LUNCHEON, THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2020 12:00 - 1:15 PM

Sponsored by the Forest History Society 

An Acre of Time: The Enduring Value of Place

Dave Lemkay, Chairman of the Algonquin Forestry Authority and Phil Jenkins, Author will provide a dynamic portrait the LeBreton Flats on the shores of the Ottawa River

Dave Lemkay and Phil Jenkins, both seasoned Ottawa Valley history aficionados, will regale luncheon attendees with a dynamic portrait of the evolution of the Kitchissippi Shore (Algonquin name for the Ottawa River), including accounts of lava and glaciers, of tropical seas and waterfalls, of whales and white-tailed deer, of Indigenous people and pioneers, millionaires and paupers, firestorms and bulldozers, railways and lumber mills, facts and gossip.  

Dave Lemkay, whose roots go back to 1820s in Ottawa, formerly Bytown, has retired from a long career in Canada’s forest sector, but stays involved as chairman of the Algonquin Forestry Authority, the crown corporation mandated to manage forest operations in Algonquin Provincial Park.

Dave will introduce award-winning author Phil Jenkins, who will speak from his book An Acre of Time – The Enduring Value of Place, the saga of LeBreton Flats on the shore of the Ottawa River that is a representation of many different things: government bullying, colonial oppression, bureaucratic boondoggles, industrial wasteland, competing visions. Running through the story is Constant Penency, an Algonquin chief, and one of the last native people to actively hunt and trap in the area. Over the years, the British largely ignored Penency’s complaints that settlers were occupying his lands. In the end, despite heroic service to the British in the War of 1812, Penency and his clan became exiles.