1985 Turkish Embassy Attack
On March 12, 1985, a squad of terrorists armed with assault rifles and hand grenades stormed the Turkish embassy. It all started early that morning, when a rented U-Haul van backed up to the wall of the embassy and three heavily armed members of the Armenian Revolutionary Army leaped out, scaled the wall, shot and killed a guard, and worked their way into the building’s inner sanctum. They demanded the return of their land and the acknowledgment of the genocide that was carried out on the Armenians by the Turks in 1915. During the siege, the Turkish ambassador, Coskun Kirca, was forced to throw himself out of a second-storey window. Arriving on the scene, Ottawa police constable Michel Prud’Homme kept the ambassador, who was severely injured by the fall, hidden from the terrorists for hours, earning Prud’Homme the Medal of Bravery. Once captured, the three gunmen were sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole. Before the attack of 1985, many foreign diplomats had complained about the lax security for embassies in Canada. The 1985 incident caused Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government to act quickly, leading to the creation of Canada’s top-secret commando unit, Joint Task Force Two.
Diplomatic Non-Immunity
In 2001, Russian diplomat Andrei Knyazev, working as first secretary at the embassy, was driving home from an ice-fishing party, where he had allegedly consumed considerable amounts of alcohol, when his car skidded onto the sidewalk after missing a turn in the quiet residential neighbourhood of New Edinburgh. He struck and killed 50-year-old Catherine MacLean, a prominent labour lawyer, and seriously injured Catherine Dore, whose dog was also killed. Knyazev refused a breathalyzer test, and invoked his diplomatic immunity, enraging Canadians across the country. The Russian ambassador immediately ordered Knyazev back to Moscow. A year later, he was sentenced by the Russians to four years in a “village colony,” where he would sleep in medium-security barracks, report to guards twice a day, and spend his time labouring either in farming or forestry. Originally, the embassy had denied that anyone there had reported any sort of accident, and when questioned, Knyazev denied even having a drink that day. Both Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham were adamant that zero tolerance of drunk driving be upheld, however, and apparently the Russian government agreed—they introduced their own zero tolerance policy for their diplomats abroad.
Stopwatch Gang
The Stopwatch Gang, led by Ottawa’s own Paddy Mitchell (who grew up in Little Italy), Stephen Reid (of Massey, Ontario), and Lionel Wright, are perhaps Canada’s most infamous bank robbers. The trio, whose orchestrated meticulous heists never took longer than 90 seconds, robbed more than 100 banks and armoured cars during the 1970s and 80s in the United States and Canada. Their most notorious job was a 1974 gold heist (worth $750,000) at the Ottawa airport, earning themselves a place on the FBI’s most-wanted list. The gang’s exploits were detailed in several movies, including Point Break (1991) and The Heist (2001), as well as in the book The Stopwatch Gang (1992) by Toronto Sun reporter Greg Weston, and in Mitchell’s own memoir, This Bank Robber’s Life, which he wrote in prison and sold over the Internet. While still in jail, Reid wrote his own book, a semi-autobiographical novel titled Jackrabbit Parole. Through this book he met his editor, West Coast poet and writer Susan Musgrave, and in 1986 they married while he was still imprisoned. Upon his release a year later, he and Musgrave attempted to live a quiet life on Vancouver Island, and had a child as well. He appeared as a rifle-toting security guard in a 15-second cameo (as well as acting as the film’s bank heist consultant) in the independent movie Four Days (1999). Unfortunately, in the spring of 1999 in Victoria, BC, his heroin addiction resulted in a return to crime and a botched robbery and shootout; currently, Reid remains in prison. The leader of the gang, Patrick “Paddy” Mitchell, called “North America’s most famous, most successful and, especially, most likeable bank robber of our time” by his son, grew up on Preston Street in Ottawa, and died of cancer on in 2007 in a US prison while serving a 65-year sentence. Wright served his sentence, and according to a 2005 report from the CBC, worked as an accountant for Corrections Canada. The gold from the airport robbery in 1974 was never recovered.
