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.