Vars is a small village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in eastern Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada, located within the municipal boundaries of Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

. Vars has a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 elementary school

Elementary school

An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

 called St-Guillaume, two churches (one Anglican and one Roman Catholic), and an outdoor skating rink located in the "Alcide Trudeau Park". There are few businesses, but there is a corner store, a pizzeria and other small businesses. The town's fire station

Fire station

A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...

, Ottawa Fire Service's Station 73, has been recently relocated and rebuilt and is now located at the south end of Frank Kenny Road. The local softball teams for children and teenagers, the Vars Vipers and the Vars Vikings, are sponsored by local businesses. The current population (2004) is approximately 1000 people, up about 250 people from 2000

History

The Bearbrook area was first colonized in 1824. By 1836 a small settlement began to form. The brook originally got its name from the plentiful amount of bears that foraged on acorns produced from the large quantities of oaks found alongside its sides. Mr. Dunning set up a sawmill operation that used logs that had been channelled down through Bear Brook, and which continued on eastward to the South Nation River, the Ottawa river and finally to the St. Lawrence Seaway. Bear Brook now flows with less than half the water it did when settlers first arrived. By the time the mill was set up the town consisted of a hotel, many stores and approximately 200 people in which the vast majority were francophone. In 1881, a train station was built and the area was named Bearbrook Station which would help transport logs towards the St. Lawrence. In 1886, the community reached a large enough population to gain a post office which lightened the work load for Jack Young who had previously brought the mail in by horse and by snowshoe in winter. Bearbrook Station was difficult to distinguish from the nearby community of Bearbrook; therefore, it was renamed. There are two stories for how Vars actually got its name. The first, is that with the building of the new post office, the people of Bearbrook Station decided to name the community after the four people who brought the post office to the area: Mc(V)eigh, (A)rmstrong, (R)onan, and (S)mith. The second story is that the town was given the name by a retired priest from Embrun, Abbé C. Guillame, in memory of the Department of Var in France. Interestingly, the town of Embrun is also named after a place in France. In 1915, permanent sidewalks were built in the main community area. In 1931, the village streets were lit up by street lights, one year earlier than the neighbouring village of Cumberland.

External links

• Vars community website