The production of flood as natural catastrophe: Extreme events and the construction of vulnerability in the drainage basin of the St. Francis River (Quebec), mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century

Environmental History

Volumn 12, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 820-844

  Castonguay, Stéphane ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À TROIS RIVIÈRES   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CATASTROPHIC EVENT; DRAINAGE BASIN; DROUGHT; ECONOMIC ACTIVITY; EXTREME EVENT; FLOODING; RIPARIAN ZONE; RIVER FLOW; SOCIAL HISTORY; VULNERABILITY;

CANADA; NORTH AMERICA; QUEBEC [CANADA]; SAINT FRANCOIS RIVER;

EID: 37349044447     PISSN: 10845453     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/envhis/12.4.820     Document Type: Article

References (175)

1. "Flood is Here," Sherbrooke Daily Record, April 19, 1900, 1.
2. Kenneth Hewitt, Interpretation of Calamities: From the Viewpoint of Human Ecology (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1983);
3. Anthony Oliver-Smith, "What is a Disaster: Anthropological Perspectives on a Persistent Question," in The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective, ed. Anthony Oliver-Smith and Susanna M. Hoffman (New York: Routledge, 1999), 18-34;
4. Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, "Introduction, the Urban Catastrophe-Challenge to the Social, Economic, and Cultural Order of the City," in Cities and Catastrophes: Coping with Emergency in European History, ed. Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, Harold L. Platt, and Dieter Schott (Peter Lang: Frankfurt, 2002), 1-39;
5. Thierry Coanus, François Duchêne, and Emmanuel Martinais, "Risque, Territoire et Longue Durée: vers 'Une Société du Risque'?" Annales de la Recherche Urbaine 95 (2004): 19-25.
6. Gilbert Fowler White, Human Adjustment to Floods, research paper no. 29 (Chicago: Department of Geography Research, University of Chicago, 1945). Born out of the realization that dam and levee construction projects have replaced flood control policies, this study showed how river infrastructure defeated the purpose of those policies by instilling a sentiment of safety, founded or not, among the flood plain dweller population. It established a research trend in geography that continues to this day.
7. See, for example, the special issue of the Canadian Geographer dedicated to "Changing Directions in Hazard Geography," 44 (Winter 2000): 322-418.
8. Robert d'Ercole, "Les Vulnérabilités des Sociétés et des Espaces Urbanisés: Concepts, Typologie, Modes d'Analyse," Revue de Géographie Alpine 82 (1994): 87-96;
9. Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York: Basic, 1998);
10. Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
11. Anthony Oliver-Smith, "Peru's Five-Hundred-Year Earthquake: Vulnerability in Historical Context," in Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster, ed. Susanna M. Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2001), 74-88.
12. Theodore L. Steinberg, "Dam-Breaking in the 19th Century Merrimack Valley: Water, Social Conflict, and the Waltham-Lowell Mills," Journal of Social History 24 (Fall 1990): 25-45;
13. Harold Platt, "'The Hardest Worked River': Manchester and Environmental Catastrophe," in Cities and Catastrophes, ed. Massard-Guilbaud, Platt and Schott, 163-93;
14. Ari Kelman, A River and its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 157-96.
15. Steinberg, Acts of God;
16. Annie Méjean, "Utilisation Politique d'une Catastrophe: le Voyage de Napoléon III en Provence durant la Grande Crue de 1856," Revue Historique 120 (Winter 1996): 133-51;
17. Christopher G. Boone, "Language Politics and Flood Control in Nineteenth-Century Montreal," Environmental History 1 (July 1996): 70-85;
18. Alessa Johns, "Introduction," in Dreadful Visitation : Confronting Natural Catastrophe in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. A. Johns (New York: Routledge, 1999), xx.
19. On vulnerability as a process, see Greg Bankoff, Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazard in the Philippines (London: Routledge, 2003);
20. Grégory Quenet, Les Tremblements de Terre aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles: La Naissance d'un Risque (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2005).
