Up the Gatineau! Articles
The following article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 27.
The Cascades Club
Carol Martin
The Cascades Club is a non-profit community organization, owned and managed by its members. The files gathered and preserved by Bob Hughes have been an invaluable source for this article.
In September 2000, the Cascades Club celebrated the life of one of the longest-lasting recreational clubs in the Gatineau region. Eighty years after its founding, this octogenarian organization was not only still alive and well, but active, youthful and vibrant. The secret of its success seems to be a kind of contradiction in terms: hard work that went into the creation and continuing survival of an organization designed for recreation. Its story is not only quite an endurance record, but also one of excellent survival skills. It's almost like a Biblical story, complete with flood, famine years, and faith.
The Cascades Club was founded at a time when a wave of organizations based on summer activities swept up the Gatineau, seemingly leaving a club or group at each stop along the railway line - and even "inland," at Kingsmere and Meech Lake, for example. It was the same along the Ottawa River, during the summers between the two world wars. Joan Finnigan aptly described those times "when a whole population of city people of all different classes - not just the wealthy any more — invaded (the) beaches ... to swim, to fish, to party, to relax, to dance, to sunbathe, to socialize, to let down their hair, to tour.1
The rivers and lakes of Chelsea were a magnet drawing city-dwellers to summer activities in the fresh air — and, for that matter, to autumn hiking in the country and winter skiing. Chelsea's population suddenly swelled during the summer, as "summer hotels" offered space for holiday guests, and local farmers built simple "cottages" on small lots (often on rocky hills not suitable for farming), renting them out or even selling the land. This brought new contacts to the community, as well as provided some cash to the farmers and stimulus for local business.
Eighty years ago, "summering" at a cottage or the summer hotel involved considerable planning and plain hard work. Ida Dale described preparations made by her family to spend the summer at a cottage in Chelsea in 1910.
"It was an exciting experience getting to Chelsea. ... Mother packed a large trunk containing bedding, towels, linen and kitchen necessities. Other suitcases held clothes, and boxes were crammed with assorted items such as shoes, rubber boots, raincoats, diapers, medical supplies, books and toys. All these preparations were undertaken for a summer stay of two adults, two children and a toddler! It was Daddy who arranged for Landry's Cartage, on Byward Market, to pick up the luggage by wagon and take it to Chelsea. He usually accompanied the load. Mother arranged for a "taxi" - a horse and buggy - to take us from Argyle Avenue to Union Station in Ottawa, where we boarded the CPR train going to the village of Chelsea.2
Upon arrival, they were taken by horse and buggy to the cottage. Ida thought that it was a lot of work for the mothers, who cooked meals on a wood stove and washed the clothes in a washtub, using a washboard for scrubbing, and ironing with sad irons heated on the stove. But there was plenty do in the area, and the whole family enjoyed it. Young and old enjoyed tennis, lawn bowling, baseball and horseshoes, swimming, picnics, fishing and berry-picking. Ida remembered the "Recreation Association of Chelsea Island" holding an annual Fair Day in August, when her mother used to dress as a gypsy and tell fortunes in a tent, either by teacup or by palm. The ladies had a bake table and offered lunch, and Eddie Bambrick from Chelsea village played for their Minstrel Show.3
It was in this kind of social climate that the Cascades Club was begun. An exact founding date seems never to have been recorded, but Stan Cross and Reggie Clarke recalled to Bob Hughes that it was organized about the end of the first World War. They are sure that it was established by 1920, and town plans and photographs show it "before the flood"; that is, before 1927 when dams on the Gatineau River at Chelsea and Farmer's Rapids raised the water level, obliterating, in particular, the village centres of Kirk's Ferry and Cascades. In the early 1920s, the clubhouse rested near the shores of the river, on land which had originally belonged to the Gordon family. By 1926, that land had been sold to Jason Cross, and the club house went with it.
Photographs of the village of Cascades at this time show tennis courts near the club house, a sand beach on the river, and of course there was a baseball diamond further up the road, at the top of the hill across from the schoolhouse. The oldest club souvenir from those early days is a photograph of the Cascades Baseball Club, 1922-23 hardball champions of the Lower Gatineau Valley. The little club house had a wood stove to "take off the chill" and contained a piano, used for dances and sing-alongs. There probably wasn't much else in it — the activities and fun came from the people who used it!
