Hull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand fonctionnaires or civil servants. It is named after Kingston-upon-Hull in the United Kingdom.
Hull is in the Outaouais region and is located within the City of Gatineau; the name "Gatineau" itself sometimes is more specifically used to refer to a mostly-suburban former city of Gatineau on the east side of the Gatineau River.
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Hull is located near the confluence of the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers.
Navigation beyond Ottawa-Hull on the Ottawa River is still difficult as watercraft must be removed from the Ottawa River due to obstacles posed by rapids such as the Rapides des Chaudières or "Kettle Rapids".
Prior to amalgamation in 2002, Hull's population was 66,246 (2001 Census of Canada).
Approximately 80% of the hullois or hulloise residents speak French as their first language and about 9% English as their first language (2001 Census of Canada).
Hull is a former municipality in the Province of Quebec and the location of the oldest non-native settlement in the National Capital Region. It was founded on the north shore of the Ottawa River in 1800 by Philemon Wright at the portage around the Chaudière Falls just upstream (or west) from where the Gatineau and Rideau Rivers flow into the Ottawa. Wright brought his family, five other families and twenty-five labourers[1] and a plan to establish an agriculturally based community to what was a mosquito-infested wilderness. But soon after, Wright and his family took advantage of the large lumber stands and became involved in the timber trade. Originally the place was named "Wrightville" (or sometimes "Wrightsville" or "Wrightstown"),[2] which survives as the name of a neighborhood in Hull.
The Gatineau River, like the Ottawa River, was very much the preserve of the draveurs, people who would use the river to transport logs from lumber camps until they arrived downriver. (The Gatineau River flows south into the Ottawa River which flows east to the St Lawrence River near Montreal.) The log-filled Ottawa River, as viewed from Hull, appeared on the back of the Canadian one-dollar bill until it was replaced by a dollar coin (the "loonie") in 1987, and the very last of the dwindling activity of the draveurs on these rivers ended a few years later.
Ottawa was founded later, as the terminus of the Rideau Canal built under the command of Col. John By as part of fortifications and defences constructed after the War of 1812. Originally named Bytown, Ottawa did not become the Canadian capital until the mid-19th century after the original parliament in Montreal was torched by a rioting mob of English-speaking citizens on April 25, 1849. Its greater distance from the American border also left the new parliament less vulnerable to foreign attack.
Nothing remains of the original 1800 settlement; the downtown Vieux-Hull sector was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1900 which also destroyed the original pont des Chaudières (Chaudière Bridge), a road bridge which has since been rebuilt to join Ottawa to Hull at Victoria Island.
In the 1940s, during World War II, Hull, along with various other regions within Canada, such as the Saguenay, Lac Saint-Jean, and Île Sainte-Hélène, had Prisoner-of-war camps.[3] Hull's prison was simply labeled with a number and remained unnamed just like Canada's other war prisons.[3][4] The prisoners of war (POWs) were sorted and classified into categories by nationality and civilian or military status.[3] In this camp, POWs were mostly Italian and German nationals. During the Conscription Crisis of 1944 the prison eventually included Canadians who had refused conscription.[3] Also, prisoners were forced into hard labour which included farming and lumbering the land.[3]
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the decaying old downtown core of Hull was transformed by demolition and replacement with a series of large office complexes. Some 4,000 residents were displaced, and many businesses uprooted along what was once the town's main commercial area.[5]
In 2002, the Parti Québécois, leading the provincial government, merged the cities of Hull, Gatineau, Aylmer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers into one city. Although Hull was the oldest and most central of the merged cities, the name Gatineau was chosen for the new city. The main reasons given were that Gatineau had more inhabitants, it was the name of the former county, the valley, the hills, the park and the main river within the new city limits: thus its name was less restrictive than Hull. Some argued that the French name of Gatineau was more appealing than a name from England to most French-speaking residents. Since the former city of Hull represents a large area distinct from what was formerly known as Gatineau, to be officially correct and specific many people say "vieux secteur Hull" (the former Hull part of town) when speaking of it. The name "Hull" was often informally used to refer to the whole urban area on the northern shore of the river facing Ottawa, so much so that the National Capital Region was often referred to as "Ottawa-Hull", especially in Quebec outside the immediate area.
In 2004, there was a referendum to decide whether Hull would remain in Gatineau. The majority of those who voted in Hull voted against the deamalgamation, and the status quo prevailed.
Hull now depends primarily on the civil service as an economic mainstay. A number of federal and provincial government departments are located here. The policy of the federal government to distribute federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River led to the construction of several massive office towers to house federal civil servants in 1970s and 80s; the largest of these are Place du Portage and Terrasses de la Chaudière, occupying part of what had been the downtown core of Hull.
Two paper mills (Scott Paper and the E.B. Eddy division of Domtar Inc.) still retain some industrial facilities on the Ottawa River in the centre of Hull, Quebec.
Hull is also the home to the Casino du Lac-Leamy and to the Canadian Museum of Civilization directly opposite Parliament Hill. Hull is also Outaouais's cultural centre.