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Up the Gatineau! Article

This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 14.

Gatineau Labyrinth: The Laflêche Cave

Joanne MacDonald (1978)

A hunter named Dubois was in hot pursuit of a bear near Wilson's Corners one day in 1865 when he fell into a hole among some loose rocks. After digging himself out he realized that he had discovered a marvellous labyrinth of chambers encrusted throughout with stalactites and stalagmites.

This unusual experience was followed a few years later by his equally peculiar death. Dubois, so the story goes, was eaten by a bear who had escaped one of his traps. It would seem that he had to be punished for discovering such a marvel of nature, and who better to do so than the bear!

Shortly after his fall, the ill-fated Dubois took Ed Pelissier, Mayor of St. Pierre de Wakefield to visit the site. Pelissier bought the property. He acted as guide to the occasional visitors to the “Caverne Pelissier” and was the sole interpreter of its mysteries until he sold it in 1923.

The first visitor with scientific eyes was Dr. James A. Grant in 1869. He published a detailed account of the Wakefield Cave in the Transactions of the Ottawa Natural History Society. His description of the setting is still valid today.

The mouth of the cave is fully 18 feet in diameter, of oval shape, beautifully arched and overhanging it are pine and cedar trees of considerable size. The entire height of the mountain is 300 feet and the entrance to the cave is about 100 feet from the summit. At the base of the mountain is a small lake which discharges in the Gatineau River through a mountain gorge of exquisite beauty.

As thousands of people would do after him, Grant entered by descending the 74 foot long corridor to the Great Room, which is 125 x 20 x 9 feet in dimension. He explored the side chambers and descended to the lower levels, noting the change from loose rock to fine sand on the floor. Stalactites drew his eyes to the roof at every turn, and by the illumination of his lamp he noted the presence of other rock types, mainly quartzite, pyroxene, serpentine and iron pyrites.

The entire cave excepting the entrance is perfectly devoid of light; the atmosphere is moist but exceedingly pure. even to the extent of our explorations and a uniform temperature of about 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unfortunately man was later to wreak havoc with this delicate balance in the cave‘s environment. Obviously impressed with what he had seen Grant continued:

...the Wakefield Cave, forming the eighth in Laurentian Rocks and by far the most interesting and attractive so far explored, being in fact, the largest cavern in the entire Dominion of Canada.

Not surprisingly, this quotation was used in later tourist brochures!

Grant's casual comment suggesting that “the parts already visited are only an entrance to vaste labyrinths yet to be explored” triggered an imaginative reaction from a writer in recent years. He postulates on lost civilizations and remains of “early man” to match those of the Old World in the yet-to-be-discovered chambers.

Such wild speculation belongs more in the last century when knowledge of these subjects was in its infancy. Benjamin Sulte, an historian recounting his visit to the Cave in 1876 wrote that “ordinary mountains are not perforated in this fashion". He poetically wonders if primitive man, fairies, wolf boys, sorcerers or the Flood played a part in the Cave's creation.

No trace of primitive man was ever found — or is ever likely to be found — in the cave. The climatic events of the Ice Age made this part of the world uninhabitable until less than 10,000 years ago. The only bones discovered in the cave were those of foxes, beavers and otters. Sulte's fairies, wolf boys and sorcerers were careful not to leave behind any archaeological evidence! However, the signs of water activity in the caverns were obvious to Sulte even if he was inclined to see it as a flood in the Biblical sense rather than the relentless erosion of percolating streams. Not only were there the water-worn surfaces of the interior, but water lay in the bottom of the cave in “wells”. Early speculation assumed correctly that this water connected to Lac Pelissier at the foot of the mountain outside.

Sulte had some faint-hearted moments as he descended in the area of the wells, following his intrepid guide Pelissier, who slithered on his stomach through narrow openings. Sulte liked the labyrinth passages best and marvelled at the whiteness and shades of grey in the walls. “Toute la caverne est propre comme un sou neuf“, he exclaimed. He also noted that vandals had already axed out some of the stalactites.

An earlier distinguished visitor may have wished that she had stayed home one snowy day in February, 1874. Lady Dufferin describes her visit to the cave in My Canadian Journal. The Governor-General, Lord Dufferin, his wife and party lunched at the Pelissier farmhouse after leaving Government House in Ottawa at 8:00 a.m. by sleigh. Travelling the two miles from the farmhouse to the cave over a narrow, bumpy lumber road. the party left the sleigh on the lake below and walked up to its entrance. There they cast off their fur cloaks and, candles in hand, followed Pelissier.

Being a resourceful person, Lady Dufferin, accompanied by Lady Harriet, completed the tour in spite of great difficulties with their petticoats. “Especially in this doubled-up position, we had to cross a pool of water”, she complained. They descended ladders “which in the darkness appeared to lead down to the middle of the earth”, Lady Dufferin wrote. Emerging with dirty clothes, and after facing the problems of a broken sleigh on the way home, she managed to write diplomatically “the place requires a geologist's eye to appreciate it thoroughly.”

