Hawkesbury is a town along the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (, ) is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word "to trade", as it was the major trade route of Eastern Canada at the time. For most of its length, it defines the border betw ...

in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell in Eastern

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Hawkesbury is the third most bilingual town in Ontario, with about 70% of its inhabitants being fluent in English and French.

Franco-Ontarians Franco-Ontarians ( or if female, sometimes known as ''Ontarois'' and ''Ontaroises'') are Francophone Canadians that reside in the province of Ontario. Most are French Canadians from Ontario. In 2021, according to the Government of Ontario, the ...

make up 89% of the population. The Long-Sault Bridge links it to Grenville, Quebec, to the north. This bridge, crossing Chenail Island, is the only interprovincial bridge between Ontario and Quebec east of

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. The town is located east from Ottawa, and is considered to be midway between Ottawa and Montreal.

Etymology

The name Hawkesbury derives from a combination of Hawks, a family name, and bury, a transformation of berry (castle).

History

Founded in 1798, Hawkesbury was named after the Right Honourable Charles Jenkinson, Baron Hawkesbury. Thomas Mears and David Pattee, two Americans, entered into a partnership in 1805, in order to harness the power of the lower Ottawa River and built the first

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

on the

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...

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 {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

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 United Counties of Prescott and Russell. The Grenville Canal on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River opposite Hawkesbury was an important link in the river's transportation system. Part of Hawkesbury was submerged by the

Carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a musical keyboard, keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are Bellfounding, cast in Bell metal, bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and Musical tuning, tu ...

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec () is a Canadian Crown corporations of Canada#Quebec, Crown corporation public utility headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity ...

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.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Hawkesbury had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Languages

The 2006 census found that French was the

native language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

of 77% of the population, while English was the mother tongue of 16%. A very high percentage (2.7%) 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.

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 (including 2.0% who identified as South Asian). Single responses: 42.4% of respondents gave a single response of '

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

', 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: ''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

.''

Government

Provincial

Hawkesbury is located within the Glengarry—Prescott—Russell provincial electoral district, which is represented by MPP Stéphane Sarrazin (

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC; ), often shortened to the Ontario PC Party, or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a Centre-right politics, centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada. During its uninterr ...

Federal

Hawkesbury is located within the Prescott-Russell-Cumberland federal electoral district, which is represented by MP Giovanna Mingarelli (

Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. and generally sits at the Centrism, ...

Transportation

Hawkesbury is located along Prescott and Russell County Road 17, a former routing of Highway 17 and the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

which connects with Highway 417 eastwards to Montreal. Hawkesbury also connects to Highway 417 westward to Ottawa by a 17 km remnant of Highway 34. The Long-Sault Interprovincial Bridge between Hawkesbury, Ontario, and Grenville, Quebec, means that Hawkesbury is within minutes of Autoroute 50 and Route 148 in Quebec. The town is served by two small airports: * Hawkesbury Airport * Hawkesbury (East) Airport The closest

VIA Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

station with direct service to Ottawa and Montreal is located in

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

about 40 km south of Hawkesbury.

Education

Hawkesbury hosts many establishments in the field of education, from elementary schools to colleges and an adult campus. Elementary Schools: * Saint-Marguerite Bourgeois (Close) * Paul VI * Nouvel Horizon Secondary Schools: * ESCRH * Le Sommet Post-secondary establishments: *

La Cité collégiale LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smi ...

* Contact Nord Other educational-based establishments: * Adult Campus of Hawkesbury

Media

Hawkesbury and area are served primarily by local media, media from

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and by media from

. The town does, however, have four radio stations which broadcast at least partially from local studios in Hawkesbury.

Newspaper

''Le Régional'' is a bilingual independent newspaper that covers the Prescott-Russell region and the municipalities of Grenville and Grenville-sur-la-Rouge in

Québec Quebec is Canada's largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast and a coastal border ...

. ''Le Carillon'', a French-language newspaper, and its bilingual supplement ''The Tribune Express'' that cover Hawkesbury and the Prescott-Russell region and are 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

* FM 88.9 - CIMF-1 * FM 92.1 - CHOD-FM * FM 102.1 - CHPR * FM 107.7 - CKHK

Television

* Channel 39: CHLF-TV-2, TFO * Channel 48: CICO-TV-96,

TVOntario TVO (stylized in all lowercase as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a Canadian Public broadcasting, publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates ...

* Cogeco cable 11: TVCogeco ( community channel)

Notable people

* Linda Cardinal, political scientist * Dominique Demers, writer * Brian Greenway, guitarist for

Canadian rock Rock music of Canada is a wide and diverse part of the general music of Canada, beginning with American and British style rock and roll in the mid-20th century. Since then Canada has had a considerable impact on the development of the modern po ...

bands Mashmakhan and

April Wine April Wine is a Canadian rock band formed in 1969 and based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, led by singer-guitarist-songwriter Myles Goodwyn until his death in 2023. April Wine first experienced success with their second album, ' ...

. * Judith Guichon (1947-), Lieutenant-governor of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

* Bob Hartley, professional ice hockey head coach, former NHL coach. The municipal arena bears his name. * Yvan Joly, former NHL player * Richard Nadeau, Former federal MP of the

Bloc Québécois The Bloc Québécois (, , BQ) is a centre-left politics, centre-left and list of federal political parties in Canada, federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism, Quebecois nationalism, social democracy, and the promotion o ...

* Stephen Warren, member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Assembly is controlled by the Republican ...

Popular culture

* Hawkesbury is referenced in the 1996 song "I Lost My Baby" by Québécois singer-songwriter Jean LeLoup.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Lower-tier municipalities in Ontario Populated places established in 1798 Towns in Ontario Populated places on the Ottawa River