Ottawa—City of Gold Diggers?
Ottawa, as the site of the Bank of Canada, played a central role in Operation Fish, an undertaking initiated in 1940 to provide safekeeping for the assets of Britain, Norway, France, and Belgium in Canada for the duration of World W
ar II. Six ships carried combined gold and securities from the four allied countries via Britain; secretly unloaded in Halifax, the reserves were transported to Montreal by train, then to Ottawa, where the 60 million ounces of gold were loaded onto trucks at night and ferried to the basement of the Bank of Canada on Wellington Street under the watchful eye of armed guards disguised in simple overalls. The crates were unloaded and stacked by two 30-member teams who, although they worked 24 hours a day, were unable to keep up with the number of crates delivered. The backlog of 1,500 unopened crates of gold that lined the halls of the basement soon required a contingent of RCMP officers to guard it round the clock. But it’s hard to keep any secret for long. One can only presume that once the war ended, the gold was just as secretly slipped back out of the country and returned to its owners.
Pottawa
In the 1970s, Health and Welfare Canada asked the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa to grow several types of marijuana for medical research. A crop was quietly planted and kept in the middle of a well-fenced cornfield (before you get your hopes up, the crop has long since been replaced). Eventually, when the plants grew taller than the surrounding corn, a higher fence with barbed wire was installed to guard against theft. Eventually a guard tower and watchdogs were introduced to deter organized and/or disorganized potheads from getting even that far. Otherwise, to get bongs and seeds in Ottawa, check out the counterculture variety store Crosstown Traffic (593-C Bank St., 234-1210; 396 Athlone Ave., 728-4800).
Flying Ace Billy Barker - Killed by Ottawa?
On March 12, 1930, lieutenant-Colonel William George “Billy” Barker was killed in a crash at Rockcliffe airport in Ottawa while demonstrating a new training plane. Since Barker was a highly skilled pilot and there was no indication of mechanical malfunction, it has been theorized that Barker deliberately crashed the plane, thus committing suicide. During World War I, he had brought down 53 German planes and was praised as a hero, but once home after the war, his years were filled with constant pain and depression. One of his early planes was the Sopwith two-seater Dove, which was later reconstructed and transferred to Canada for permanent display at the Canadian War Museum.
Ottawa Macabre
The Ottawa region is relatively safe for residents and visitors alike. Nevertheless, the area has been the site of a few strange and disturbing fatalities over the years. Hopefully these are the exceptions that prove the rule:
In the town of Perth, just an hour’s drive west of the city, the last fatal duel in Ontario occurred on June 13, 1833. Two law students and former friends, John Wilson and Robert Lyon, had been quarrelling over remarks Lyon made concerning a local teacher, Elizabeth Hughes, whom both men were interested in. The outcome: Lyon was killed, and Wilson was charged with murder. Wilson, who was eventually acquitted, married Elizabeth Hughes and later became an MP and a judge.
In 1882, a man committed suicide in the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica (otherwise known as La Basilique Cathédral de Notre-Dame, 385 Sussex Dr.), putting a bullet in his head after a mass. A gang of priests had to be sent in to re-consecrate the church afterwards.
In 1998, 21-year-old Ottawa resident Jérôme Charron died in an accident on a “reverse bungee” (also known as a “catapult bungee” or “ejector seat”) a ride at the SuperEx at Lansdowne Park on Bank Street. The ride, called “The Rocket Launcher,” consists of two poles feeding two elastic ropes down to a two-passenger car; once released from its electro-magnetic latch, the car is shot straight upwards with an acceleration of 4.8 Gs, with a maximum altitude of 55 metres (180 feet). Instead, the ride hurled him 40 metres (130 feet) into the air before his harness became detached, causing him to plummet to his death. In 2000, the American firm responsible for the ride was fined $145,000 for the incident. Provincial inspectors had apparently inspected and approved the ride just four days before the accident, but did not inspect the faulty strap.
