Cantley | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Cantley

The first to settle the Cantley area were of Scottish or English origin. Andrew Blackburn and his 2 sons arrived in 1829. Colonel Cantley, a British army officer who had worked on the RIDEAU CANAL with Colonel John By, was granted land in what was to become Cantley in the early 1830s.

Cantley

 Cantley, Qué, Municipality, pop 7926 (2006c), 5898 (2001c), inc 1989. Cantley is located about 15 km northeast of HULL on the east bank of the Rivière Gatineau. Cantley had originally been part of the municipality of Hull-Est (incorporated 1889). Hull-Est changed its name to Touraine in 1965 and 4 years after it became a town, it was merged with 6 other municipalities to form the city of GATINEAU. Dissatisfaction with the tax rates and tensions between the urban and rural parts of the Touraine sector of Gatineau, eventually led to the creation of Cantley in 1989.

The first to settle the Cantley area were of Scottish or English origin. Andrew Blackburn and his 2 sons arrived in 1829. Colonel Cantley, a British army officer who had worked on the RIDEAU CANAL with Colonel John By, was granted land in what was to become Cantley in the early 1830s. Others were to follow, but a large contingent of Irish Catholics in the 1840s was to give the area its distinctly Irish, or Hibernian, character. Farming, logging and lumber milling were early industries. Later developments, especially mica and phosphate mines after 1885 and the influx of cottagers and city dwellers to the sprawling suburbia, were to change the demographic characteristics of the area. French Canadians are now the dominant ethnic group.

Cantley is a residential suburb of the Greater Ottawa-Hull area and a large part of its working population is made up of civil servants, mostly federal. Outdoor recreation, cottage development and downhill skiing, especially at the Mont Cascades, have diversified the area's economy.