THE ST. LAWRENCE: A BEAUTIFUL RIVER
MEASURES TAKEN FOR SAFETY -- FATHER POINT -- PICTURESQUE RIVER --
GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE -- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- TADOUSAC -- CAP
TOURMENTE -- QUEBEC -- MONTREAL -- GEOLOGY OF COUNTRY
THE St. Lawrence passage is one of the most beautiful in the world,
and is also one of the safest and best marked of all interior
waterways.
The improvement of the St. Lawrence, indeed, dates as far back as
1825. In that year the opening of the Lachine Canal gave connection
with the Great Lakes and established a commercial basis for the route.
In those days attention was turned chiefly to making the channel
deeper. At that time light sailing vessels could come up as far as
Montreal. In 1844 dredging was begun to give safe passage for vessels
of 500 tons. The progress made in this fundamental of safe navigation
may be strikingly shown by a few figures. The original depth of water
in Lake St. Peter was ten feet six inches. Today there are thirty feet
of water there and a channel 800 feet in width. In order to provide
the present channel it has been necessary to dredge seventy miles; and
the cost of the work since 1851 has been $15,600,000.
[Illustration: HOW THE ST. LAWRENCE GULF AND RIVER ARE GUARDED BY
WIRELESS STATIONS
The black dots represent Government owned and operated wireless
stations under the station name. The "N. M.'s" and the dots with
the rings around them show stations operated by the Marconi
company. The Gulf stations between Montreal and Point Riche are
open permanently day and night during the season of navigation.
The remainder of the stations, except Pictou, are open permanently
day and night all the year round. Pictou is open permanently day
and night during the winter season.]
The deepening of the channel, the straightening of curves and the
removal of obstructions--these things have been but the beginning of
measures taken for the safety of the St. Lawrence route by the
Canadian government. The waterways have been charted. The tides have
been measured. The darkness has been lighted and beacons erected to
throw a warning or a welcoming flash across the waters. Fog alarms
have been installed. Wireless and other signal stations have been
erected, and a system of marine intelligence has been built up to warn
the mariner of coming storms. Science has been enlisted in the cause,
and the Dominion has in several directions been a pioneer in the
world-wide work of providing for the safety of those who go down to
the sea in ships.
FATHER POINT
Father Point, near which the wreck of the Empress of Ireland occurred,
is a small village on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, and ten
miles distant from Rimouski, where the transatlantic mails are
transferred. It stands high above the water, and on clear days can be
seen from a distance of twenty miles.
In 1859 the first telegraph line was connected with this point, and
Robert E. Easson was the first operator. It was the first point in
Canada to receive old country news from the boats, and this was
relayed to other parts. Messages for the old country were also wired
there frequently and mailed on the boats.
The river in this neighborhood is approximately thirty miles wide.
Rimouski is about 150 miles down the river from Quebec, and usually is
reached in the early morning after an afternoon departure from Quebec.
PICTURESQUE RIVER
The St. Lawrence comes down to the gulf under various names. From the
little River St. Louis it pours through the great inland sea of Lake
Superior and the St. Mary's River, with its crowded canals, into Lake
Huron; thence, in another outflow, through the St. Clair and Detroit
Rivers to Lake Erie and from there by the Niagara River and its
wonderful falls, to Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario, for 750 miles, it
rolls to the gulf and the ocean under its own historic name and is
never less than a mile in width. As it broadens and deepens into
beautiful lakes or narrows and shallows into restless rapids, as it
sweeps past cliffs crowned with verdure or great natural ridges capped
with dense forests, as these break frequently to reveal fertile
valleys and a rolling country, or rise into rugged and yet exquisitely
picturesque embodiments of nature such as the heights of Quebec, there
comes the thought that here, indeed, is a fitting entrance to a great
country, an adequate environment for the history of a romantic people,
a natural stage-setting for great events and gallant deeds.
Though greater than any other Canadian river, the St. Lawrence was,
and is, a natural type and embodiment of them all. Sweeping in its
volume of water, sometimes wild and impetuous, never slow or sluggish,
on its way to the sea, ever changing in its currents and rapids and
waterfalls, its lakes and incoming river branches, passing through
varied scenery yet always preserving in its course a degree of dignity
which approaches majesty, it reveals a combination of volume and
vastness, beauty and somberness, which makes it in more senses than
one the father of waters on this continent--"the great river without
an end," as an Indian once described it to Cartier.
GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
The gulf into which the river broadens is more or less a land-locked
sea, deep and free from reef or shoal, running 500 miles from north to
south and 243 from east to west. In its center lies the once lonely
and barren Isle of Anticosti; not far from Gaspé Bay, two miles out at
sea, lies La Roche Percé, a gigantic pile of stone with perpendicular
walls forming, in certain conditions of the weather, a marvelous
combination of colors outlined against the blue sky and emerald sea.
