Gatineau Quebec: there is no there, there

It was my first time staying in Gatineau Quebec. This is a city of almost 300,000 directly across from Canada’s nation’s capital, Ottawa, population now more than one million. While I lived in Ottawa for a few years back in the 1970s, and have been a frequent visitor since, I have never really spent any time in what used to be known as Hull, a rather dreary name, identified back in the day with a smelly and unsightly pulp and paper mill. The region is predominantly French as it is obviously located in Quebec. But one of the things that struck me most is just how overwhelmingly French the area is, given the fact it is immediately across from Ottawa in predominantly English-speaking Ontario and that the entire region has numerous government workers in Canada’s officially bilingual civil service. Wikipedia, however, says Gatineau is the "most bilingual city in Canada.” Could have fooled me. I’d give that award to Ottawa, which I always say is Canada’s long hoped bilingual model and which doesn’t exist anywhere else on such a scale. I was expecting to find a more interesting and diverse city, in the sense of varying neighbourhoods. For example, a traditional downtown shopping district or a bars and restaurants niche. No such luck. An Ottawa friend suggested there isn’t any such area. Ottawa, by contrast, is choked full of vibrant neighbourhoods, teeming with restaurants, bars, coffee houses and boutiques. On a balmy Saturday night this month it seemed the entire city was out, filling patios and walking along the streets enjoying a fantastic summer evening. Gatineau not so much. Upon first entering Gatineau on the main thoroughfare, the Portage Bridge over the Ottawa River connecting Ontario and Quebec, you encounter a massive cluster of 1970s-era high rise buildings. They were put there on the directive of former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who wanted to provide the French side of the Ottawa River an economic boost which also accorded with his official bilingualism policy of more equality between the French and the English. That wasn’t a bad idea. But physically it resulted in a concrete urban wasteland. Looming government office towers created an empty street canyon, only peopled on a Saturday night with a few waiting at bus stops along the tunnel-like Boulevard Maisonneuve. These brutalist masses of concrete, so last century, would hardly be built that way today. Mind you, I didn’t drive around a lot of the city. But what I did see was endless boulevards and sprawl, and I did take a drive through Gatineau’s east side and out on to the highway to Montreal. But to be fair, the city did seem to have a nice park system in and around the Ottawa and conjoining Gatineau rivers. However, overall, I was left thinking of the famous quote by US writer Gertrude Stein about her hometown Oakland, California. “There is no there, there.”

- Ron Stang, Windsor Ontario Canada, a frequent traveller