A Walk Down Memory Lake

The Victoria Hotel

Charlie Trinque

The majestic Victoria Hotel stood where the Baseball diamond is now, located at the Marina Park. It opened for business in 1897 and boasted lavish rooms at a cost of $2.00 a night or $10.00 per week.

The large wooden resort hotel offered 8,000 sq. ft. of promenade, a 120-foot-high observatory, and 160 bedrooms. It was steam-heated and had sanitary plumbing. There were many activities offered in billiard rooms, bowling alleys, club rooms, a dance pavilion, and later, a golf course.

Steamboats stopped at its wharf, and electric streetcars connected the hotel directly to Ottawa. 

There were verandahs overlooking the lake and countryside. The hotel sat on elevated ground, allowing for a spectacular view of the Ottawa Valley.

Newspapers regularly advertised Aylmer as being only a short ride from Ottawa and praised the trip itself as a pleasant excursion through fields and along the river.

In 1899, the Victoria Golf Club established its headquarters in the hotel. Contemporary newspapers called Hotel Victoria "the most luxurious summer hotel in Canada." A dedicated club room was allotted to golfers. The 9-hole course stretched along the lakeshore for about a mile.

Steamers regularly stopped at the hotel wharf. Some guests would board excursion boats for cruises on Lake Deschênes, others would simply sit in wicker chairs on the verandas and watch the boats go by.

Much of the hotel's reputation rested not only on its accommodations but on its role as a gathering place for Ottawa's upper-middle and professional classes.

In the afternoon, guests would:

*  Play billiards
*  Bowl
*  Read newspapers on the veranda
*  Attend golf events
*  Visit nearby Queen's Amusement Park

Dinner was the day's most formal event; men wore dinner jackets and ties, and women donned evening dresses. The atmosphere would have resembled that of the grand Canadian resort hotels of the era: multi-course meals were served on tables with white tablecloths, while orchestra music provided entertainment.

In the evening, adventurous visitors might climb the stairs to the observatory. The 120-foot tower was one of the hotel's great attractions and made the building visible for miles across the river. Visitors described beautiful panoramic views of Lake Deschênes, the Ottawa Valley, and the distant Gatineau hills.


Newspapers of the day described it as "a resort that is steadily growing in popularity" and "a charming summer retreat." Accessible by electric car and offering relief from Ottawa's summer heat.

That was the Victoria's selling point: not luxury alone, but the feeling that you had escaped the city while remaining only a short ride away.

In many ways, the Victoria Hotel was Aylmer's equivalent of the grand summer hotels that flourished along railway lines across Canada -- part golf club, part social club, part lakeside resort, and part showcase of modern leisure at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, on the evening of December 15, 1915, the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground. It was never rebuilt.

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