Why is Ottawa the Canadian capital rather than Toronto?

Queen Victoria picked it in 1857, and it was a compromise nobody was enthusiastic about. The Province of Canada had been alternating its capital between Toronto, Kingston, Montreal and Quebec City, which was expensive and absurd, and no city could be chosen without one language group feeling the other had won.

Ottawa - then a rough lumber town called Bytown - had the advantage of sitting exactly on the border between Canada West and Canada East, English and French. It was also further from the American border and shielded by rough country, which mattered a great deal in the 1850s when invasion from the south was a live worry rather than a joke.

The choice was mocked immediately. It was described as a sub-arctic lumber village, and one much-repeated line held that it was safe from invasion because any American army would get lost in the woods trying to find it. The parliament buildings burned down in 1916 and were rebuilt, and the city has spent a century and a half growing into a decision made about it rather than by it.