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.

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).