By Joel Weiner
In many respects, the history of Ottawa begins in Lowertown. Accordingly, it is entirely appropriate that two of the best books about Ottawa were produced by a longtime resident of Lowertown, writer-photographer John McQuarrie.
Ottawa Then and Now, first published in 2000 and since reprinted four times, features gorgeous photographs by McQuarrie and text by our former Mayor, Jacquelin Holzmann, along with Rosalind Tosh. Capital Builders, scheduled for release this month, combines archival and new photos with text by Ottawa Citizen reporters and Carleton University journalism students. Lowertown personalities and locales are included in both titles, each a beautiful coffee table book for enjoyable reading and prominent display.
Intriguingly, McQuarrie’s connection to our quarter predates the many years that he’s lived in the neighbourhood. “My first view of Ottawa was through a Lowertown lens,” he says, recalling when his family relocated from Nova Scotia to the capital in 1956. “We came by train across the Alexandra Bridge to the old Union Station on Rideau Street. Everything I saw that day was in the shadow of Lowertown, and I’ve been fascinated by it ever since.”
McQuarrie wasn’t quite ten then and, over the ensuing years, Lowertown came to figure in his youth although the family lived elsewhere in the city. “I learned to swim at the Chateau Laurier pool and bought malted milks downstairs at Freiman’s department store,” he remembers. “When I was older, I wandered through the Byward Market, just loving the sights and sounds. So, when the opportunity arose, I moved to Lowertown. That was twenty-five years ago.”
Lowertown is more than a home to McQuarrie. It’s also the base for his very successful business, Magic Light Photography, which has served such well known international clients over the years as Coors (beer), Marlboro (cigarettes), and McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed (aeronautics). But his passion is for elegant coffee books filled with spectacular photographs and stimulating commentary.
McQuarrie got his first camera, a Kodak Instamatic, as a gift from his parents when he was still quite young, and soon developed an ardent enthusiasm for photography. But it took some time before his hobby became a career. In between, there were stints as a skydiver in Canada and as a member of the famous Golden Knights, the U.S. Army’s famed parachute team based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Then came proprietorship, first of a tropical fish store in the city’s west end and then of a parachute centre east of Gatineau, followed by periods with the federal government.
It was in the early 1990’s that McQuarrie’s love of the skies and photography were married in the form of his first three books that focused on the Canadian Air Force from the Second World War to the Gulf War. They were all best sellers. Since then, he has produced more than forty coffee table books, including ten titles in the acclaimed Then & Now series of cities, waterways and other sites across Canada. In 2014, he began his Spirit of Place series, which now includes three titles that focus on Newfoundland, Muskoka and Boston, respectively, as well as, this year, his massive Canada, Spirit of Place with Roy MacGregor.
Despite this international success, our city has not been forgotten. Early next year, McQuarrie will release what promises to become yet another of his many best sellers. Tentatively titled Above Ottawa, An Aerial Panorama, it will have phenomenally stunning imagery of the capital that has never been shot or seen before. “It’s an Ottawa book,” says McQuarrie, “but its soul comes from Lowertown.”