The Coulonge River (; ) is a predominantly wilderness river in western

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada. A popular river for

whitewater Whitewater forms in the context of rapids, in particular, when a river's Stream gradient, gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that foam, froths, making t ...

canoeing Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. In some parts of Europe, canoeing refers to both canoeing and kayaking, with a canoe being called an 'open canoe' or Canadian. A few of the recreational ...

enthusiasts, it is often grouped together with the Dumoine and Noire Rivers as three of a kind. The three rivers share the same watershed, and have similar whitewater characteristics. All three empty into the Ottawa River within a distance of from one another.

Description

One of a dozen or so significant tributaries of the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (, ) is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word "to trade", as it was the major trade route of Eastern Canada at the time. For most of its length, it defines the border betw ...

, the Coulonge River has a length of and a drainage area of , and runs in a general south-eastern direction from its headwaters in Lac au Barrage (situated in

La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve La Vérendrye wildlife reserve is one of the largest reserves in the province of Quebec, Canada, covering of contiguous land and lake area (Assinica wildlife reserve is the largest in the province, but its territory is broken up in four non-cont ...

) to the Ottawa River at Fort-Coulonge. Over that distance, it drops approximately . The massive Grandes or Coulonge Chutes, with a height of , is approximately upstream of the confluence with the Ottawa River. The historic Félix-Gabriel-Marchand Bridge crosses the Coulonge River near Fort-Coulonge. Constructed in 1898, this long bridge is the longest

covered bridge A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...

in Quebec. Over the period 1926 to 1993, the Coulonge River had a mean flow of . Mean minimal flow was and mean maximum flow was . Record maximum flow was in May 1947, while record minimum flow was in October 1948.

History

The Coulonge River is named after Nicholas d'Ailleboust de Manthet (1663–1709), Sieur de Coulonge, a French explorer who spent the winter of 1694–95 at the nearby Allumettes Island. The Coulonge was used as a waterway by native North Americans and, later, by the

coureurs des bois A coureur des bois (; ) or coureur de bois (; ) were independent entrepreneurial French Canadians, French Canadian traders who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with Indigenous peoples of the Americas, ...

plying their independent trade in furs. In 1784, the

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

built a fort at the mouth of the river, named Fort Coulonge, which passed into the hands of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

when the two companies merged in 1821. In 1835, Scottish-born

lumber baron A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

George Bryson acquired timber rights to thousands of acres of forest in the area, including the immediately surrounding the Grandes Chutes. In 1843, Bryson built a sawmill near the mouth of the river, which led to permanent settlement and the formation of the village of Fort-Coulonge. To transport the squared timber safely past the falls and the gorge below, Bryson built a -long

timber slide A timber slide is a device for moving timber past rapids and waterfalls. Their use in Canada was widespread in the 18th and 19th century timber trade. At this time, cut timber would be floated down rivers in large timber rafts from logging cam ...

(a wooden chute flowing with water diverted from the head of the falls), which was replaced by a concrete chute in 1923. For almost 150 years, the forests around the Coulonge were logged throughout the winter months until spring breakup permitted the massive log drives which, along with similar operations throughout the Ottawa River watershed, fueled the economy of the Ottawa Valley region from the early 19th century through the middle of the 20th. The last spring log drive in Canada took place on the Coulonge River in 1982. Since then, the timber from smaller-scale logging operations has been hauled out by trucks over a network of dirt roads which meander throughout the Coulonge River valley. In 1994, a hydro-electric dam and power station was built at the head of the Grandes Chutes, leaving the Dumoine River as the last major free-flowing tributary of the Ottawa River. In August 2020, 2 persons drowned in the Coulonge River in separate incidents: the body of a woman was found just north of Fort Coulonge; and a man was swept away by strong rapids while swimming about upstream.

References

External links

{{Authority control Rivers of Outaouais