History
The cottage was built for lumber baron (Lieutenant Colonel) Cameron Macpherson Edwards in the 1920s when he acquired the land that the home was built upon. The lake and the property (including neighbouring land belonging to William Duncan Herridge and Stanley Healey) had been acquired by the Queen in Right of Canada in 1951, in order to build up preserves of natural areas around the capital. In 1959, supporters of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker suggested that he needed a quiet place to go fishing, not too far from Ottawa, and, later that year, Harrington Lake was chosen as the site for an official country residence for the Prime Minister. During the first prime ministership of Pierre Trudeau, his then-wife, Margaret, added a vegetable garden, which, according to Kim Campbell's autobiography Time and Chance, still provides the house with fresh produce.
Campbell was also the only Prime Minister to have spent her entire term in office residing at Harrington Lake. Initially, Campbell took up residence at Harrington Lake so that her predecessor, Brian Mulroney, could continue to reside at 24 Sussex Drive until renovations on his new private residence in Montreal were completed. Once Mulroney vacated 24 Sussex, Campbell had not finished moving to that address before her party was defeated in the 1993 election.
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