GuideGatineau

There are two ways to get to Western Lodge, one via the Western Trail, now numbered 9, the other via Trail #2 which spurs off to descend from Ridge Road.

Both of these trails are longstanding. Surprisingly trail #2 is the older of the two having been there before the Lodge was. Trail #2 starts at P12 and is also known as the McCloskey Road (for clarification on this see comment below).

Prior to Western Lodge standing at its current spot the lookout it commands was known as McCloskey lookout.

At first Western Lodge wasn’t there, then it was, then it wasn’t again, and then it was once more.

When I say at first it wasn’t there, what I actually mean is that it was somewhere else.

After the Ottawa Ski Club built a lodge at Camp Fortune they were a little overwhelmed by the number of skiers who started to arrive and entertained several schemes for reducing the crowds there.

One of these was to build a lodge on the east side of the Gatineau River.

This didn’t sound as crazy at the time as it does today. Many skiers arrived by city bus to Old Chelsea and from there a ski to the Gatineau River is actually shorter than to Camp Fortune.

But the fact is that few people used the East Side Lodge, as it was known.

Information at the Canadian Ski Museum says that Western Lodge was built in 1930. What it doesn’t say is that Western Lodge had been East Side Lodge dragged across the frozen Gatineau River one previous winter and hauled up the McCloskey Road after the snow had gone.

A 1936 article though mentions that interest in Western Lodge had dropped off and by 1946 Western Lodge had been torn down for use as building material at Camp Fortune.

A 1947 story rumors that the building material might be going into a ski jump being built at Camp Fortune.

And yet, there it stands.

What inspired this lodge (that seems to have as many lives as a cat) to reappear?

I’m told it was reestablished by the Alpine Club of Canada who must have approached it from its steeper side (clarification in comments below).

In any case, by 1963 it is referenced again in the Ottawa Citizen as a place to ski to.

It seems to me that I came across something nostalgic about how the current Western Lodge lacks the signatures of old skiers that used to adorn the walls of the original. Knowing how often the original changed its form I hope there is solace in knowing those lost signatures weren’t the original originals.

I’d love to have anyone with other memories of Western Lodge add them here or send any old pictures to guidegatineau@gmail.com

Here are a few of the newspaper clipping mentioned, followed by a 1943 account from an Ottawa Ski Club guidebook.

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1933

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1936

A clipping from the Ottawa Citizen 1946

From an Ottawa Ski Club guide book dated 1943:

There are quite a few points along the long ridge from Kingsmere to Meach Lake where a glimpse of the Ottawa Valley may be obtained but nowhere perhaps is it so sould satisfyin, as from that old look-out which is said to be unrivalled in the whole Gatineau Land – the old McClosky’s look-out.

Never crowded, the lodge is as peaceful as the trail, and soli comfort can be found there – provided one has had the precaution of bringing needed supplies, ad there is no cafeteria.

This lodge has an interesting history. It stood for a number of years on the east shore of the Gatineau river, opposite Tenaga, where it had been set up at the request of a couple dozen or so of highly select members who wanted to get away from the madding crowd and enjoy more privacy. The main argument advanced however was that it would divert the traffic away from Camp Fortune and avoid the necessity of adding a new wing to a building that had too many wings already. It would be used also as a half way stop by long distance skiers going from Wakefield to Ottawa along the shores of the Gatineau river. Money being only a secondary consideration in those days of prosperity, the lodge was built, and widely advertised. None of the things that were expected happened. The select people did not come, the long distance skiers took to slaloming, and the few who ventured across the Gatineau river found the place so private, so lonely, that they retraced their tracks in all haste to join the gay throng at Camp Fortune. When the number of visitors over a week-end dwindled to a corporal’s guard, it was decided to move the building over to a place where there would be no river to cross and the East side Lodge became the Western Lodge, another case of East meeting West.