In this rock there is now an opening broken by the unceasing dash of
the waves; according to Denys there were at one time three great
arches, and seventy years before his time Champlain stated that there
was only one but that one big enough for a ship to sail through; in
still earlier days Indian legends describe its connection with the
shore.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Let us at this stage look lightly at some of the geographical and
associated conditions as we pass slowly up the St. Lawrence from its
mouth, and try to see what manner of region this is which has
witnessed so much of romance and has brought together and kept
together the new and the old--the Europe of three centuries ago and
the America of to-day. From Percé and its memories of a naval battle
in 1776, when two American ships were sunk, we pass along a shore
devoted with undying allegiance to codfish, and possessing at Mont
Ste. Anne one of the finest scenic views in eastern Canada. At Gaspé,
the chief place in the Peninsula--the farthest point of Quebec on the
south shore of the St. Lawrence--there are abundant salmon and
fruitful inland fields. Here Cartier once landed, took possession of
vast unknown regions for the King of France and erected a cross thirty
feet high which flew the fleur-de-lis, also, as a mark of ownership;
near here, Admiral Kirke defeated a large French fleet. Then comes
Cape Gaspé with its towering rampart of sandstone, nearly 700 feet
high, and many succeeding miles of rocky walls and lofty cliffs. Near
Cape Chatte, another English and French naval fight took place, and
near here, also, runs into the St. Lawrence the Matane River, famous
for its trout and salmon, while the great river itself stretches
thirty-five miles across to its northern shores.
[Illustration: DECK SPORTS
Playing cricket on the deck of the "Empress of Ireland." One of
the favorite amusements of the male passengers. The broad decks
and steadiness of the great liner made the game possible on all
except the very rough days.]
[Illustration: A NOOK IN THE MUSIC-ROOM
A cosey spot for a quiet hour on the "Empress of Ireland."]
TADOUSAC
Thence, one goes up the river to Tadousac, the ancient village on the
north shore, which nestles at the black jaws of the Saguenay and seems
unafraid of all the majesty and mystery of the scene, of all the weird
tales and fables which centuries have woven around it, of the dark
depths which go down into the bowels of the earth and of shores which
are bleak, inaccessible and perpendicular walls of soaring rock. A
little higher up on the other side of the St. Lawrence are Rivière du
Loup and Cacouna--the latter a fashionable summer resort perched on a
rocky peninsula many feet above the water. Back on the north shore is
Murray Bay--the Malle Baie of Champlain, now famous for its fishing
and bathing. Not far up the river, which here is fifteen miles wide,
are the picturesque village and mountain of Les Eboulements with Isle
aux Coudrés and its mediæval population out in the center of the
river. As the modern traveler passes on up to Quebec City he realizes
something of what scenery is in Canada. On the north, for a time,
there is visible a region of splendid vistas, a country of volcanic
origin where rocks and mountains seem to roll into one another and
commingle in the wildest fantasies of nature's strangest mood.
CAP TOURMENTE
Then comes Cap Tourmente, towering 2,000 feet from the water's edge,
and other massed piles of granite jutting out into the river, with the
Isle of Orléans green and beautiful in the sunlight, with the St.
Lawrence jewel-bright and showing glimpses of the white curtain of
Montmorency Falls in the distance, with the naked, somber heights of
the Laurentides to the north. Everywhere, indeed, along the north
shore, from far down on the Labrador coast up to Cap Tourmente, there
is this wall of mountains, like a sea of rolling rocks, cleft here and
there by such recesses as Murray Bay or the Saguenay. Everywhere,
also, are footprints of the early explorers. Here Cartier landed,
there Champlain camped, here De Roberval is supposed to have
disappeared forever between the wide walls of the Saguenay, there
Pont-Gravé or Chauvin left traces of adventurous exploits.
QUEBEC
At Quebec there looms up the sentinel on the rock which overlooks all
the pages of Canadian history and still stands as the most picturesque
and impressive city of the new world. Here, on one side of the
mile-wide river stand the green heights of Lévis; on the other are the
grand outlines of Cape Diamond, crowned with the ramparts of Quebec
and now embodying age and power as the graces of the Chateau Frontenac
represent modern luxury and business. In the neighborhood of this once
famous walled city lie the Falls of Montmorency and the historic
shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré; a succession of villages typical of
the life of the old-time habitants and redolent of mediæval Europe;
ruins of famous chateaux embodying memories of history and politics,
love and laughter, tragedy and crime.
