After a quarter century of activity by  the Local Architectural Conservation  Advisory Committee (LACAC) and other heritage groups, Onawa is catching up  to mainstream attitudes across Canada:  we now realize our industrial heritage is significant and important to preserve.  Indeed, there is a growing international  movement aiming to preserve  Industrial Age heritage by saving its  monuments and honouring the memory of people who toiled there.

The industrial exploitation of  forest and water resources of this  region played a key role in the founding of Ottawa. The most significant  industrial heritage here is inextricably  linked to these resources and to the  rivers at whose confluence Ottawa is  situated. In the 19th century, the  industrial districts of Chaudiere-LeBreton and Rideau Falls-New  Edinburgh bracketed the commercial heart of the town with extensive  industrial operations and their  associated workers’ residential enclaves.  Unlike Rideau-New Edinburgh, the Chaudiere-LeBreton area has a number of heritage industrial  structures still in operation today.

The Fleet Street Pumping Station  (1874-75) and Aqueduct (1872-74),  Ottawa’s ambitious first waterworks, were designed by Thomas Coltrin Keefer, one of the continent’s top  hydraulic and civil engineers.  The design incorporates a 750-metre long open channel or aqueduct arcing  through LeBreton Flats from an  Ottawa River intake …

Note:  Mark also wrote the preface to the book (also included in the pdf).