The Canadian Canals.
Before the construction of canals these great inland waters were of but little value to commerce, the only means of reaching them being by the bark canoe or bateau of the voyageur. The United Empire Loyalists who came to Canada at the close of the American war were conveyed to their settlements on the St. Lawrence and Bay of Quinte in the long sharp-pointed, flat-bottomed boats of the period, called “bateaux,” by a very slow, laborious and uncomfortable process. General Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (1791-96), is said to have sailed from Kingston to Detroit in his bark canoe, rowed by twelve chasseurs of his own regiment and followed by another canoe carrying his tents and provisions. Many still living recollect how Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, made his annual canoe journeys from Montreal to the Red River country. Having “sung at St. Ann’s their parting hymn,” his flotilla of canoes ascended the Ottawa, breasted the rapids, and by river, lake and portage, after many weary days, reached Lake Huron and the Sault Ste. Marie, thence along the north shore of Lake Superior to Fort William and the Grand Portage and by Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods to Fort Garry. “With the self-possession of an emperor he was borne through the wilderness. He is said to have made the canoe journey to the Red River forty times. For his distinguished management of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s affairs and for his services to the trade of Canada, Governor Simpson was knighted. He died in 1860, a man who would have been of mark anywhere.”[42]
As early as A. D. 1700 a boat canal was constructed by the Sulpicians to connect Lachine with Montreal via the Little St. Pierre River. The depth of water was only two and a half feet. About the year 1780 certain short cuttings with locks available for canoes and bateaux were made at a few points on the St. Lawrence where the rapids were wholly impassable. About the beginning of the century the Government of Lower Canada, appreciating the advantages of improved navigation, made liberal appropriations to that end, resulting in the completion, in 1804, of a channel three feet in depth along the shore line of the Lachine Rapids connected with short canals at the Cascades, Split Rock, and Coteau du Lac, which were provided with locks eighty-eight feet long and sixteen feet wide—small dimensions, perhaps, but at the time regarded as a vast improvement, admitting of the passage of “Durham boats,” which then took the place of bateaux, with ten times their capacity. Two small locks had also been built at the Long Sault rapids, above Cornwall. But at many points the aid of oxen and horses was required, and for many years, up to the opening of the St. Lawrence canals, indeed, the chief cash revenues of the farmers along the river front were derived from the towage of barges up the swift water, in many cases to the serious neglect of their farms. In the spirit of the religion of the early voyageurs and boatmen, crosses were erected at the head of the rapids, suggesting to those who had successfully surmounted them to rest and be thankful; hence the name, still applied to the district immediately above the Long Sault rapids, “Santa Cruz.” Here, no doubt, stood for many years one of the holy crosses before which, on bended knee, thanks would often be given for a safe ascent of the rapids.
The mail service in these days between Montreal and Kingston was in keeping with the times. It was undertaken by a walking contractor, who with the mail on his back took up his line of march from Montreal, gauging his speed to accomplish the walk to Kingston and return in fourteen days.[43]
A good many years later it was a four days’ journey from Montreal to New York by the most expeditious route then existing. Thus it was advertised in the Montreal Gazette, November 25th, 1827:
DAILY STAGES. Albany and Montreal Line. Season of 1826 and 1827. The only full and perfect line running between Montreal and Albany leaves B. Thatcher’s office, No. 87 St. Paul Street, Montreal, every day, passing through Laprairie, Burlington, Middlebury, Poultney and Salem to Albany, through an old-settled, rich and populous country, and mostly on a smooth gravelly turnpike. Through in three days, and fare very reasonable. Extras and expresses at a moment’s notice. Young, Swain, Esinhart and others, proprietors.
The voyage of the Durham boat was a very tedious one, depending as it did largely on a favouring easterly breeze in traversing the lakes and quieter portions of the river, and on the dexterity of the boatmen who wielded the “setting-poles”[44] in swifter water, as well as their luck in surmounting the rapids, where they were liable to be detained for hours, sometimes for days, contending against the swift currents, subject to the mishaps of grounding or being damaged by big boulders, or, worse still, of being caught by an eddy or an out-current and swept down the rapids, sometimes with the loss of the oxen or horses which had them in tow, and in some instances with the loss of the boat and cargo. Woe to the teamster who was not provided with a knife to cut the rope in such an emergency!
The first Lachine Canal proper, for barges, was commenced July 17th, 1821, and was completed in 1825, at a cost of $438,404. Of this amount $50,000 was contributed by the Imperial Government on condition that all military stores should be free from toll. It had 7 locks, each 100 feet long, 20 feet wide, and with 4½ feet depth of water on the sills. In 1843-49 it became a “ship canal” with 5 locks, each 200 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 9 feet depth of water, costing $2,149,128. The recent enlargement, commenced in 1875, cost $6,500,000. By this the locks were increased to 270 feet in length and 14 feet depth of water throughout the canal.