a German cantata.  Sinfonia Ottawa is a summer orchestra made up of amateur and professional musicians from the National Capital region.  The cantata, by the eighteenth-century composer Christoph Graupner, has been transcribed, from a copy of the manuscript held in the university library in Darmstadt, by three Chelsea residents, Peggy Atherton, Dolores Maples and Gudula Marshall. The performance is conducted by Janos Csaba, a former member of the NAC Orchestra;  Montreal harpsichordist Geneviève Soly, who introduced Peggy Atherton to Graupner's music, introduces the audience to this composer's work. Besides the Graupner cantata, the program includes works by Grieg, Mozart and W.F. Bach, and a cantata by Ottawa composer Margrit Cattell.  The soloist is baritone Lawrence Ewashko.
Place: St. Andrew's Church, corner of Kent and Wellington, in Ottawa.  Time: 8.00 pm.

 

The Aylmer Bulletin is celebrating 25 years of creating community.  The editor is inviting local residents to send in letters relating about the contribution the paper has made to this work, and will publish as many letters as possible in the Bulletin's special historical edition this September.
All letters will be eligible to win one of 25 prizes totalling over $1000, donated by local businesses.
Letters may be in French or English, must contain not more than 100 words, and be signed (with phone number and address). The deadline is August 25.
Submit letters to the office at the Galeries d'Aylmer, either by mail or email.
Mailing address: Unit C10, 181 Principale, Secteur Aylmer, Gatineau J9H 6A6.
E-mail address: abawqp@videotron.ca

On Saturday, August 19 the Symmes Inn Museum organized its second summer bicycle tour on the theme La Rivière des Outaouais et l'histoire régionale.  The route, about 15 km in length, covered part of the river shore up to Deschênes, and several sites in the historic part of Old Aylmer.  Commentary was given in French.
The Museum is open six days a week, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 11.00 am to 4.00 pm.  Entry is free.

Dale Shutt, the silk painter from Calumet Island, has participated with seven other West Quebec artists in creating sculptures along the Louis-Joseph Papineau Cycle Trail, between St-André-Avellin and St-Sixte, in the MRC Papineau.  This activity, open to public viewing, took place between August 6 and 13, and forms part of the Art/Nature Symposium "Pierre qui roule...2006".  A vernissage of the finished works is planned for the morning of August 15.
Dale Shutt is well-known in the Pontiac for her artistic activity, including participation in the Annual Pontiac Artists Studio Tour and teaching at the annual Pontiac School of the Arts (both announced in this on-line Bulletin). For information visit her website at  www.daleshutt.com

Chelsea. The Hollow Glen Residents Association is preparing the Hollow Glen community's Fall Festival. 
For information visit the Chelsea website www.chelsea.ca and follow the links to the Hollow Glen Residents Association.

Biblio Wakefield Library has received a $10,000 seed money grant from the Caisse populaire Desjardins Masham-Luskville.  Ned Ellis, the library organizer, says the money will be used to hire a transition planner, who will work to find the funding for a paid co-ordinator for the Library.  Ellis points out that this Library received an award for being the best library of its size in 2004, and that in 2005 it held over 150 events, including readings, two movie series and summer programs.
The Library is now asking the La Pêche Municipal Council to support it to the same degree as the municipalities of Cantley and Chelsea support the libraries in their communities.
The Library's 2006 summer reading program for children aged 5 to 12 continues until August 26.

Death of local artist.
Ken Lochhead, a well-known painter, died at his home in Ottawa on Saturday, July 15, aged 80.  Mr. Lochhead used to work at his studio on the Burnett road and had a summer cottage nearby.  In the sixties he was a member of the Regina Five, a pioneering group of artists in Saskatchewan.  There are plans to make the shack where he lived at Balgonie, Sask., into a shrine in his honour, which would also serve as a studio for artists in that region.
Mr. Lochhead was a member of the Order of Canada and held an honorary degree from the University of Regina.  In 2005 he received the Governor General's Award in visual and media art, for lifetime achievement.

David Yeatman, an Aylmer-based artist who specializes in large murals, has painted a 12 x 24 foot mural depicting the history of the Municipality of Mansfield.  Formally unveiled by the municipal council, the mural carries the words "Bienvenue à Mansfield-Pontefract", beneath which appear theme elements such as the former water tower, the Chutes Coulonge, white water rafting, hunting, log-driving, numerous churches, the Bryson House, the covered Marchand Bridge and the Fort Coulonge Comets hockey team of the sixties.  The mural will serve as a welcoming and farewell sign to visitors entering and leaving Mansfield.  Mayor Richard Romain hopes that it will be the starting point for a community park to be built at the site, located at the point where Highway 148 meets Herault Street.

The Village Vitality Project in Low.In the second week of June, for two days, the students of St. Michael's School in Low turned an abandoned school building into an art exhibition.  Fourteen painted panels were hung over the boarded up windows of the building.  The Western Quebec School Board donated used paint, screws and plywood, the Municipality of Low donated $300, and the Low and District Lions' Club $150.
The project will be revived on a second wall next year.

Katharine Fletcher of Quyon, well-known as the author of books on the Gatineau and for her environmental column in The Equity, was recently nominated for the ANTOR Canada Award. ANTOR is the Association of National Tourist Office Representatives, and the award is for excellence in travel writing.  The occasion for the nomination was her article, published in The Globe and Mail, on Florida's Great Birding Trail.