An iconic new home for The Royal Canadian Geographical Society
IT WAS PURPOSE-BUILT to introduce Canada to Canadians and the world, but stood empty for more than a decade. Now, after an extensive facelift, the former Canada and the World Pavilion at 50 Sussex Dr. has reopened to the public as a place to celebrate Canada — this time as the Centre for Geography and Exploration and the new national headquarters of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. The striking glass-walled building, built into a rocky promontory on unceded Algonquin territory on the Ottawa River, is a familiar landmark for Ottawans, who have long been drawn to the property for its picture-perfect views of Rideau Falls. But the history and symbolism of the location are likely less known. Rideau Falls marks where the eponymous river joins the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Canada’s two largest provinces — a symbolic connection between English- and Frenchspeaking Canadians. For more than 6,000 years before Confederation, the Ottawa River and its tributaries supported Indigenous Peoples and served as important trade routes. In June of 1613, Samuel de Champlain, paddling up the Ottawa from Montreal, came upon a confluence with a “wonderful waterfall” — actually two falls, separated by the tip of a treecovered island — which he called Rideau for its resemblance to a curtain. More than 200 years later, a Scottish emigrant to Canada, Thomas Mckay, harnessed the industrial potential of the falls, erecting a sawmill and grist mill on land to the east of the Rideau River and on Green Island, as it is today known. (He also built nearby Earnscliffe, later the home of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and Rideau Hall, now the official residence of the Governor General.) Another Bytown lumber baron would profit from the falls over the years: W.C. Edwards, whose sawmill on the land at 50 Sussex closed in 1922, although portions of it still make up the basement and lower levels of the building that stands there today. In the 1930s, the National Research Council established offices and laboratories for defence research in the old Edwards mill, including an assembly plant for antichemical warfare gas masks. The National Capital Commission acquired the property for parkland in the 1950s and built the pavilion in 2000 to showcase Canada’s achievements in technology, science, medicine, art, peacekeeping and sport. Declining attendance forced the pavilion’s closure in 2005, and over the next 12 years the site remained unoccupied, the tale of its rich past seemingly forgotten, its future uncertain. Today, however, visitors can stand on the refurbished building’s balcony, drink in the panorama of the mighty Ottawa River and the roar of the falls, and imagine the thousands of years of human history that occurred on and around this very spot unfurling before their eyes.
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society moves into a new home in Ottawa