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Gatineau is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is situated on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario, and is located within Canada's National Capital Region.
A number of federal and provincial government offices are located in Gatineau, due to its proximity to the national capital, and its status as the main town of the Outaouais region of Quebec.
A policy of the federal government to distribute federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River led to the construction of several massive office towers to house federal civil servants in what was then Hull (now Hull sector in Gatineau).
The largest of these are Place du Portage and Terrasses de la Chaudière, occupying part of what had been the downtown core of Hull.
 RECREATION IN GATINEAU
Two important tourist attractions located in Gatineau are the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Casino du Lac Leamy. In August, the Casino hosts an international fireworks competition which opposes four different countries with the winner being awarded a Prix Zeus prize for the best overall show (based on several criteria) and can return in the following year. At the beginning of September, on Labour Day weekend, Gatineau hosts an annual hot air balloon festival which fills the skies with colourful gas-fired passenger balloons.
There are many parks. Some of them are well gardened playgrounds or resting spaces while others, like Lac Beauchamp Park, are relatively wild green areas which often merge with the woods and fields of the surrounding municipalities. Streams of all sizes run through these natural expanses.
Most of the city is on level ground but the Northern and Eastern parts lie on the beginnings of the foothills of the massive Canadian Shield, or Laurentian mountains. These are the "Gatineau Hills", and are visible in the background of the companion picture. One of Gatineau's urban parks, Jacques Cartier Park is used by the National Capital Commission during the popular festival, Winterlude.
TRANSPORTATION
Gatineau has a municipal airport capable of handling small jets. Most residents of Gatineau use the nearby Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, or travel to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal.
Ottawa and Gatineau have two distinct bus-based public transit systems with different fare structures, OC Transpo and the Société de transport de l'Outaouais. Tickets are not interchangeable between the two, and use of passes and transfers from one system to the other can require payment of a surcharge on certain routes (such as express lines).
Many Gatineau highways and major arteries feed directly into the bridges crossing over to Ottawa, but once there the roads land into the dense downtown grid or into residential areas, with no easy connection to the main highway in Ottawa, the East-West 417 or Queensway. This difficulty is further magnified by the lack of a major highway on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River connecting Gatineau to Montreal, Quebec, the metropolis of the province; most travelers from Gatineau to Montreal first cross over to Ottawa, and use Ontario highways to access Montreal. However, it is expected that Autoroute 50's gap between Gatineau and Lachute will be completed by 2010, making a new link between Gatineau and the Laurentians popular tourist area, and may serve as part of a Montreal by-pass by the north shore for Outaouais residents.
MEDIA
Gatineau is the city of license for several television and radio stations, although many more stations licensed to Ottawa are also available in the area. Both cities are generally considered to constitute a single media market, and all of the region's broadcast stations transmit from the Ryan Tower site at Camp Fortune just north of Gatineau.
Gatineau is also served primarily by daily newspapers published in Ottawa, including the French Le Droit and the English Ottawa Citizen, although a number of weekly community newspapers are published in Gatineau.
From Wikipedia
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