Hawkesbury, Ontario


Hawkesbury is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, on the Ottawa River, near the Quebec-Ontario border.
It lies on the south shore of the Ottawa River about halfway between Downtown Ottawa and Downtown Montreal in United Counties of Prescott and Russell. The Long-Sault Bridge links it to Grenville, Quebec, to the north. It is located 25 km west of Lachute, Quebec.
Hawkesbury is touted as the third most bilingual town in Ontario, with about 70% of its inhabitants being fluent in English and French, the two official languages of Canada. 89% of the population is made up of French speaking Franco-Ontarians.

History

Founded in 1798, Hawkesbury was named after Charles Jenkinson, Baron Hawkesbury.
Thomas Mears and David Pattee, two Americans, entered into a partnership in 1805 to harness the power of the lower Ottawa River and built the first sawmill on the Upper Canada side of the river. The town of Hawkesbury developed around this mill. Mears also built the Union, the Ottawa River's first steamer. Demand for timber during the Napoleonic Wars created a boom. The mill complex continued to grow for at least the next half century, and by 1870 it included 145 different saws and created over 35 million board feet of lumber per year.
Timber and pulp-and-paper industries have been supplanted by textiles, synthetic fibres, metal extrusions, steel, glass and plastics. Hawkesbury has also become the business and service centre of the county of Prescott-Russell, although recently Rockland has become the largest community. The Grenville Canal on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River opposite Hawkesbury is an important link in the river's transportation system. The only interprovincial bridge between Ontario and Quebec east of Ottawa is located here. Part of Hawkesbury was submerged by the Carillon Hydro-Québec dam built between 1950 and 1962, which called for the demolition of over 300 houses in and around Hawkesbury. New developments today are happening due to baby boomers from Ottawa, Montreal and area purchasing some of the many new condos in town.

Media

Hawkesbury and area are served primarily by local media, media from Montreal and by media from Ottawa. The town does, however, have two radio stations which broadcast at least partially from local studios in Hawkesbury.

Newspaper

is a French-language newspaper that covers Hawkesbury and the Prescott-Russell region and is published by the Edition André Paquette Group.
is a bilingual French/English language newspaper that covers Hawkesbury and the Prescott-Russell region and is published by the Edition André Paquette Group.
The Review is an English-language weekly newspaper that covers the Glengarry-Prescott-Russell area, which includes Hawkesbury.

Radio

Transportation

Hawkesbury is located along Prescott and Russell County Road 17, a former routing of Highway 17 and the Trans-Canada Highway with connects with Highway 417 eastwards to Montreal. Hawkesbury also connects to Highway 417 westward to Ottawa through a 17-kilometer spur of Highway 34.
The Long Sault Interprovincial Bridge between Hawkesbury, Ontario and Grenville, Quebec means that Hawkesbury is within minutes of Highway 50 and Route 148.
The town is served by two small airports:

Languages

The 2006 census found that French was the mother tongue of 77% of the population, while English was the mother tongue of 16%. A very high percentage claim both French and English as their mother tongues. In 2006, this was the highest proportion in Canada.
According to the 2011 census, the percentage of the population declaring solely French as a mother tongue grew to 78.6% while the proportion of the population declaring solely English as a mother tongue declined to 15.3%. The percentage claiming both French and English as their mother tongues declined below 2.00% by 2011.
First official language spokenPopulationPercentage
French8,28078.6%
English1,91515.3%
Non-official languages3804%

Ethnocultural ancestries

In parallel to the responses to the census question about ethnocultural ancestries, which are shown below, 1.0% of the population also reported having an Aboriginal identity, while 3.1% reported having a visible minority status.
Single responses: 42.4% of respondents gave a single response of 'Canadian', while a further 25.3% identified with both 'Canadian', and one or more other ancestries. 13.4% of respondents gave a single response of French, 1.9% gave a single response of Irish, 1.9% gave a single response of English and 1.1% gave a single response of North American Indian.
Multiple responses: Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were:
Canadian67.8%
French38.7%
English7.9%

German1.7%
Italian1.3%
Greek1.0%

''Percentages are calculated as a proportion of the total number of respondents and may total more than 100% due to dual responses.
All ethnocultural ancestries of more than 1% are listed in the table above according to the exact terminology used by Statistics Canada.

Education

Hawkesbury hosts many establishments in the field of education, from elementary schools to colleges and an adult campus.
Elementary Schools:
Paul VI
Nouvel Horizon
Secondary Schools:
ESCRH
Le Sommet
Post-secondary Establishments:
La Cité collégiale
elearnnetwork.ca
And other educational-based establishments:

Notable people from Hawkesbury