CALEB NICKERSON
QUYON Jan. 21, 2017
On Jan. 21, around 30 people gathered at the Bert Kennedy Hall in Quyon to hear a talk on one of the founding fathers of the Pontiac.
The event was put on by the Friends of Chats Falls (FOCF), a non-profit group that works to promote and preserve the historical and environmental wealth of the area.
The speaker was Micheal McBane, a Quyon native and member of the FOCF Board, who spoke about the town’s founder, John Egan.
Egan was an Irish-Canadian lumber baron and business man, who also served as the mayor of Aylmer and represented the region in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canda.

“I talked about his accomplishments in business, in the lumber trade, but also his accomplishments as a politician, which a lot of people don’t know about,” McBane explained. “He was very passionate in defending the economic interests of the Pontiac. He went to bat for some investment and actually got the government to start to construct a canal around Chats Falls in the late 1850s.”
“Unfortunately he died a young man, he died at 46 of cholera in Quebec City,” he continued. “Basically, a lot of the projects he started died in their tracks because of a lack of a political champion in Parliament.”
McBane said that as someone that grew up in Quyon, he was intrigued by the stories, or lack thereof, about the local patriarch.
“He founded the area and was an important figure in the Ottawa Valley, but when I started looking for material on Egan I couldn’t find hardly anything,” he said. “The longest thing I ever saw written about him was a little two-page biography.”
McBane managed to compile quite the collection of Egan literature over the course of his search and plans to publish a book on the man later in the year.
He explained that the talk was one of the winter activities organized by the FOCF to attract new members and build interest in the organization.
He said that they plan to host outdoor activities in the future and add interpretive tours and signage to promote the historic and ecological significance of the Chats Falls region, noting that it hosts an ancient Indigenous portage and several rare species of wildlife.
“It was really an attraction to the history but also the beauty of the area,” McBane said, explaining his love for the area. “There are parts above the falls, with the water and the islands, you’d think you were in Algonquin Park. It’s so pristine.”