• Lumber mills began to appear in the early 19th century at the Chaudière Falls, in the heart of what would one day be the Cities of Ottawa and Hull / Gatineau. For most of the 20th Century, the site was dominated by the E.B. Eddy Pulp and Paper Mills. This is one of the oldest buildings on the site, viewed from a loft which overlooks the space where huge paper machines once stood.
  • While most images collected were utilitarian record shots, the photographers were alert for magical moments where light and composition offered a unique artistic photograph, and were encouraged to pause to capture it. The moody lighting of this winter day, combined with the brickwork texture and colour, was one of those moments, alertly spotted and skillfully captured by photographer Raymond Massé.
  • This traditional press, still in use in Croatia to entertain and educate tourists, represents the second stage of olive oil production.
  • This somewhat misleading image was published to accompany an article by a correspondent to one of the many French popular weeklies of the 1870s. Since the artist was working "d'après le texte", he presumably had never been to Canada, much less a lumber camp. This may be why the tidy and well-groomed lumberjacks are accommodated in a remarkably spacious, well-built building with fine dishware on the table. In fact, everything about the image suggests a French village inn of the period. Still, it is a charming depiction of how Europeans envisaged the life of Canadian lumbermen as it might have been.
  • Then for a brief few years, a steam passenger train service once again reappeared in Ottawa. It featured this locomotive, built in 1907 in Sweden. Starting in 1992, the Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield Steam train took locals and visitors on a day trip up the Gatineau River to Wakefield. It used tracks originally built by the Ottawa and Gatineau Valley Railway in 1891. Taken over by the CPR, the route had seen passenger and freight service until the late 1960s, after which the town of Chelsea had preserved the line in anticipation of an opportunity such as the steam train. Sadly, flooding in 2011 damaged the line beyond economical repair and ended the popular excursion. The passenger coaches were scrapped, but the locomotive can still be seen in the Dalton Ecological Park in Gatineau, Quebec.
  • Among the countless small objects left behind in a supervisory office was this set of keys that once controlled access to clocks, cabinets and pumps. While unremarkable at the time they were photographed, a visual record of such basic workplace technology as it existed in the early twenty-first century and earlier might not be preserved were it not for the efforts of the Workers' History Museum and its volunteers.
  • Woodworkers have used chisels to cut and shape wood since Neolithic times, and designs have changed little over thousands of years. Most chisels have rectangular cross-sections, with the end ground to a square, sharp edge, and with a wooden handle. Gouges are chisels with a curved cross-section for cutting curves. This set is from a collection belonging to Gus Hatfield (1916-1981), whose name can be seen incised on many of the handles.
  • The story of the ON-To-Ottawa Trek During the Great Depression, the Canadian Government established the Unemployment Relief Scheme. It was a nationwide system of camps for single, unemployed men. The beneficiaries of the program worked on road construction and other physically demanding projects, in exchange for room and board and 20 cents a day. In 1935, about 1,500 men from various British Columbia camps went on strike in demand for better working conditions. After a few weeks of protests, and encouraged by many expressions of support from the community, they decided to go to Ottawa to lay their demands before the Prime Minister. It was the beginning of the On-To-Ottawa Trek, a journey that has been a source of inspiration to the workers’ movement in Canada for more than eight decades.
  • "In its first half-century, the Public Service Alliance of Canada evolved from a marriage of convenience between two rival public service organizations in 1966 into one of the country’s strongest and most progressive unions. The story of how this came to be is a tribute to those members, staff and leaders whose vision and dedication set a steady (if sometimes stormy) course over the past five decades. The history of PSAC has not only been one of celebration, but of reverses and setbacks. The union has faced many obstacles, internal and external, as it grew, learning collectively from its failures as well as its successes. Its history so far is, of course, a work in progress: much remains unfinished, and many new and complex challenges lie ahead. But the union's hard-won maturity and ability to adapt have equipped it well to face the future with confidence."
  • This fifty-year history is a celebration of the achievements of a labour organization. It is also an attempt to preserve the union’s record for future generations of members and activists. The book opens with the Taxation Staff Association, founded in 1943; this became the Taxation Component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada in 1966. As the Component became ever-more successful, it changed its name to the Union of Taxation Employees in 1987. Over the years, the union became known for its militancy and effectiveness but also, remarkably, for establishing good relations at every level with the employer, the Canada Revenue Agency. Truly, something to celebrate.
  • "Fifty years ago, the leaders of many different, often competing, associations came together at a convention to formally establish a union for federal government workers. This represented the culmination of years of struggle to achieve what other workers outside the federal public sector had enjoyed for decades. It was the first step to bringing about real change in our members’ workplaces. It helped families and built communities. In 50 years, our membership has grown to include public sector workers in the north, university teaching and research assistants, workers in Indigenous communities and more. From the beginning, PSAC recognized the need to reach out to the broader labour movement, working in Canada and internationally to build solidarity with the struggles of working people around the world. As we celebrate our first 50 years, the work of building our union goes on."

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