Mr. Maurice Blimkie sat in his favourite chair, a grey
(Lazy-boy) recliner. Beside him on the all, there were afew pictures of
his family and war buddies. We sat in a small room facing the highway
where he obviously spent much of his time. With a cheery smile he told us
that his memory wasn't very good any more, but we soon
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Mr. Maurice Blimkie
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found this to be untrue. We intro-duced ourselves and he
started immediately into the history of Chalk River. Throughout our
conversation, we needed only nod for him to continue. His love of the area
showed through in his words and he took pride in telling us about his
home.
By Alex Atfield
and Nadine Surette
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"The village of Chalk River itself started down
east of the Forest View Cemetery. The house that's down there now, on the
right just below the cemetery, is where William Field's used to be. When
the Fields moved from there up to what is now the Village of Chalk River,
they brought the name of the river with hem. Even before they moved, there
was a small settlement in this area. The village was divided in two by the
rail-way which goes through it.
The south side of the tracks was known
as Clarksville. The
north side was called Coppsville. The main street
at that time was this one right here (points to Highway 17) and it was
really not a street. It was a road connecting Pembroke,
Petawawa,
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Chalk River, and the area to the west. People
in this area depended mostly on lumbering for their living. There was also
a bit of farming, but as you can see, the farms are not much good around
here. The Pearly Lumber Company operated an assembly yard where they made
square timbers. In order to get them straight they used a string with
chalk on it. They'd put this chalk line down on the timber, snap it,
making a line for themselves on the lumber. They'd hew along that
line.
The chalk they used wasn't chalk like we use today; they would
burn these big alders and apparently it made a good substance like chalk.
They named that river the Chalk River |
on account of using the alders to produce
chalk.
The road from Petawawa came in past the internment camp at
Landry Crossing, went into the Forestry (Petawawa National Forestry
Institute), and crossed over the Chalk River where the bridge on Corry
Lake road is now. The road then came up Railway Street, turned onto Main
Street, down what is now High- way 17 and proceeded west down Ottawa
Street. That was the original road going to Deep River and Mattawa. It was
only in 1932 that they built Highway 17 on the north side of the rail-way
tracks down to Petawawa.
We originally came from Pembroke; my
father was a filer for the Pembroke Lumber Company. He decided to buy
a
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