Lots coming up!

Thanks to everyone for their support in visiting the blog and passing along the word. It has been only about 7 weeks that I've had the blog running, and already the response has been incredible. The blog has had over 7,500 hits, which is fantastic. I appreciate all the input, comments and kind words shared over Twitter, Facebook, and email.

I'm particularly indebted to Glen at the awesome and informative site www.ottawastart.com for picking up a couple of the blog articles and posting them on OttawaStart, which has really helped expand the audience. Lost Ottawa on Facebook has also published a few of my photos, both of which seemed to hit incredible numbers of likes, comments and shares. So that is really cool.

I'd just like to throw out there that collecting old photos from the neighbourhood has not been easy. It has been years of hard work digging through the various archives, and borrowing/scanning photos from long-time (or old-time) residents. So I just want to re-iterate that if anyone reading this has any old photos of Kitchissippi - be it Hintonburg, Wellington Village, Westboro, McKellar, etc., even if its a few old small black & white photos of your childhood home (or the childhood home of parents/grandparents, etc.) I would love to borrow/scan or obtain a digital copy of your photos. Particularly if it is of a streetscape, or a business, or a house which has since been demolished. These photos are a gold mine to me, when I piece together the history of a property or street (and they make pretty cool additions to the articles too).

Beyond that, I'm also interested in ANY items of historical significance for the area. Just last week I found someone selling two old Champlain Park high school yearbooks from the 60s. If you have any old high school yearbooks (Nepean, Highland Park, Fisher Park, Champlain), or old phone books/city directories, or anything neat at all (or come across it in your travels), I would be very interested in buying (or at least borrowing) it from you. Thanks very much!

Lastly, there are a few exciting things coming up. I've been busy working on a couple of things for the Kitchissippi Times which should appear in the forthcoming couple of issues. I'm especially looking forward to posting up the history of Whisper's Pub, which will be ready very soon. I'm also working on one or two things on Wellington Street businesses, a couple of really cool street histories, and a very detailed article on a topic that I'm asked about a few times per week - the legendary creeks and caves of Kitchissippi. All coming up in the next two weeks (or so) on the Kitchissippi Museum. Cheers!