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| ...seen sticking up lewdly from the bottom left. |
The signature footprints of the Parliament buildings are hard to miss. Of course, the Centre Block shown here was destroyed by fire in February, 1916 and replaced over the following decade. Only the Parliamentary Library (the round part overlooking the cliff) remains from that original structure.
Though I've cropped this map to focus on Ottawa west of the Rideau Canal, two features along that rudely clipped right margin are notable. The vacant plot east of Elgin Street and south of Laurier Avenue (here called "Maria") is Cartier Square, where the Drill Hall would be built a year after his map was prepared. The marching field to the west of that building is now the City Hall campus.
One block north of Cartier Square, a small watery-blue finger pokes into the image. This was the western half of a turning basin carved into the Rideau Canal to accommodate the larger boats carrying cargo to warehouses and coal bins on what is now the National Arts Centre property. This artificial pond extended from the northeast corner of now-Confederation Park, across the Canal into the now-Shaw Centre conference halls. When the Canal was first built, this area was a swampy "beaver meadow". Indeed, early military engineers toyed with the idea of turning the land now occupied by Confederation Park and the Lord Elgin Hotel into a reservoir — this was well before anyone though that "Fort" Bytown might grow into a city of any size.
The southern and western edges of the map are as Goad intended. Neither edge corresponds with Ottawa's city limits at the time and each discrepancy tells it's own story.
When Charles Goad prepared this set of maps, Ottawa (officially) extended as far south as Gladstone Avenue (then called "Ann"). Goad chose to cut things off well north of that, at Lisgar Street. Ottawa's "suburban" development would soon reach south, across Stewarton and into the Glebe, but as of 1878 this was waste ground with marshy tendencies, ill-suited to cultivation and sparsely populated. By whatever agreement between Goad and the City Fathers, these fields were deemed not yet worth documenting.
Contrast this with Goad's western boundary, where rail lines serviced the lumber mills of the Chaudiere Islands and spurred the growth of LeBreton Flats, Mount Sherwood, and Rochesterville. These developments, paired with a dynamic topology, compelled Goad to extend his map past the then city limit of Bronson Avenue (formerly the "Concession Road"). Where is this Concession Road on our map? It runs northward through the yellow, tongue-shaped feature jutting up from the bottom-left. And whose yellow tongue is that? It's the Nanny Goat's, stuck half-in and half-out of then-Ottawa.
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With its festive hues, one would expect a colour key to accompany this map but such is not the case — perhaps Goad anticipated later black & white reproductions? Instead, we are told the following...
Contour lines 70', 85', 100', 115', 130' and 145' above datum (lowest sill at the Rideau Canal locks)
That is to say that there's an interval of 15 feet (4.6 metres) of elevation between contours, where the reference point ("datum") is 0 feet at the sill of the canal's lowest lock on the shore of the Ottawa River. And if you squint really hard, you can just make out those elevations, scrunched up against their respective contours. Let's use the yellow areas to compare Nanny Goat Hill with another feature we all know well.
We aren't helped by Goad's draftsman's ones, which look like his fours, nor his threes resembling his fives. Still, some head-twisting (and squinting) confirm that the Nanny Goat formation sits at 130 feet above datum, at no point rising above 145 feet. Compare this flattened, yellow acreage with Parliament Hill — whose tight contours describe a lop-sided but distinct cone, surging up toward the Centre Block.
We tend to think of Parliament Hill as something that happens north of Wellington Street, but Goad's map reminds us of its true extent and of its roundness. Emerging from the valley levels of Laurier West and Slater, the hill rises toward a gentle southeast flank (pale blue), where construction (the LRT) and gas-line installation (a certain fashionable restaurant) still unearth skeletons left over from Bytown's first boneyard.
Climbing higher, a patch of yellow tells us that the Parliamentary front lawn matches the elevation of the Nanny Goat plateau, as it partly encircles an eggshell-coloured table-land, this last rising above 145 feet and creating a dais for the Centre Block.
Goad saw no reason to extend his 1878 maps as far as Somerset Street, but as Centretowners know, the ground south of that roadway falls off quite sharply. The old cartographer has drawn (most of) the Nanny Goat's triangular mesa, sitting at a not-insignificant elevation of between 130 and 145 feet and matching that of the Parliamentary lawn. We should note that Goad depicts this elevation as exceeding that of Sparks/Bronson cliff, Nepean Point and Rideau Falls. The Nanny Goat was not a hill to be sneezed at.
Climbing higher, a patch of yellow tells us that the Parliamentary front lawn matches the elevation of the Nanny Goat plateau, as it partly encircles an eggshell-coloured table-land, this last rising above 145 feet and creating a dais for the Centre Block.
Goad saw no reason to extend his 1878 maps as far as Somerset Street, but as Centretowners know, the ground south of that roadway falls off quite sharply. The old cartographer has drawn (most of) the Nanny Goat's triangular mesa, sitting at a not-insignificant elevation of between 130 and 145 feet and matching that of the Parliamentary lawn. We should note that Goad depicts this elevation as exceeding that of Sparks/Bronson cliff, Nepean Point and Rideau Falls. The Nanny Goat was not a hill to be sneezed at.
