Just below Ottawa’s towering Parliament Hill on the banks of the Rideau Canal sits the small Bytown Museum. The historic museum, founded by the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa, opened in 1917 to preserve early Ottawa artifacts that the group had collected since their initial 1889 founding.

Today, this collection, which contains artifacts from the earliest point in Ottawa’s history, is housed in the Commissariat Building.

The British military commissioned this stone house in the early 1820s, and it was used as a treasury and storehouse. In 1951, it was moved to the banks of the river and assumed the role of museum. Today, visitors can enter the historic building and view the artifacts dating back to Ottawa’s initial development.

Bytown Museum, 1 Canal Ln, Ottawa, Canada, Phone: 613-234-4570

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