University of Waterloo PhD student Ardeth Wood was 27 years old when she went missing while cycling along the Aviation Parkway on August 6, 2003. After an extensive search by police and community volunteers (the largest search operation ever undertaken by the Ottawa Police Service), her body was found on August 11 by a specially trained OPP cadaver dog, just metres from where her abandoned bicycle had been found. Her murder launched one of the largest manhunts in Canadian history. It also opened up a dark chapter in Ottawa’s own history, as women all over the city suddenly no longer felt safe to leave their homes after dark, especially along remote bike paths. In October 2005, Chris Myers, a 25-year-old Ottawa resident, was found in North Bay, Ontario and charged with the murder, as well as four other counts of sexual assaults.
In the winter of 2006, the naked body of a seven-month-pregnant Vanier woman, Kelly Morrisseau, was found in Gatineau Park, having been stabbed more than a dozen times. With accusations by members of her family in June 2007 that the attention on her murder had waned because she was Aboriginal, the Assembly of First Nations put up a substantial reward for information, adding $2,000 to the $2,000 already offered by Crimestoppers.
Origins of Ottawa General Hospital
In June 1847, a typhus epidemic broke out in Ottawa’s Lowertown very soon after the Sisters of Charity constructed the building that would eventually become Ottawa’s first General Hospital (being little more than a wooden house on St. Patrick Street at the time). The disease was thought to have been brought over with the thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine. By the following May, 167 of the 619 people afflicted had died. The overflow of patients was quarantined on the west side of the Rideau Canal in wooden sheds, under boats, and in tents. Unfortunately, with all the fear of infection from typhus and smallpox, the last thing any of the residents of Sandy Hill wanted in their neighbourhood was a hospital of any kind, and as late as 1879, a couple of them were even burned down by locals. After the typhus epidemic had subsided, the Sisters purchased six lots at what is now Sussex Drive and Bruyère Street (previously Water Street) to build a new General Hospital, which was finally opened to patients in 1866.
Heather Crowe Butts Out
Name doesn’t ring a bell? You might have seen her in all those Canadian anti-smoking public service announcements a few years ago, whether on television or in movie theatres. Crowe, who was a waitress for 40 years, was dying of lung cancer, despite having never smoked a day in her life. She contracted the disease through second-hand smoke she inhaled at work. After her diagnosis, she spent her last four years leading a nation-wide battle against second-hand smoke and influenced policy through her anti-smoking activism across Canada. Sadly, she died in 2006 at age 61. Her last 14 years were spent working at Moe’s infamous Newport Restaurant in Westboro; a year after she died, Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson presented owner Moe Atallah with the Heather Crowe Award for making his workplace smoke-free and voluntarily stopping the sale of cigarettes in the Newport convenience store. Crowe is the subject of a short documentary film, Heather Crowe’s Legacy: An Ordinary Canadian’s Extraordinary Gift, which is available free to schools, community and church groups, book clubs, and to those in the workplace by calling Cynthia Callard at Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada at 233-4878.
Haunted Ottawa
If you like to get your spook on, take part in one of the capital’s haunted walks, a series of spine-chilling walking tours around the downtown, and get a glimpse of the darker, haunted history of the nation’s capital. Walks take place during the day, or in the evening by lantern-light, with tours in English and French, including “Crime and Punishment Jail Tour,” “The Naughty Ottawa Pub Walk,” “The Original Haunted Walk of Ottawa,” and “Ghosts and the Gallows.” Will you see the ghost of Prime Minister Mackenzie King? Or will you run into the spirit of Thomas D’Arcy McGee? You will only find out once you secure your reservation. 232-0344
Who’s Ringing That Bell?