21. The Eastern Townships are considered a prototype for Canada, "just as New England had been in the case of the United States": Peter Southam, "Continuity and Change in Eastern Townships Manufacturing Industry," Journal of Eastern Townships Studies 18 (Spring 2001): 5.
22. Eight municipalities of the Eastern Townships were struck periodically by major floods in 1876, 1896, 1900, 1913, 1924, 1927, 1936, 1942, and 1943. Diane Saint-Laurent and Jean-Philippe Saucet, "Chronological Reconstitution of Floods of the Saint-François Drainage Basin, Québec, Canada," Proceedings, Third Canadian Conference on Geotechnique and Natural Hazards, Edmonton, Alberta, June 9-10, 2003, 90-93.
23. Jean-Pierre Gélinas, Caractéristiques Physiques: Bassin Versant de la Saint-François (Quebec: Water Branch, Department of Natural Resources, 1977);
24. G. Bergeron, Michel G. Ferland, and Angèle Houde, Hydrométéorologie: Basssin Versant de la Saint-François (Quebec: Meteorological Service, Department of Natural Resources, 1977).
25. R. D. Gagnon, D. M. Pollock, and D. M. Sparrow, Conditions Météorologiques Critiques et Crues Exceptionnelles des Rivières Chaudière et Saint-François (Quebec: Meteorological Service, Department of Natural Resources, 1970);
26. Diane Saint-Laurent, Christian Couture, and Éric McNeil, "Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Floods of the Saint-François Drainage Basin, Québec, Canada," Environments 29 (2001): 73-89.
27. On the climate of the Eastern Townships, see Jean-Jacques Boisvert, "Le Climat des Cantons de l'Est," in Les Cantons de l'Est, ed. Jean-Marie Dubois (Sherbrooke: Éditions de l'Université de Sherbrooke, 1989), 51-63.
28. Saint-Laurent and Saucet, "Chronological Reconstitution of Floods," 91.
29. John Derek Booth, Railways of Southern Quebec, vol. 1 (West Hill: Railfare, 1982), 12.
30. On settlement in the Eastern Townships and the rise of these municipalities, see Raoul Blanchard, Le Centre du Canada Français, Province de Québec (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1947), 315-23.
31. Saint-Laurent and Saucet, "Chronological Reconstitution of Floods," 92.
32. See, also, N. K. Jones, "A Recent History of Flooding in the Massawippi Drainage Basin," Journal of Eastern Townships Studies 13 (Spring 1999): 41-57;
33. N. K. Jones, "Flooding in the Massawippi Basin during the 20th Century," Journal of Eastern Townships Studies (Fall 2002): 107-17.
34. Jean-Pierre Kesteman, Peter Southam, and Diane Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est (Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1998), 229-36;
35. Blanchard, Le Centre du Canada Français, 280-85.
36. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 193.
37. Jean-Marie Dubois and Jean-Pierre Thouez, "L'Évolution dans l'Utilisation du Sol," Sherbrooke: Ses Assises, sa Population, sa Croissance: Études Géographiques (Sherbrooke: Éditions Sherbrooke, 1979), 129-48.
38. Jean-Pierre Thouez, "L'Utilisation des Cartes Historiques dans l'Analyse de l'Évolution des Sols en Milieu Urbain: le Cas de Sherbrooke, 1863-1951," Urban History Review/Revue d'Histoire Urbaine 3-78 (February 1978): 50-59;
39. Michel Bourque and Jean-Pierre Thouez, "L'Évolution Historique et Spatiale de Sherbrooke, 1794-1950," research bulletin no. 25 (Sherbrooke: Department of Geography, University of Sherbrooke, 1976);
40. Jean-Pierre Kesteman, Histoire de Sherbrooke, vol 2, De l'Âge de la Vapeur à l'Ère de l'Électricité (1867-1896) (Sherbrooke: GGC, 2001), 226-34.
