Before we left Pembroke this morning we went over to the Champlain Trail Museum and Heritage Village. They had nice displays inside the musem and then we a lady took us on a tour of the buildings on the site.

French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered and mapped the St. Lawrence River and most of Quebec and Ontairo when he ‘got lost’ looking for China. Below is a copy of his 1632 map which is incredibly accurate. A replica of the astrolobe he used for his measurements was in the museum.

There was no information placard by this display of handcarved circus wagons and horses.

There were rooms of a typical Victorian era house to walk past.

The parlour, which would never have been used except for weddings, funerals or if the minister/priest or a politician came calling. The stained glass window is original from a local pioneer family’s house.

The dining room.

This corner cupboard was the first item placed in the museum ‘house.’ It came from a local hotel.

This porcelian-head doll came from England. It has an uncanny resemblance to my stepmother.

The doctor’s office.

This tie rack from the late 1800, early 1900’s was carved from the back of a dynamite crate with a nail by a lumberman in Mattawa. It took him an entire winter to do.

I loved this gorgeous clock.

The building for the electric company is still standing in Pembroke.

The Canadian Splint and Lumber Company made the sticks for matches. They were treated with a special substance then sent to the Eddy company to have the match heads put on. One 16′ log produced 500,000 match sticks. The short video said how many the company produced in a year out of the number of trees they used but I did not have a pen and paper to write it down. Lets just say it was LOTS!

The EiffelTower made from match splints.

This beautiful 1880 log house was lived in by three generations of the family. It was dismantled and moved to the museum property in 1965.

They were a German famiy (many immigrants from Germany settled in the Ottawa Valley). This is a homemade sausage maker. Sausage making involved the entire family.

This 1916-1918 handmade wooden baby walker was just gorgeous. As was the cradle below.

We left Pembroke at 1 o’clock and headed to Ottawa.

Once we arrived in Ottawa we planned to go to the Ornamental Garden at the Experimental Farm, but about 25 or so kilometers outside the city were signs to the Diefenbunker – the Canadian Government bomb shelter in the event of a nuclear attack during the Cold War of the 60’s to 80’s. We had planned on visiting it not realizing it was so far out of the city so we decided to go since we were so close and save a trip back out another day.

The heli-pad that would have brought the Prime Minister and high-ranking government officials to the site was only 50′ from the entrance to the bunker.

A replica bomb of a similar model as the ones the USA dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII.

At the end of the tunnel we passed through two sets of these solid steel doors. The Diefenbunker had four levels underground. We were given a map outlining all the levels and the things we could see on each one. We only got through the first two levels which had the most rooms to see before we had to make our way topside again because they closed at 4.

A model of the four levels of the Bunker.

In the case of a nuclear event, this compact medical centre had to keep all personnel inside the Bunker healthy and functioning – without outside help or additional supplies. It only served as an ordinary medical clinic during the operation years of CFS Carp, but it was outfitted for a nuclear attak.

There was also a fully equipped dental office.

The radio room. All the equipment had been removed by the military when they closed the facility but local ham/short wave radio club members donated all the different years radios from the 50’s to 2000. Club members are in the Bunker regularly to talk about the radio room and maintain the equipment.

Today’s cell phones have more transmitting power than these radios. But it is impossible to get a cell signal inside the Bunker.

The War Cabinet Room.

The Secretariat.

We drove the remaining distance to Ottawa and found our lodging for the next four nights at a University of Ottawa campus dormitory. Tomorrow will be flowers. I promise. Unless it rains. And tomorrow night we have a BBQ with John’s cousin and his daughters, their spouses and children.

Why we tend to avoid large cities!