Bernard Brunet

When you travel to Tuktoyaktuk, NT, Canada, at a latitude of 69.4454 N in the middle of February, you are bound to witness winter at its finest in Canada. I found myself traveling the only road, in the early morning at a bone-chilling -38 Celsius, to visit the tiny village of Tuktoyaktuk for a photoshoot of the iconic Dempster Highway. Words cannot adequately describe the surreal colors and the tundra landscape that greeted me that morning. My camera struggled, and my fingers fumbled as I adjusted my settings in this otherworldly, moon-like environment. I can only attempt to convey and showcase through this image what it was like for me.

The weather in Aylmer during March is usually quite different from what we experienced on that particular evening. The temperature was warm, and there was a thick layer of fog covering the area, creating an uncommon but remarkable atmosphere. Being aware that this type of weather is not typical, I took the opportunity to capture some stunning photographs of our main street using my reliable FujiFilm X-Pro3 camera with a 35mm f1.4 lens. I knew that the weather conditions would not last long, so I quickly went out to chase some impressive shots.

Plaisance Falls historic site, a great spot for a picnic with family or friends! A scenic lookout, observation points and a hiking trail let you get right up close to the site’s spectacular natural beauty. With their 63-metre vertical drop, the Falls were an important economic factor in the founding of the 19th-century village of North Nation Mills, now just a memory. On-site interpretive activities bring to life this important chapter in the history of the Petite-Nation.

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The locality of Deschênes is situated on the North shore of the Ottawa River, at the southern end of the Vanier Road, near Aylmer, in the City of Gatineau. Its name dates back to 1686, the fateful year in which the Chevalier de Troyes went up the Ottawa River and crossed the Abitibi Region with a French military contingent, with orders to launch a surprise attack on the English Forts that stood on the shore of Hudson’s Bay. The celebrated Pierre Lemoyne d’Iberville accompanied him on that campaign.

By giving the name Deschênes to the portage path that he and his men walked up to go around the Deschênes Rapids1, the Chevalier de Troyes simply officialised the French equivalent of the name the Algonquin had already given to it. To them, it was Miciminj or a place where oaks grew in abundance. That portage path connected a small bay at the foot of the rapids to another at the head of the portage. It was known as the Portage du Haut (The Upper Portage), or Third Chaudière Portage, and used by travellers until the middle of the 19th century.

In 1821, after the amalgamation of the North-West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, Ithamar Hubble Day, an old fur trader, opened a small trading post on the Deschênes Portage. He went into business with another petty trader, Murdock McGillivray, and together until 1832 they traded furs in the Allumettes Lake Region and as far up as Lake Timiskaming. Having lost money in his dealings, Ithamar Day broke off his association with McGillivray and left the Ottawa Region2. The McConnell Brothers, who were very active in the timber industry on the Upper Ottawa, took up from where Day had left off and became part-time fur traders on the side. This lasted until approximately 18473.

Ithamar H. Day operated a sawmill, a forge and a fulling mill at the Deschênes Rapids around 1828.4Around 1840, Robert Conroy Senior seems to have followed in Day’s footsteps. Later on, around 1870, his two sons, Robert and William Conroy, had a large new sawmill built. From 1884 to 1888, they carried out improvements to increase the sawmill’s output capacity. During the same period, Narcisse Cormier operated a flour mill there. Wheat, oats and buckwheat, harvested by the region’s farms, were milled locally at Deschênes.

In 1895, the Deschênes Rapids industrial site was radically transformed. The site’s hydraulic powers were harnessed to produce electricity. The main shareholders of the Hull Electric Railway Company, William Conroy of Aylmer and Mr. Seybold of Ottawa, decided to have a dam and hydro-electric power station built to supply electricity to the Town of Aylmer and to power the electric tramway network that was being planned to connect Aylmer, Hull and Ottawa. In 1899, the Canadian Pacific Railway bought out the Hull Electric Railway Company and ran it until 1926, when it was sold out to Canadian International Paper (CIP). In 1946, when the Hull Electric Company closed down, the Gatineau Power Company, a subsidiary of the CIP, was in charge of the site’s management.

The ruins of the stone walls that still jut out of the foaming rapids of the Ottawa River remind us of Deschênes’ early industrial history.

New York City comprises 5 boroughs sitting where the Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean. At its core is Manhattan, a densely populated borough that’s among the world’s major commercial, financial and cultural centers. Its iconic sites include skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building and sprawling Central Park. Broadway theater is staged in neon-lit Times Square.

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China is a populous nation in East Asia whose vast landscape encompasses grassland, desert, mountains, lakes, rivers and more than 14,000km of coastline. Capital Beijing mixes modern architecture with historic sites such as the Forbidden City palace complex and Tiananmen Square. Shanghai is a skyscraper-studded global financial center. The iconic Great Wall of China runs east-west across the country's north.

Pet Photography by Bernard Brunet