LeBreton Flats. Where dreams go to fizzle out.

 Above: View of LeBreton Flats (PHOTO: c.1892, photograph: silver gelatin, Bytown Museum, P752) Ottawa is the only G7 capital that features a gigantic ghost town within sight of its parliamentary precinct. This peculiarity is not the result of some natural disaster, but rather the good intentions of the Diefenbaker government to

The ‘Ugly’ History of LeBreton Flats

 Chaudiere falls in the early 1800s, with an empty Lebreton flats in the background. - Toronto Reference Library JRR1405. Most of us know LeBreton flats as that big, ugly, empty piece of land right next to downtown, where we go for Bluesfest. It hasn't always been so empty, in fact,