CAPTAIN KENDALL WARNED OF FOGS
Captain Kendall had been warned of the prevalence of fogs in the lower river, and information had reached the liner also that there were forest fires in Quebec which were throwing smoke blankets over the St. Lawrence. Having experienced such conditions before, the commander of the Empress, while quite unalarmed, took the usual precautions.
As night came on he reduced the liner’s speed. The night was still clear when the incoming Alsatian passed so closely that her passengers had a fine view of the big Canadian Pacific Railway ship, which showed beautifully and majestically as she swung by with her decks blazing with electric lights.
Captain Kendall stopped his ship at Rimouski, a town of 2,000 inhabitants, on the New Brunswick shore, about 180 miles northeast of Quebec as the channel flows. It is a mail station, the last outpost of the Dominion mail service. Bags of mail were loaded aboard, and the Empress moved steadily out into the broad river.
At this point the St. Lawrence, leading into the inland sea, which is the gulf of St. Lawrence, is thirty miles wide. The channel runs about ten miles from the New Brunswick shore and about twenty miles from the Quebec shore.
At midnight the tide was running in strongly. The weather was cold and there was a piercing sting to the air. The mercury had fallen to just above the freezing point. Few passengers were stirring after midnight. It was too cold on deck to make late vigils pleasurable. There were a few parties in the smoking room at bridge and poker, but the great majority of the passengers were in their berths.