Gatineau Hills

The Gatineau Hills form the northern shoulder of the Ottawa Valley, where the southern tip of the Canadian Shield rises into rounded, worn heights. Maple, beech and oak cover the slopes, with stands of white pine among them. Algonquin people had lived in the Ottawa valley for more than four thousand years when French explorers arrived in the early seventeenth century. In the early 1800s the pine forests were logged extensively, and roads were built into the hills for mining and farming.