41. City of Sherbrooke Historical Archives (CSHA), Valuation Rolls of the City of Sherbrooke, box 57, 1872-1914. Jean-Pierre Kesteman, "La Condition Urbaine vue sous l'Angle de la Conjoncture Économique: Sherbrooke, 1875 à 1914," Urban History Review/Revue d'Histoire Urbaine 12 (June 1983): 17, 23.
42. See, also, Chantal Desloges, "Les Propriétés Foncières Résidentielles dans une Ville en Forte Croissance: Sherbrooke 1896-1931," (MA Thesis, University of Sherbrooke, 1989).
43. Jean-Pierre Kesteman, Histoire de Sherbrooke, vol. 4, De la Ville Ouvrière à la Cité Universitaire (1929-2002) (Sherbrooke: GGC, 2002), 260.
44. Produced from the East Ward looking over downtown Sherbrooke, late-nineteenth century paintings of Sherbrooke captured that sensibility. Kesteman, Histoire de Sherbrooke, 2:234.
45. On natural catastrophe, memory, and identity building, see Robert d'Ercole and Olivier Dollfus, "Mémoire de Catastrophes et Prévention des Risques," Natures, Sciences et Sociétés 4 (Fall 1996):381-91;
46. René Favier and Anne-Marie Granet-Abisset, eds., Histoire et Mémoire des Risques Naturels (Grenoble: Maison de sciences de l'Homme-Alpes, 2000);
47. René Favier and Anne-Marie Granet-Abisset, "Histoire et Mémoire: Histoire du Climat et des Risques Naturels en France," in Les Risques Naturels, ed. Denis Lamarre (Paris: Belin 2002), 9-34;
48. and François Duchêne and Christelle Morel Journel, "L'Expérience de la Crue: Comment Redonner Sens à son Lieu de vie," Annales de la Recherche Urbaine 95 (2004): 71-77.
49. For example, see Le Pionnier de Sherbrooke, June 19, 1874, May 5, 1887;
50. Sherbrooke Daily Record, April 19, 1900, April 20, 1900, April 18, 1901, June 1, 1912, April 20, 1914.
51. Sherbrooke Daily Record, April 19, 1900, October 12, 1900, March 3 1901, June 29, 1901, March 23, 1903, March 25, 1913, April 15, 1911, April 22,1914.
52. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 15, 1898, March 3, 1902, April 15, 1904.
53. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 11, 1913, March 24, 1913.
54. Sherbrooke Daily Record, April 22, 1914, February 25, 1915, February 26, 1915, April 22, 1916, March 31, 1919;
55. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 24, 1917.
56. Examples of these rumors are found in Le Pionnier de l'Est, June 19, 1874, May 2, 1879, April 29, 1887;
57. Sherbrooke Daily Record, June 28, 1901, March 28, 1903, July 17, 1916.
58. CSHA, Minutes of the Municipal Council of the City of Sherbrooke, box 98, August 26, 1915, September 20, 1915;
59. Gas & Electricity Committee, box 71, Report No. 25, [August 9] 1916;
60. Report no. 38 [November 3] 1916. In 1856, Edward Chapman, the owner of a grist mill in Lennoxville, was summoned by the local sheriff to eliminate a dam that endangered bridges and villages along the St. Francis and Massawippi rivers. Archives of the City of Lennoxville, vol. GRPo2, file 7/39, J. P. Cushing to Edward Chapman, August 28, 1856;
61. Edward Chapman to J. P. Cushing, Inspector of Roads and Bridges, August 29,1958;
62. A. G. Woodward to the Municipal Council of Lennoxville, November 3, 1879,
63. "Dam across St. Francis River." See also Kathleen H. Atto et al., Lennoxville, vol. 1 (Lennoxville: Ascot Historical and Museum Society, 1975), 118.
64. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 307;
65. Jack Little, Nationalism, Capitalism, and Colonization in Nineteenth-Century Quebec: The Upper St. Francis District (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989), 102;
66. John Derek Booth, "Changing Forest Utilisation Patterns in the Eastern Townships of Québec, 1800 to 1930," (PhD Thesis, McGill University, 1971).
67. Little, Nationalism, Capitalism, and Colonization in Nineteenth-Century Quebec, 103.
68. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 317.
69. Jean-Michel Longpré, "L:Usine de Pâtes et Papier de Windsor (Québec) de 1864 à nos Jours : Analyse d'un Processus Cyclique de Reconversion Industrielle," (Masters Thesis, University of Sherbrooke, 1993).
70. Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report (1918), 52-53;
71. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, May 2, 1910. Sherbrooke Historical Society, Documents on the Brompton Pulp and Paper Company (P88.2), "Descriptions of the Brompton Pulp and Paper Co.'s Property on the St. Francis, and Tributaries, in the Province of Quebec, 1911," 11.
72. Le Pionnier de l'Est, June 19, 1874, May 2, 1879;
73. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 23, 1911.
74. "Pétition des Habitants de Weedon, Garthby, Stratford, Winslow, etc., Stratford, June 7, 1858," Civil Secretary's Correspondence (Incoming), no 1947, RG 4 C1, vol. 442,
75. Library and National Archives of Canada, quoted in Little, Nationalism, Capitalism, and Colonization, 250 n 63.
76. Abbé Albert Gravel, Sainte-Praxède de Brompton (Bromptonville) (Sherbrooke: Progrèse l'Est, 1921), 87.
77. Library and National Archives of Quebec [Sherbrooke] (LNAQS), Provincial Court of the District of St. Francis, Judgments (TP 1, S8, SS2, SSS4), file 565, February 28, 1929;
78. Sherbrooke Daily Record April 14, April 15, April 27, 1904.
79. Little, Nationalism, Capitalism, and Colonization, 112-13.
80. B. F. Hubbard, Forests and Clearings (Montreal: Lovell Printing and Publishing Company, 1874), 23.
81. Popularized by Gifford Pinchot in North America-see his "A Primer of Forestry. Part II. Practical Forestry," U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Forestry, Bulletin 24 (Washing-ton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), 54-55, the idea that the forest acts as a giant sponge became widespread in Quebec among the members of the conservationist movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.
82. See Avila Bédard, "Le Régime des Eaux," Bulletin de la Société de Géographie du Québec 6 (1912): 43-48.
83. On the Eastern Townships specifically, see J. P. Martel, "Conséquences du Déboisement dans les Cantons de l'Est," Forêt Conservation 17 (June 1951): 13-14;
84. Michel Jurdant and M. R. Roberge, Étude Écologique de la Forêt de Watopeka (Ottawa: Department of Forestry, 1965);
85. A. P. Plamondon, Influence des Coupes Forestières sur le Régime d'Écoulement de l'Eau et sa Qualité (Quebec: Department of Forests, 1993);
86. Booth, "Changing Forest Utilisation Patterns," 191-92.
87. V. E. Morrill, Men of Today in the Eastern Townships (Sherbrooke: Sherbrooke Record Company, 1917), 17.
88. Booth, "Changing Forest Utilisation Patterns," 164.
89. Jean-Pierre Kesteman, La Ville Électrique. Sherbrooke 1880-1988 (Sherbrooke: Olivier, 1988);
90. Frank MacKenzie, "The History of Man's Utilization of the St. Francis River, Quebec," (BA Thesis, Bishop's University, 1977), 61.
91. J.-P. Kesteman, Tout le Long de la Rivière Magog (Sherbrooke: CGC, 2004), 17.
92. Hydro-Quebec Archives (HQA), Papers of the Southern Canada Power Company (PSCPC), F 15, vol. 3477, file 30, Memo from an Opinion of A. S. Hurd [n.d.];
93. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 381-82.
