Across the Ottawa River and outside on the southwest side of the majestic Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., designed by Douglas Cardinal as a sculptural monument to Canada’s First Peoples, there are ample commemorative plaques, but none indicate the area is also the site of an ancient Algonquin ancestral burial ground.

There is information about the Digester Tower, a “monument to our industrial heritage,” and one plaque recognizes the late photographer Malak Karsh. A piece of art frames the view of Parliament from across the river, commemorating the log drivers on the Ottawa River. There is a three-part history of the area, that begins with a small paragraph about how 6,000 years ago, “Indigenous people lived here seasonally, across from the present-day site of Parliament Hill.” However, despite having been aware that this is the location of a burial ground since research about it was published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology in 2015—which former museum archeologist Jean-Luc Pilon estimates to be more than 4,000 years old—the National Capital Commission (NCC) and the Canadian Museum of History have not erected any signage to that effect.

The ossuary’s approximate location surrounds the E.B. Eddy Digester Tower, which stands on the land between the museum building and the parking lot for the Kruger paper plant next door. The existence of the Digester Tower—once part of a sulphite mill that began operating in 1888—serves to illustrate just how much this land has been disturbed over the hundreds of years it has been occupied by colonial settlers.

The National Capital Commission’s first public acknowledgement of the ancient ossuary as outlined on a map included in its Ottawa River North Shore Parklands Plan, published in April 2018. Screenshot courtesy of the NCC’s Ottawa River North Shore Parklands Plan

There is one monument to Indigenous people who once used this territory: a statue of Tessouat, an Algonquin chief from the 1600s. That statue, which faces away from the river and stands on top of the approximate location of the ossuary, was unveiled in 2017. By that time, the NCC and the Canadian Museum of History had already been made aware of the existence of the ancient burial ground.

“That statue is basically in the backyard of the museum, between the museum and the river. That’s one significant acknowledgement of the long-standing Algonquin presence in the what became the national capital, but it doesn’t refer to the burial site, which is literally a stone’s throw from that location,” said Carleton University professor Randy Boswell, who has conducted historical research on the location of the ossuary.

The statue of Tessouat stands facing away from the river, with its back turned away from the approximate site of an ancient ossuary. The Hill Times photograph by Chelsea Nash

In 2018, the NCC released its Ottawa River North Shore Parklands Plan, with which it plans to redevelop the Quebec shore of the Ottawa River into “vibrant public parklands” with “improved shoreline access and lively waterfront areas.”

“When the NCC published that North Shore Parklands document, that was the first real, I would say, official recognition of this historical ossuary, as it was called in that document,” said Boswell. The report situates the ossuary on a map, between the history museum grounds and the Kruger plant’s rear parking lot—the one closest to the river.

The plan includes an intention to “consider the area surrounding the Digester Tower, the former Hull Landing, and the known remnants as a historical and archaeological complex of interest to be protect and showcased,” and to “define the event site boundaries so as to respect the sanctity of a possible nearby ossuary.”

The official submission for approval of the parklands plan submitted to the NCC board of directors included more specific language to “protect and enhance the Indigenous Ossuary,” by preserving the “quality of the viewscape from the Ottawa side” and preserving the ossuary by delineating event space while maintaining public access to the shoreline and pathway.

In terms of acknowledging the ossuary’s existence of memorializing it in any way, Algonquin Grand Chief Savanna McGregor said the First Nations whose unceded lands are implicated in this—Kitigan Zibi and Pikwàkanagàn First Nation—”they haven’t sat at the table to discuss it yet.”

In 2020, Ian Badgely, the NCC’s archeologist, told The Toronto Star that further archeological research could be conducted on the burial site.

“It’s possible that some of the ossuary is still intact,” he said at the time.

The NCC did not respond to specific questions about this ossuary and its plans to “protect and enhance” it. In a statement, it said “the NCC is responsible for the protection and management of archaeological resources and human remains on its lands. Through our federal land use, design, and transaction approvals process, we consider many factors including the potential of a proposed project to disturb or damage archaeological resources. We conduct an environmental assessment to ensure that a project will not adversely impact the environment, including archaeological resources. We also make recommendations for these purposes for projects on other federal lands in the National Capital Region.”

The NCC’s approach is governed by its “Protocol for the Co-management of Archaeological Resources with the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation.”

Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt uncovered the ancient ossuary in 1843, and collected some of the bones he found for his personal curio cabinet. Photograph courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

The ossuary was first uncovered in 1843, by Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt, a physician and antiquities collector, who uncovered the remains of 20 individuals, and collected some of the bones for display in his curio cabinet. He later published a detailed description of his findings, but failed to specify which side of the Ottawa River he had found the burial site. This led to it being misplaced in the history books for more than 100 years, as it was mistakenly believed to be located on the north side of the Wellington and Bay intersection in Ottawa, where Library and Archives Canada is now headquartered. The location of the actual site was rediscovered by Boswell, in his examination of historical newspaper records.

The burial is estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 years old. Jean-Luc Pilon, a retired curator of archeology at the Canadian Museum of History, co-published articles with Boswell correcting the record regarding its location and, using Van Cortlandt’s description of his findings, estimated how old the burial might be. Van Cortlandt found a communal burial with the remains of 20 individuals, whose bones had been covered in red ochre.

“The importance of that is that these people died elsewhere. The remains were eventually excavated or exhumed, and then prepared ritually with red ochre, and then put into a communal grave, so they’re all mixed up. So there’s no more individuals. It’s a collective. And that’s a burial pattern that is quite ancient,” Pilon said in an interview.

A burial ground in that same style was found on Aylmer Island by an archeologist with the museum in the 1940s. There were animal bones that were buried with those people, one of which Pilon carbon dated. That bone was more than 4,000 years old, which is what led Pilon to conclude that this burial was similarly ancient.

The area has been so disturbed over the last several hundred years that conducting further archeological work on the ossuary would prove challenging, Pilon said.

The original Centre Block building in 1914. Sand used to create the mortar was taken from the banks of the north shore of the Ottawa River, from the same site where an ancient ossuary lay. Photograph courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

The site was used as a quarry for sand in the 1860s—some of which would make its way into the mortar of the original Parliament Buildings. Then, the E.B. Eddy plant—to which the Digester Tower belonged—was built in 1901. Finally, the Canadian Museum of Civilization—now the Canadian Museum of History—was built in the 1980s.

The E.B. Eddy plant in Hull, pictured in 1937. Photograph courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

Pilon said despite the many layers of fill that have been piled on top of the burial, it’s possible some of it could still be intact, but that it would be difficult to draw an exact boundary around the ancient burial site, given these many disturbances, and that other, individual graves were also found in the area.

“It can’t be done with a fine pencil. It has to be done with a broad brush,” he said.

“Even if there is nothing more than a scrap of bone from one burial—who knows if it’s an old one or a more recent one—the nature of the place, the intrinsic nature of the place that was used for thousands of years, to put the mortal remains of ancestors and those people who have passed on—the intrinsic nature of the place does not change,” he said.

“Some of the uses that have been made of that area, it doesn’t sort of recognize [that] fact,” he said.

“How do Indigenous people they feel if there’s a beer garden on on a place that used to be a burial, even if all of the bones are gone?”

The Hill Times

 

See all stories BY CHELSEA NASH