They say there’s something creepy about a particular bell of the carillon in the upper belfry of the Peace Tower. Former Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s name is engraved on the lowest bell, and for years, some staff members claimed to have heard strange noises emanating from it, including howling and whining sounds. It has been noted that this PM’s bell seems to require more adjustments than any of the others.
1900 Ottawa Fire
Though a blaze that raged through town in 1900 is generally referred to as the “Great Ottawa Fire,” the city has been plagued by a multitude of infernos throughout its history. (And what else would a great lumber town fear in the 1800s but the fiery ravages?) Settled long before Ottawa, the city of Hull (now called Gatineau) would have been much larger now, it is often said, if it weren’t for the fires that kept taking most of the city during the 1870s and 80s. As for Ottawa, it didn’t help that, until 1874, the town relied on volunteer firefighters, many of whom would simply ignore the fire bell when it rang, and when the city started offering a cash reward to water carriers that reached fires first, competing companies broke into brawls when they should have been dousing flames. On April 26, 1900, the Great Ottawa Fire started on the Hull side, causing devastation throughout much of the city, and crossed into Ottawa via the bridge at Booth Street. The Ottawa fire department turned out en masse to fight the blaze, and calls were put out to Montreal, Smiths Falls, Brockville, Peterborough, and Toronto for additional help, as the blaze sent up plumes of smoke that could be seen for hundreds of kilometres. Damage extended as far south as Dow’s Lake, and lumber baron J. R. Booth lost 55 million board feet of lumber. Fortunately, the high limestone cliffs separating the Chaudiére district from the rest of Ottawa, coupled with a drop in wind speed, prevented the flames from overtaking the Parliament Buildings. Still, the affected area encompassed a one-kilometre (0.5-mi) wide strip from the
Chaudiere Falls south for four kilometres (2.5 mi to Carling Avenue, leaving seven dead, 3,000 buildings destroyed, and 15,000 people homeless. The area known as LeBreton Flats, just west of the downtown core by Scott and Booth Streets, has been almost completely vacant since, with new development beginning only over the past few years, with the construction of the new Canadian War Museum.
Gas Explosion
Just before noon on May 29, 1929, Ottawa residents were startled by a violent gas explosion in the main sewer line between the Ottawa River and Centretown. Over the next nine hours, a series of explosions ran the stretch of the main line more than five kilometres (3 mi) long, shooting manhole covers three storeys into the air in an area stretching from Sandy Hill (roughly the intersection of Cartier and Waverley Streets) through New Edinburgh and into the suburb of Eastview. Surprisingly, only one person was killed (a janitor in the basement of the building at the centre of the explosion), but a number of buildings were destroyed, including St. Martin’s Reform Episcopal Church in New Edinburgh. After the dust had settled, officials made inquiries into the cause, but the findings were inconclusive, despite the fact that residents along the line had reported the smell of gas to the city for months prior to the explosion. One outcome, though, was a bylaw passed to stop volatile liquids from being dumped into sewers.
Smallpox Epidemic
The smallpox isolation facility on Porter’s Island, on the Rideau River between Old St. Patrick Street on one side and New Edinburgh Park on the other, was typical of the types of quarantine arrangements during epidemics, with small shanty-like shacks housing patients who, for the most part, quickly died where they lay. The facility operated until the early part of the 1900s and treated victims of typhoid and influenza as well as smallpox. Between January and March 1911, there were 987 cases of typhoid reported in Ottawa, 83 of which resulted in death. In 1910, a consultant recommended regular chlorination to treat the water, and the Gatineau Hills as an alternate source, because an earlier typhoid outbreak was traced to the use of an emergency intake valve in Nepean Bay (located on the Ottawa River below the Royal Canadian Mint at the base of the Nepean River behind Parliament Square). The island now exists as a park and is a great site for birding, with urban fishing available, and a section of private property. It is also home to the Island Lodge retirement centre. A footbridge provides access from St. Patrick Street (except during the winter months, when it remains closed).