I've seen some of Richard's pictures of that, and they're really cool. Hope you can post them. CB.

Hi everyone tonight:

Hi Jim and Daiku thanks for coming on board and also those nice remarks, sorry I can't post anything presently so guess I will just have to talk for the time being.

It was exciting times around here then, I was just a teen ager lots of work, construction went 24 hrs a day non stop, for about 4 years, crushing stone, pouring concrete, moving houses, cutting right of ways, there was a new railway line built, a new 4 lane highway, as well a scenic 2 lane highway just to name a few.

All the foundations for the moved homes were readied, one of the major tasks facing the engineering dept. was the construction of a coffer dam to divert the St. Lawrence river and dry up the river bed to allow the construction of the Hydro generation station.

Eventually it created a lake 21 miles long, and took the complete capacity input of the St Lawrence river flowing into it 4 days to fill to its highest point.


Hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane
NH

Hi everyone tonight:

Cont'd from last night---


It was at this time that the historic homes and outbuildings that are contained at Upper Canada Village were rescued from the inundation and moved to their new locations.

There were many more that were just tore down and in some cases burned to clear the land. As well many very old trees some 200 years or more were cut down, as well as old apple orchards.

It seems a shame that in the name of progress this sort of thing comes to pass, I should have said "in the name of power production" to have been truthfull, well I have to go now

NH

Hello everyone tonight:

Just to correct my post above the tree that I said was 200 years old, when I reviewed my notes the entry should have read as follows-- "it was estimated to be 500 years old"-- this tree stood in Moulinette one of the small towns that was inundated due to the flooding. A slice of this tree was preserved at UCV and it was 6 feet across the section.

There were 22 graveyards affected most of the remains were left except those that the families wished removed, the stones were all removed and the site was cemented over to contain everything.

22 churches were situated in the way of the project only 2 churches were removed to higher ground.

5 villages were erased from the map of Ontario, 2 other town lost most or a greater portion of their locality.

The new rail line was 40 miles long, and the new scenic road was 30 miles in length.

Some interesting information on the St. Lawrence river was noted as follows:

There was a drop of 92 feet from Lake Ontario to Cornwall about 80 feet was contained in the 21 miles directly in front of the new power house at Cornwall

The river itself is considered to be one of the most dependable rivers in the world and by this I mean the following: its maximum flow is only twice its minimum, by comparison its close neighbour the Ottawa river is 12 times.

The land expropriated to make way for the flooding was 225 farms, most of which had been in the same family names since the 1784 settlement, 22000 acres of land on the Canadian side, and 18000 acres on th US side. 500 summer cottages, 3,600 acres of trees from forests to fruit farms, fences, and yards

The project started in August of 1954 and the head pond flooding started on July 1 1958, power generation began immediately there were 32 huge generators, producing 1, 880,000 kilowats of power, each turbine producing approx 75,000 horsepower

I hope that I am not boring you TFer's but this is just I thought a nice bit of forgotten history something like those that fought and lost their lives in the many wars of our world~!


According to the many scuba divers that probe the depths of the St Lawrence it is an erie spectacle to see the streets and house basements still preserved underwater at those ghostly locations.

Hope you you enjoy this slice of history

NH

When I was a young boy in the 60's my family vacationed up there and had a tour of one of the power plants.
And we watched some ships go through the locks.....

NH:

I'm enjoying this immensely as history is one of my favorite subjects.

Here in Maine, the town of Flagstaff was lost to a hydroelectric project about the same time as your account. Flagstaff was legally dis-incorporated in 1950. The Dead River (aptly named as far as Flagstaff folks were concerned) was dammed.

These two videos tell the story:

http://www.windowsonmaine.org/view.aspx?objectId=9-30&currentfile=0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ATIVa7WbHs


I'd like to see some pics/video of the St. Lawrence project if you can manage.

I guess the ultimate example of this kind of displacement would be the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze in China.

Hi everyone again tonight:

Well sorry to say I can't post right now but if I can get things up and running again in the near future I will post some.

Hi Don--you are like me I really enjoy everything about woodworking especially the old style, but you know I really enjoy a cut out of the history books especially in my leisure time.

Also your inputon the damming of the river at Flagstaff, Maine. I really didn't realize that there was a town named flagstaff in maine I thought it was in Arizona. I really sounds like tose folks went through the same agony that the folks around here did about the same time maybe a bit earlier.

Just a few more items from my file on the seaway project:

The Robert Saunders Powerhouse in 3,300 feet long and 162 feet high.

The dam that holds back the 21 mile head pond with its axis curved upstream is 2,250 feet long and 124 feet wide

There was a loss of 25 canadian's lives and 17 americans during the construction phase

Two massive locks raise and lower ocean going vessels one lifts and lowers 45 feet, and the other 38 feet.

The seaway took 50 years of planning between the US and candian governments. Talks started in 1913 and then the study began.

hope you enjoy

NH

NH:

History, especially local history, is always interesting to me.

I always liked carpentry ever since I could remember, but history is something I've warmed to in the last decade or so. It helps round out my identity: in order to know who we are, we must know where (and what) we came from.

And Flagstaff lives on somewhat here in Maine. That dammed section of the Dead River was named Flagstaff Lake. Though nothing like the St. Lawrence, it's a good chunk of water: about 22,000 acres.

Hi everyone tonight:

Well I think the majority of visitors have enjoyed this trip down memory lane eventhough it really strays from timberframing or hewing, I will say though that many of the structures razed by this so called progress for power production were the very earliest hand crafted structures that were built by the early settlers, thank god that someone had the foresight to rescue some examples at UCV.

tonight I will give the last bit of info on this massive seaway venture I hope that you forgive me for chatting on so but I have really enjoyed it.

Total excavation 95 million cu yds
concrete used 3.2 million cu yds
sand and stone 5.2 million cu yds

headpond capacity 100 sq

sorry I hit the submit button-----------


headpond capacity-- 100 sq miles contains approx 23 billion cubic ft of water

Cost-----600 million dollars!!

note:

I still have feelings of sadness after nearly 50 years for those that had their holdings ripped away from them by expropriation eventho everyone for many years were good citizens, paid their taxes, and get this "thought they owned their land", no one really owns their land-- RIGHT--

until another night and another topic


NH