"La Ville De Gatineau" a Gatineau Travel Page by johngayton

The whole of what is now the Canadian National Capital Region has a slightly complex history in as much as everywhere in the area, including the so-called capital city of Ottawa, has had several different names in the relatively recent past. For instance, Ottawa was called Bytown a mere 150 years ago and as to Gatineau, well, It seems that Gatineau as a town didn't exist at all until 1939 and was named after the eponymous river.

This creates a little further confusion in that whilst most accounts have the river named after a French fur trader called Nicolas Gatineau who apparently drowned in its waters in 1683, there is also a claim from the native Algonquins who assert that their name for the river has always been "Te-nagadino-zibi", meaning "the river that stops". I suppose we'll have to presume that The Gatineau Hills (and Park) were named after the river, no matter??

Gatineau's history from 1939 however is well documented and is one of growth through amalgamation, the city growing as it absorbed its neighbourhoods in several swathes, with the last municipal re-organisation in 2002 swallowing up Hull and the rest of the surrounding former cities of Aylmer, Buckingham, and Masson-Angers.

The modern Gatineau now has a population of about a quarter of a million which ranks it as the 17th largest city in Canada and is now firmly established as the Francophone half of the Capital Region.