94. HQA, PSCPC, F 15, vol. 3477, file 30, A. S. Hurd to J. H. Turnbull, December 8, 1903; vol. 3473, file 27, Preliminary Draft of Report on the Proposal to Form an Association for the Protection of the Lake Memphremagog Storage, n.d.
95. See, also, CSHA, Hydro-Sherbrooke Historical Archives, box 13, "Magog River Flow Control," n.d.
96. Sherbrooke Daily Record, November 4, 1903, November 27, 1903, November 28, 1903, November 30, 1903.
97. James Iain Gow, Histoire de l'Administration Publique au Québec (Montreal, Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1988), 78.
98. On the origins of the Quebec Streams Commission, see Claude Bellavance, "L'État, la Houille Blanche et le Grand Capital. L'Aliénation des Ressources Hydrauliques du Domaine Public Québécois au Début du XXe siècle," Revue d'Histoire de l'Amérique Française 51 (Fall 1998): 1-32.
99. Scotstown and La Patrie on the Salmon River, Dixville and Coaticook on the Coaticook River, Cookshire on the Eaton River, and Sherbrooke, Richmond, Bromptonville, East Angus, Windsor Mills, Pierreville, Drummondville on the St. Francis River. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 22, 1913, March 25, 1913;
100. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 24, 1913, March 25, 1913, March 26, 1913, March 27, 1913.
101. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 25, 1913, March 26, 1913.
102. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 26, 1913;
103. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 26, 1913.
104. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 28, 1913.
105. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, "Copie de tous documents, correspondance, options et requêtes, échangés entre toutes personnes, le Gouvernement de cette province et les officiers de la Commission des eaux courantes relativement à l'emmagasinement des eaux de la rivière Sainte-François et de ses lacs et rivières tributaries. 1er mars 1915," Sessional Papers no. 32 (George V AD 1915), 3-4.
106. Quebec Streams Commission, "Annexe 1.-a. Demande ayant pour objet la Régularisation de la rivière St.-François au moyen de Barrages-Réservoirs d'emmagasinement. Séance tenue le 19 août 1913," Annual Report (1914), 77-103.
107. O. Lefebvre, Chief Engineer, to S. N. Parent, President, Quebec Streams Commission, April 6, 1914, reproduced in Quebec, Legislative Assembly, "Copie de tous documents, ...," Sessional Papers No 32 (1915), 8-9.
108. See, also, Quebec Streams Commission, "Force Hydraulique sur la Rivière Saint-François," Annual Report (1918), 43-69.
109. Quebec Streams Commission, "Annexe 1.-a," 77-79, 83-88, 91-93, 95-103.
110. For another example where a drought was used to promote the construction of a dam, see Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), 59-61.
111. Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report (1913), 74.
112. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, Debates 13th Legislature, 3rd Session (February 10, 1915): 243.
113. CSHA, Waterworks Committee, vol. 73, Fraser & Rugg, for the Corporation of Ascot, to E. C. Gatien, Secretary Treasurer, Corporation of the City of Sherbrooke, November 15, 1915;
114. E. Purdy to the Sherbrooke Water Department, November 29, 1920;
115. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 3, 1902, October 28, 1903, April 15, 1911, June 1, 1912, March 24, 1913, March 29, 1913, February 27, 1915.
116. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, "Copie de Tous Documents, Correspondance, Options et Requêtes, Échanges entre Toutes Personnes, le Gouvernement de cette Province et les Officiers de la Commission des Eaux Courantes Relativement à l'Emmagasinement des Eaux de la Rivière Sainte-François et de ses Lacs et Rivières Tributaries. 15 février 1916," Sessional Papers No 55 (George V AD 1916), 3-4.
117. Sherbrooke Daily Record, December 15, 1915.
118. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, Debates 14th Parliament, 2nd Session (December 4,1917):3.
119. Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report (1917), 42;
120. Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report (1918), 12.
121. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, "Copie de Tous Documents,...," Sessional Papers No 32 (George V AD 1915), 8-9.
122. See, also, Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report (1917), 38;
123. Quebec Streams Commission, "Force Hydraulique sur la Rivière Saint-François," Annual Report (1919), 53.
124. O. Lefebvre, "Les Forces Hydrauliques de la Province de Québec," La Forêt et la Ferme 2 (February 1927): 51-52, 63.
125. Sherbrooke Daily Record, September 11, 1924, September 12, 1924, September 17, 1927;
126. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, September 11, 1924, September 12,1924;
127. Sherbrooke Daily Record, November 4, 1927, November 5,1927, November 11, 1927;
128. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, November 4, 1927, November 5, 1927, November 8, 1927;
129. Quebec Streams Commission, "Rapport sur les Inondations de Novembre 1927 dans la Valée de la Rivière Saint-François," Annual Report (1928), 20-47.
130. See, also, Pierre Cazalis, "L'Hydrologie Printanière de la Rivière Saint-François," Cahiers de Géographie du Québec 18 (Summer 1965): 197-221;
131. Quebec Department of Natural Resources, Bassin de la Rivière Saint-François. Inondations des 4-5 Novembre 1927: Étude Hydrologique, 2 Vols. ([Montreal]: Cartier, Leclerc et asso., 1966).
132. 7), file 537, September 12, 1930; file 434, April 2, 1931; file 444, January 27, 1932; file 40, March 12, 1935.
133. 4), file 565, February 28,1929; CSRA, "Municipal Epheremides," box 82, January 11 1930; La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 22, 1930; May 22, 1931.
134. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, April 12, 1928.
135. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, October 4, 1929, October 29, 1929.
136. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, April 9, 1930.
137. Quebec Streams Commission, Annual Report(1931), 101-102;
138. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, June 27, 1931.
139. CSHA, "Municipal Epheremides," box 82, July 7, 1930.
140. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, August 17, 1933, September 6, 1933, September 26, 1933.
141. CSHA, Plenary Commission, "Report NO. 77," box 75, July 18, 1939.
142. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, June 16, 1942, June 17, 1942;
143. Sherbrooke Daily Record, June 16, 1942, June 17, 1942.
144. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, June 16, 1943, June 17, 1943, June 18, 1943;
145. Sherbrooke Daily Record, June 16, 1943, June 17, 1943, June 18, 1943;
146. Quebec Streams Commission, "Inondations," Annual Report (1943), 123-131;
147. Quebec Streams Commission, "Inondations," Annual Report (1944), 91-109;
148. LNAQS, Papers of the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce (PSCC), P-1, box 29, file 70-4-50, Report of the Committee Appointed to Study the Problem of Floods in the Eastern Townships, n.d.; file 65-01, "Inondations sur la Rivir̀e St-François 18 juin 1945."
149. CSHA, Special Commissions, box 73, "Requêtes diverses: À son honneur le Maire de Sherbrooke," July 7, 1943.
150. LNAQSC, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-4-50, E. Soles, Eastern Townships Associated Boards of Trade, Secretary-Treasurer, to the Mayor of Sherbrooke, June 2, 1944;
151. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, October 14, 1944, May 17, 1944, March 19, 1945, March 20, 1945.
152. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, June 18, 1943, May 17, 1944;
153. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, Session 1943, vol.V (July 8, 1943), 4683;
154. Quebec, Legislative Assembly, Debates (March 23, 1944), 478; LNAQSC, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-4-50, "Resolutions passed at Annual Meeting, re: Flood Water Control in the Eastern Townships," May 31, 1945.
155. LNAQS, PSCCC," P-1, box 29, file 7-4-50, "Étude Préliminaire des Inondations. Bassin de la Rivière Saint-Franqois, 1 Juin 1944." These studies would later be collected in Bassin de la Rivière Saint-François. éEtude des Inondations, 5 vols. ([Montreal]]: Cartier-Leclerc, 1952-1953). Bassin de la Rivière Saint-François, Inondation du 15 juin 1942, Addendum au Rapport d'Avril 1953 et Addendum au Rapport de Juillet 1952 ([Montreal]: Cartier-Leclerc, 1966).
