The first real town east of Mattawa is Deep River (pop. 4,200), Canada’s first “Atomic Town,” a planned community built for employees of the Chalk River labs just downstream. The Diplomat Motor Hotel (613/584-1234) on Hwy-17 dates to the Cold War era and would be equally at home in the former Soviet Union, but the real attraction is the Laurentian View Dairy Bar (613/584-3777) a few blocks west, featuring homespun Canadian country cooking and homemade ice cream.
Nine miles farther east, you enter Chalk River. In 1945, this tiny logging center became the home of the first atomic reactor outside of the United States. Seven years later, Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (AECL), a government-owned nuclear research organization, was founded here; they design and sell commercial and research nuclear reactors around the world, and produce most of the world’s radioactive isotopes for medical use. At the Chalk River Laboratories, you can “tour the atomic age” and clamber around a research reactor (Mon.–Fri. summer only; free; 613/584-3311, ext. 4965).
