Low Down Articles
Houses of the Gatineau Hills
Low Down Articles
Houses of the Gatineau Hills
Article 45 of 74
This article first appeared in the "Houses of the Gatineau Hills" column in the September 29, 2010 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
Reality defines Bates farm in Chelsea
by Mark Burgess
The memories linger. One of Edna Carman's first was of her mother holding her up, as a three-year-old, to watch the farmhouse neighbouring hers burn to the ground.
A new house was built on the same foundation and Leila Bates uses Carman's early memory to measure her home's age. According to this bit of oral history, the house Bates shares with her husband, Keith, is 112 years old..
Keith Bates was born at 54 Carman Rd. in 1932. His parents, Thomas Bates and Pearl Burnett, had moved to the hilltop five years earlier.
In 1927, the hydro company flooded the Gatineau River, drowning the Bates' land in what had been the Cascades village, leaving them reaching for higher ground.
They settled on the 108 acres on Carman Road, establishing a dairy and sheep farm on both sides of what would become, in the 1940s, Hwy 105. From that point on, their holding started to shrink.
First, a portion was expropriated to make room for the highway, which complicated the business of farming because the pasture was on the far side of the new road. Keith and Leila, who married in 1956, would herd the animals across the highway in the morning and bring them back at night.
"You can imagine when the traffic got worse and worse and worse," Leila said. "So we gave up on that."
Their acreage shrank a bit more in the 1970s, when the government took another 12 acres for the future A5, which should be making its way through their fields in the next couple of years
They still kept farming, though, keeping their sheep and switching to beef until Keith had heart surgery in 1997.
"We've had trouble finding beef we like since then," Leila lamented.
A few years ago, the Bates sold another 10 acres, and the former cow pasture across the highway is currently up for grabs.
Still, the old barn and house on the hilltop remain popular visuals for passersby and subjects for artists. The Bates' have depictions by Ottawa painter Sylvio Gagnon and Chelsea artist Linda Wright hanging in their home.
Despite the history surrounding the Bates house, there is no heritage designation for it.
Leila is happy to keep it that way.
"They put a plaque up and you can't do anything. You can't change anything," she said. "Though they do help with repairs."