156. HQA, PSCPCL, F 15, vol. 3478, Cartier, "Comments on the Saint-Francis River flood Problem," May 28, 1945, pp. 8, 10.
157. See also, LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, file 70-4-50, box 29, "La Rivière St-François," n.d.
158. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 591-592.
159. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, March 22, 1948, March 23, 1948, March 24, 1948, March 25, 1948;
160. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 22, 1948, March 23, 1948. Facing legal liabilities, the Brompton Pulp and Paper Company closed its mill in 1949. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 543.
161. LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-4-51, "1948 Was a Disastrous Year in the History of the St. Francis Valley," [n.d.].
162. La Tribune de Sherbrooke, December 14,1949;
163. LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-4-51, "St. Francis River Stream Flow Control", [n.d.]; file 70-5-50, Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting. Stream Flow Regulation-St. Francois River, February 16, 1950. The groups that cooperated included: the Eastern Townships Associated Boards of Trade, Eastern Townships Chambers of Commerce, Eastern Townships Forestry Association, Quebec Running Streams Commission, City of Sherbrooke electric department, town of Coaticook electric department, town of East Angus, town of Bromptonville, Southern Canada Power Company, Shawinigan Water and Power Company, Canada Paper Company, Brompton Pulp and Paper Company, Sherbrooke Land and Power Company, Paton Manufacturing Company, and Dominion Textile Company.
164. LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-5-50, Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting. Stream Flow Regulation-St. Francois River, April 20, 1950; June 1, June 23, November 16, 1951; Minutes of the General Meeting of the Flow Control Committee of the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce, April 20, 1950; file 70-6-51,
165. J. C. Changong, Chief Engineer, Quebec Streams Commission to Alphonse Saumier, Secretary, Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce, April 26, 1951;
166. St Francis Stream Flow control, Dan Anderson, manager, Southern Canada Power Company, [n.d]; HQA, PSCPC, F 15, vol. 3468, St. Francis River regulation. General reports affecting the watershed. WO 10, 063, 1950,
167. LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-5-50, Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting. Stream Flow Regulation-St. Francois River, March 10, 1950.
168. LNAQS, PSCC, P-1, box 29, file 70-5-50, Minutes of General Meeting of the Flow Control Committee, March 16, 1950.
169. HQA, PSCPC, F 15, vol. 3468, Inondations sur la Rivière St-François August 18, 1945;
170. Rivière Sf-François, J. Emile Gill, Quebec Streams Commission, June 18, 1945.
171. By 1930, three power stations on the St. Maurice River, on the North shore of the St. Lawrence River, produced 200,000 hp, while the five plants that occupied all the potential power sites on the St. Francis River generated 70,000 hp. Kesteman, Southam, and Saint-Pierre, Histoire des Cantons de l'Est, 382-385.
172. Sherbrooke Daily Record, March 11, 1950;
173. Kesteman, La Ville Électrique, 196. In 1939, the city of Sherbrooke abandoned a project to dam the Saint Francis River for its electric utilities company because of concerns that the water head would worsen the floods of Richmond, located 15 kilometers upstream from the proposed site at Ulverton. CHAS, Plenary Commissions, box 75, "Report No. 10", January 18, 1939.
174. On the controversy surrounding the construction of a dam at Ulverton, see Kesteman, La Ville Électrique, 165.
175. Jacques Roux, "Plus de protection publique induit-elle moins de vigilance de la part du public?" in Être vigilant. L'Opérativité Discrète de la Sociétée du Rsisque, ed. Jacques Roux (Sainte-Étienne: Publications de l'Université de Saint-Étienne, 2006), 143-57.