Records of other Chelsea groups help to explain why people would have wanted a club house for social gatherings. School Board records dutifully record "conditions for use" for a Chelsea school house in 1921. In December of that year, the trustees agreed to allow the Community Club of Chelsea to use the school (and wood to heat it) for their regular meetings at 50¢ an evening, but they also stipulated that no dancing was to be permitted, and the school room was to be properly cleaned before the time for opening the school.4 If the use of other community buildings was subject to similar or more stringent conditions, there may have been a groundswell of support for social club houses. On the other hand, Bob Hughes notes that club records show its building was used for community meetings during the 1920s, some of which likely had to do with plans for "the flood."
As the time for flooding the river came nearer, the club and its furnishings were moved. The piano, the baseball photo, two baseball trophies and any club records were transported to Cowden's (on Cowden Road, off the east end of Pine Road). Moving the club house was another proposition. It must have been quite a sight: they waited until the ground was frozen in the winter, and placed logs underneath to skid the building. It was pulled uphill, using several teams of horses, to higher ground (near today's Air Cascades site), where it remained for a further 50 years, put to new use as the Gatineau Boom cook house. The Gatineau Power Company signed an agreement with club representatives, giving them $600 for the club and the name, along with 3 1/2 acres of land as compensation.
The next ten years were a time of reorganization for both the community and the club. It wasn't only the club house that was moved; many people who lived in the heart of Cascades village had to decide whether to move "uphill" or away. By the 1930s, the energy was flowing again and a new clubhouse was being planned. The property was staked and fenced and letters of incorporation, dated April 24, 1935, were followed by an official deed from the Gatineau Power Company to the "Cascades Club, Incorporated." The Club's "Head Office" was duly noted on this document, "at Cascades, in the County of Wright."
The list of club officers included both cottagers and permanent residents, as follows:
William Saver, secretary,
Gordon Burnett, electrical contractor,
Hiram Foster and James Wightman, clerks,
John Shearer, superintendent,
Hugh Doran, contractor,
William McGiffin, salesman,
Samuel Hemphill, gentleman, ... all of the city of Ottawa
From Cascades we had
Gordon McRae, clerk,
Clifford Mereweather, superintendent,
Edward Cowden, gentleman,
Edward Jackson, gentleman.
Clearly, Cascades had double the number of gentlemen representatives that Ottawa offered, although in this context we may speculate whether the title was a euphemism for "retired."
The purpose of the club, set out in its charter, was
"To establish, maintain and conduct a social and athletic Club for the accommodation of its members and their friends...to provide a club house...and to promote friendly and social intercourse among its members."
The Gatineau Echo of July 26, 1935 listed the new officers of the Cascades Club, Inc., as
President: Gordon Burnett,
1st Vice-President, Frank Ditchfield,
2nd Vice-President, (Mr.) C. Mereweather,
and Secretary-Treasurer, Miss E. Jackson.
Directors included Mr. W. Olmstead, Miss Eilleen McCaffery, Mrs. Cramp, and Mrs. A. Shearer.
One of the first duties of the Club's new board was to make arrangements for a picnic to be held in August, but before that they had to finish their new club house. The Echo of August 2, 1935 reported that the Cascades club house, "dreamed of for years by many, was now nearing completion." "Since Monday morning three carpenters and an army of volunteer workers have been working 16 hours per day to get the building completed for the Cascades Day Picnic on Civic Holiday." The carpenters were Harvey Ditchfield, who had been hired to built it for $500, Bill Maxwell and Vital Gervais. The new club house was built to last on granite bedrock, and supported on several sturdy 16-inch-square by 40-foot-long BC fir boom timbers. When a local elder was asked whether the beams were a donation from the Gatineau Boom Company, the enigmatic answer came with a smile: "presumably with the company's knowledge."
