The
Victoria
Yacht Club was founded in Aylmer c1897
and began operations from the pier in Queen's Park,
some way further north on the Aylmer shore from the
incumbent Aylmer Boating
Club. (c1890) Many of the founders
of VYC were former members of the Boating Club. Victoria
was referred to as the Aylmer Yacht Club
on some postcards (likely meaning the "Yacht Club
in Aylmer" as opposed to any connection to the
Aylmer Boating Club). In its early days, VYC had a membership
over 300 and was referred to as the "most prominent
yachting and social club on the river." The new
building was established in 1901 and the Rideau
Aquatic Club even hosted regattas on Lac Deschênes
via the Victoria club. As reported in the Britannia
Boating Club news and the Ottawa Journal, the Victoria
Club burned down on July 5, 1922 (not during the 1921
great fire of Aylmer) after attempting to amalgamate
with the Britannia Tennis Club. The last act of the
now defunct club was to present a trophy to the Northern
Division for presentation to the Divisional champion
club. The Victoria Yacht Club Trophy is still presented
today, but to the U14 Divisional Champions. There is
some confusion as to when the Victoria Yacht Club built
their "new" boathouse. There are clearly two
different buildings, one as seen in the postcard and
the other c1905. One source claims that Moses Chamberlain
Edey designed the new Victoria building in 1901 which
seems to fit the timeline. He was a prominent local
architect having been commissioned later to design the
Rideau Canoe Club.
Regarding
the Aylmer Boating Club: it was located at the foot
of Main Street on Mr. Conroy's wharf (the site of today's
Aylmer Marina). In 1900, they had 40 members and a "sufficiently
commodious" boathouse and wrote in the Ottawa Journal
about the possibility of local interested parties discussing
a coming together of boating organisations. (Likely
a reference to the Victoria Yacht Club further upstream
north of Aylmer) A Wikipedia article cites a missing
source that has conflicting information, namely that
ABC became AYC in 1900 and then subsequently VYC in
1906. However, the Ottawa Journal article from August
10, 1897 clearly calls the new club being founded as
Victoria Yacht Club and makes no mention of the Aylmer
Boating Club.
