POOF! Small Quebec town vanishes

Poof! Just like that, Aylmer disappeared from the face of the earth yesterday afternoon.

Pierre and I climbed 1100-foot King Mountain in the Gatineaus to take a look at the panoramic and picturesque view from the top. I wonder if anybody ever falls off the edge of the mountain into the little toy world below?

At the top of the mountain we found some explanatory plaques and panels and a cairn, which commemorates Canada’s first Triangulation Station.

From the cairn, you’re supposed to be able to see Ottawa, Hull, Gatineau and Aylmer. We could see Ottawa and Hull, and if that white oak hadn’t been in the way, we think we could have seen Gatineau. But where Aylmer should have been? Farmland. Bales of hay. Forest. Trees. Somehow a bustling little town, home to 36,000 people, had inexplicably vanished. And nobody seemed to notice.

Here’s Pierre, searching for Aylmer.

See the big river in the background? (Not the little one in the foreground; the big one in the background.) That’s the Ottawa River and it geographically divides Quebec and Ontario. Aylmer, Quebec is supposed to be on this side of that river. It’s not there anymore.

King Mountain is on the Eardley Escarpment, which is a sub-microclimate. We walked through three different kinds of forests and saw Red Oaks, White Oaks, Hemlock Trees, Go-to-Sleep-and-Never-Wake-Up-Berry Bushes, chipmunks and a soaring bird of prey which was probably either a hawk or a turkey vulture.

We even saw a tricycle truck when we got back to town, parked in the lot behind Pub Italia.

We saw a lot of things, but we never saw Aylmer. I wonder if its disappearance had anything to do with the UFO sightings in Aylmer earlier this month?