In August, the club held a corn roast and bonfire, with Nick Carter's orchestra supplying music for community singing, "the sound of many melodious voices floating out on the crisp Gatineau air in perfect harmony, several cows in a nearby field joining in the choruses." The Echo correspondent added an "estimate by statisticians" that "if the corn cobs were placed end to end they would reach from Cascades to the middle of next week."
The ball park was an important site of club activity during the 1930s, and softball had replaced hardball. The Cascades softball club had an active summer schedule, playing in the "Upper (Gatineau) Section" against teams from Farm Point, Ste. Cécile, and Alcove. (The lower section included Meech Lake, Old Chelsea, Chelsea, Summerlea-Tenaga, and Kirk's Ferry.) The softball league was certainly very active into the 1940s and even 1950s. My brother Don Craig recalled his days in the 1950s playing on the team with David Ditchfield (first base), Norm Grant (outfield), and Preston Wilson. According to Don (who played shortstop or sometimes centre field), he had lots of fun playing softball there with Preston Wilson, "the wing-ding pitcher who could strike out 15 hitters in a row back then." In those days, most pitchers did a 360° windup and then let go with the ball. Not so Preston, who kind of whipped the ball across the plate. Don remembered one game "up the line," where a team objected to Preston's radical pitching, as they had never seen such a wind-up and delivery, and they chased the Cascades team out of their ball park with axe handles in about the 5th inning when they were behind about 10-nothing. Perhaps this helps to explain why there aren't more championship baseball pictures in the club.
Softball continued to be an important feature of the club up into the 1970s, and Preston Wilson coached kids' teams "to bring along future adult players" in the 1950s through the 1970s. My son Brent (who's now in his thirties) played here when he was about 10 years old, and the parents all cautioned the children not to go after the foul balls hit toward the ditch because it was full of poison ivy!
Many people still recall the hay rides, movies and square dances. Preston Wilson recounted that during the late 1940s and early 1950s, while the adults attended the club's dances, the kids would crawl underneath the dance floor to look up through the knot holes. The club's teen dances in the 1960s were popular affairs. Bob Hughes remembers the club house "jammed to the rafters" with up to 120 teenagers.
But in the 1950s and 1960s the Club was facing many problems, and in 1967 it was in danger of being sold for back taxes. Bob Hughes, the Club's president at the time, canvassed door-to-door selling memberships to keep it going. The 1970s brought beef barbeques and an orientation to develop year-round activities. With this in mind, members made an effort to establish a yearround facility, and in 1979 the existing club house was winterized and expanded with a structure containing two international-size squash courts, a weighttraining room, locker rooms, shower, and a bar facility. By the 1990s, the Club again had water-based activities, with its swimming and canoe facilities on the Gatineau, and a competitive dragon boat canoe team that placed with the best - in the top three in 1999 and 2000 – in area-wide competition.
In 2000 the club house added a new front deck, hosted country dancin', various dinners and a special "sleep-over" (complete with ghosts of the old Cascades ball players) for students visiting from Chelsea's "twin" town, Edson, Alberta. In September runners from Chelsea celebrating the "cross-Canada trail" ran from Chelsea's Town Hall to the Club carrying water from three oceans: the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic. In 2002, the club anticipates another milestone in its history when Preston Wilson, first elected a Junior Director in 1952 and as of 2001 again a Director, will have served the club in many capacities for 50 years.
The range of activities over the years is really quite remarkable. Apart from golf, the only other one I haven't directly seen (except in those "pre-flood" pictures) is tennis. Like those Biblical stories of dire events and then salvation, it has been literally a saga of flood, of "uphill" work, of new life, and even a return to the river. The Cascades Club has survived to a venerable age for an organization whose only purpose is to enable people to have fun together. Perhaps that's a secret many of us can benefit from - enjoy life and live longer!
Footnotes
- Joan Finnigan, Laughing All the Way Home, (Ottawa: Deneau, 1984), 122.
- Ida Dale, "Summers on Chelsea Island,"Up the Gatineau! Vol. 14, 20.
- Dale, 23.
- School Trustees of the School Municipality of St. Étienne de Chelsea (Protestant), Minutes, December 3, 1921.
- Gatineau Echo, August 30, 1935.
- The News, Special Edition, August 31, 2000.