GNRC 1902 Great Northern Railway of Canada - Hawkesbury to Joliette

Performing one of his intensive and thorough searches on particular historical topics, Jim Christie was probably looking for references to a hard metallic carbide. Instead he found an advertisement for flammable calcium carbide in a book entitled: Amidst the Laurentians; NM Hinshelwood; 1902; Montreal Herald - A link to the book is provided below.

 Jim was kind enough to share the reference with people interested in the region. 

The book's main subjects are the Great Northern Railway of Canada, and Shawinigan Falls.

The book's descriptive account of the attractions along the western section of the line follows below.

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Here are the key legislative dates in the short life of the GNRC.

1883 

The Great Northern Railway Company was incorporated to build from St Andrew's [East, Quebec] to a point on the North Shore Railway via Argenteuil, Two Mountains, Terrebonne, L'Assomption, Montcalm, Joliette, Berthier, Maskinonge, St Maurice and Champlain Counties.

1884

An agreement with the Carillon and Grenville Railway Co was authorized.

1896-1898

Absorption of Lower Laurentian, Quebec and James Bay, Montfort & Gatineau Colonization, railways authorized. 

1899

Name change to Great Northern Railway of Canada authorized.

1905

Canadian Northern Railway allowed to lease the GNRC and to guarantee its bonds.

1906

GNRC, Chateauguay & Northern, Quebec New Brunswick & Nova Scotia, railways authorized to be reorganized to form the Canadian Northern Quebec Railway Company.

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GNRC Map and Related Links

Book link: Amidst the Laurentians

The text says that the Joliette to Montreal line of the GNRC was not yet completed.

To review the Moreau Street terminal, along with the other terminal stations which the CNR inherited ...

you may wish to check my earlier effort to organize them in my own head ...

Earlier post on the evolution of CNR's Montreal Terminals

This map conveys a lot of information with the informality of a pen and ruler.

Horse-drawn binders harvest the richness of the Prairies, as labourers 

(often new immigrants) stook the sheaves of wheat to dry.

Somewhere in the centre-distant urban coal smudge is the way west. Only small canal boats can ascend the Lachine Canal on their way via the St Lawrence, and its small Canadian canals, to the Great Lakes. 

At the extreme right, the Bonsecours Market (primarily farm produce) is in full operation. 

To the Market's left, in the distance, boxcars on the Grand Trunk harbour tracks empty their freight into dockside freight sheds, for loading onto coastal and ocean-going ships. 

At the water's edge, a line of carriages awaits passengers alighting from the shallow-draft paddleboats. A spectacular excursion for tourists is offered by one of them on the page below. Other boats will travel to ports along the St Lawrence and its tributaries ... and up the Ottawa River canals.

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Below: Notre Dame Basilica's twin spires, grain elevators and the Victoria Bridge are seen against the St Lawrence.

Above: The Bank of Montreal head office (with its fluted pillars), where Donald Smith and George Stephen could often be found.

I purchased this photograph of a postcard at a railway show. This view looks down the Ottawa River with Quebec and the Grenville Canal on the left bank. This canal is the waterway which some of the Montreal Harbour paddleboats would have travelled. Hawkesbury, Ontario is on the right bank. 

The closer bridge is the Perley (road) Bridge. The distant bridge is that of the GNRC/CNoR, later the CNR.

The Perley Bridge

Jim Christie recalls that his father (about age 10) was, without prior arrangement, deputized to help cut the ribbon to open the Perley Bridge in 1931 at its official opening ceremony. 

The project was originally promoted by Argenteuil MP George Perley (1857-1938) in 1909 ... and was named after him when it opened. Perley served as Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Minister of the Canadian Overseas Military Forces during the Great War.

The bridge was finally constructed in 1930-31 as a 'make work project' early in the Great Depression. The bridge was re-constructed to raise it by 10 feet or so in 1961 as a result of the building of the hydro dam at Carillon (12 miles downstream, built 1959-1964). This reservoir raised the Hawkesbury water level by about 10 feet.

I often travelled over this bridge on weekends in the late 1970s and its age (almost 50 years old), narrowness, and added height provided a certain sense of ... adventure ... when the bridge was shared with one of the many heavily-loaded trucks engaged in interprovincial commerce!

While the railway bridge was designed to carry that kind of weight, large diesel-powered (often overloaded) semi-trucks had not been foreseen in the 1930s. And a traffic light right at the foot of the long, steep bridge ramp on the Quebec side kept everyone on their toes.

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Below, this view of the railway bridge is from the Hawkesbury, Ontario side, looking up-river.

Above: The up-river (left) and down-river views of the Wilson Paper Mills dam on the North River.