HISTORY AND TRADITION
Passing from Quebec up the river to Montreal, the mouth of the
Chaudière is seen with its splendid falls in the distance and the
valley through which Benedict Arnold marched his disastrous
expedition to the hoped-for capture of Quebec. At Pointe-aux-Trembles,
farther on, there took place several encounters between French and
English. Three Rivers stands at the mouth of the St. Maurice, which
rises, with the Ottawa and the Saguenay, in a maze of lakes and
streams hundreds of miles to the north. In the city lie varied
historic memories running back to 1618 and including masses of legend
and romantic tradition. Not far from here the St. Lawrence widens into
Lake St. Peter and just above it the Richelieu pours its waters into
the greater stream, and at this point stands Sorel where in 1642 a
fort was built by M. de Montmagny.
MONTREAL
Montreal, with its modern population of 500,000 people, rests at the
meeting-place of the new and the old. It combines in itself the great
and sometimes rival interests of church and commerce, the customs and
methods of the English and French races, the streets and narrow
passages of the past with the great financial thoroughfares and
buildings of the present. It stands at a point where all the
commercial and business ideals of English Canada meet and press upon
the traditions, practices and policy of French Canada; it preserves
itself by combining these varied interests and maintaining a center of
wealth, commerce and transportation, while, so far as its French
population is concerned, remaining devoted to racial instincts and
loyal to one religious faith.
GEOLOGY OF COUNTRY
Geologically this country of the French Canadian is of intense
interest. It reaches back into the most ancient period of the world's
evolution; it was a later product of titanic changes and movements of
the earth's surface. The grinding, crushing flow of great masses of
ice from the Arctic regions had potent force in creating the vast
basin of the St. Lawrence; upheavals of a volcanic character are
obvious around Montreal, are clearly marked in the Lake St. John
region, are found in the Laurentian ranges; evidence of earthquakes
comes to us from within historic ages. Of the mountains in the Eastern
Townships country, where the elemental struggles of geological
antiquity must have been violent beyond description, Jesuit records at
St. Francis describe an earthquake of September 5, 1732, so powerful
as to destroy a neighboring Indian village. The better-known
disturbance of 1663 along the lower St. Lawrence lasted for months and
resulted in continuous landslides and a series of convulsions. The St.
Lawrence was said to have run white as milk for a long distance
because of the hills and vast masses of sand which were thrown into
it, ranges of hills disappeared altogether, the forests, according to
an Indian description, became as though they were drunk, vast fissures
opened in the ground, and the courses of streams were changed. The
whole of the Mount Royal region and valley shows clear evidences of
volcanic action.
These latter disturbances were, however, only episodes in geologic
ages of formation; there are no signs of a continuing character.
Forever, so far as finite vision can see, the mighty piles of the
Laurentian and other ranges of this part of the continent will stand
as memorials of still more mighty world-movements, as a somber
environment for the history of the Indians and the early struggles of
the French Canadian people, and as solemn witnesses of the
civilization which has now taken possession of this inherited
greatness and hopes in its own fleeting, fitful, fighting way to build
upon and refine and cultivate nature's splendid storehouse for its own
purposes and the advancement of its people.
FACTS ABOUT THE WRECK OF THE TITANIC
NUMBER of persons aboard, 2224.
Number of life-boats and rafts, 20.
Capacity of each life-boat, 50 passengers and crew of 8.
Utmost capacity of life-boats and rafts, about 1100.
Number of life-boats wrecked in launching, 4.
Capacity of life-boats safely launched, 928.
Total number of persons taken in life-boats, 717.
Number who died in life-boats, 6.
Total number saved, 711.
Total number of Titanic's company lost, 1513.
The cause of the disaster was a collision with an iceberg in latitude
41.46 north, longitude 50.14 west. The Titanic had had repeated
warnings of the presence of ice in that part of the course. Two
official warnings had been received defining the position of the ice
fields. It had been calculated on the Titanic that she would reach the
ice fields about 11 o'clock Sunday night. The collision occurred at
11.40. At that time the ship was driving at a speed of 21 to 23 knots,
or about 26 miles, an hour.
There had been no details of seamen assigned to each boat.
Some of the boats left the ship without seamen enough to man the oars.
Some of the boats were not more than half full of passengers.
The boats had no provisions, some of them had no water stored, some
were without sail equipment or compasses.
In some boats, which carried sails wrapped and bound, there was not a
person with a knife to cut the ropes. In some boats the plugs in the
bottom had been pulled out and the women passengers were compelled to
thrust their hands into the holes to keep the boats from filling and
sinking.
The captain, E. J. Smith, admiral of the White Star fleet, went down
with his ship.