The cave is still awaiting a thorough geological investigation. More is known of the general geological phases since Grant's time. Dr. Donald Hogarth, in A Guide to the Geology of the Gatineau-Lièvre District, suggests that the caverns were most probably formed in the Pleistocene period or even earlier. Current dates would set this at more than a million years ago. Hogarth explains that:

Rainwater made acidic by dissolved carbon dioxide percolated throughout the limestone and enlarged some of the openings, a common process in the creation of limestone caverns. Lusk Cave and Laflêche Cavern near Wilson's Corners were formed in this manner.

The stalactites on the roof and the stalagmites on the floor are the mineral deposits left after the evaporation of water. The sand and gravel in the lower levels of the cave are thought to have been deposited by the Champlain Sea. “Deposition of this material must have occurred when the circulation of underground water was much greater than it is today“, continued Hogarth.

The Champlain Sea, complete with seals, covered much of the lower Gatineau River valley in the fairly recent period of about 10,000 years ago. Mile Hill south of Chelsea is one of the ancient terraces of the Sea.

The year 1923 was the beginning of a new phase in the history of the cave. It was opened on a grand scale to the general public at fifty cents a tour. Picnic tables, a snack bar and later on in 1950, a hotel sprang up at the side of the lake under the direction of Zephir Laflêche.

Whirlwind efforts by Laflêche and the 30-member Hull Attraction Company resulted in the construction of wooden ramps and stairways inside the cave and a better access road from the unpaved St. Pierre de Wakefield Road, in time for the official opening.

Brochures were published featuring the Great Room with its prominent electric wiring.

An immense natural cavity of 475,000 cubic feet, where are seen Chambers, Halls and underground Galleries etc. The Stalactites and Stalagmites are very remarkable. The Guide draws your attention to a quantity of curious formations which resemble human faces, animals and various shapes. A powerful electric system as well as solid stairways are installed in different parts of the Cave which assure to Tourists a perfect security.

The lights had coloured displays that some purists found objectionable. In 1933 a Montreal journalist wrote an article criticizing the lighting for ruining the cave's wild beauty.

An advertising poster of the period with photographs of the interior of the cave stated: “Don't fail to see the Laflêche Cave. the Greatest Natural Marvel in Canada at Wilson‘s Corners".

The cave was a summer-only operation. About 18 miles from Ottawa, it was a short side trip for dignitaries visiting the Capital. In 1923 it was visited by Lady Byng of Vimy, in 1929 by Lady Willingdon, in 1935 by an official tour of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1947 by Monseigneur Vachon, the Archbishop of Ottawa and Viscount Alexander of Tunis. A mass was actually held in the cave in about 1947, following a fairly common European tradition of holding religious services in caves and grottos.

When the property changed hands for the third time in 1958, the owners claimed attendance of about 35,000 visitors a year. Zephir Lafleche had been in charge of the cave for 35 years. {Upon his death in Hull in 1977 in his 100th year, he was described as a merchant of the city of Hull for over 75 years.)

Laflêche Cave
Laflêche Cave, Wilson's Corners Archives Nationales du Québec, Centre de l'Outaouais, through the courtesy of Pierre-Louis Lapointe.

The new owners of the cave made what was a serious mistake both financially and ecologically. They had a 176 foot long exit tunnel gouged out of the rock by coal miners from Sudbury. This tunnel allowed visitors to exit at ground level near the lake rather than having to retrace their steps inside the cave.

The tunnel created a draft that upset the previously stable atmosphere of the cave. Airborne bacteria blew in and bacterial growths slowly masked the white walls with grey. More serious was the periodic freezing of some of the concretions in the lower levels that resulted in their complete destruction. As the conditions inside the cave deteriorated, so did things outside. Vandalism became a serious problem to the hotel and the site, and tourism dropped.

I visited the cave in 1973. The wooden steps were damp, greasy and positively rickety in places. The young man who was my guide hit the famous hanging stone with a mallet for us so that we could appreciate the awesome vibrations. There was a sad tone from the stone and in the whole cave.

With the bankruptcy of Gaetan Dagenais in 1974, the Laflêche Cave was closed. Since 1975. the cave, lake and 325 acres have been taken over by a succession of owners, many of whom intended to re-open the site. A heavy steel door now closes off the artificial tunnel in an attempt to restore the cavern to its former natural state. An open-work metal gate closes off the original entrance to prevent the re-occurrence of vandalism.

Presently, however, the cave remains closed. The Société Quèbecoise de Spélèologie and local provincially-subsidized agencies have been among those over the years to express possible interest in the site. Whatever its future however, as a labyrinth at our doorstep, it is definitely noteworthy.


Volume 14 table of content.

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