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- Smith, George Noel Carington
George was a great sportsman and had a very successful military career that took him around the world Smith, George Noel Carington George was a great sportsman and had a very successful military career that took him around the world Back to ALL Bios George Noel Carington Smith 1904 - 1988 The second of four children and eldest son of Charles and Aileen Carington Smith, Noel was born on Christmas Day and aptly named. The family lived at Montmorency Falls, where Noel’s lifelong love of the countryside was nurtured. There are stories of fifteen or twenty feet of snow in the winter - he had his own dog and sledge to cope with this - of eating maple syrup turned to a crispy mouthful in a bowl of deeply frozen snow, and of the magic of living close to the amazing waterfall which famously produces a huge cone of frozen spray in the winter. He was educated at Lower Canada College and then Upper Canada College, graduating in 1922. The next three years were spent training at the Royal Military College at Kingston. Noel decided to make his career in the British Army and in 1925 he moved to the United Kingdom and joined the Royal Artillery Regiment. As a young army officer, he was stationed in various places within the UK. In 1929 he was stationed in India and spent an interesting and active two years there. While there he famously shot dead a ‘man-eating' tiger that had killed two people in the local village. In those days this was a wonderful thing to have done, and he became quite a local hero. Even though the Royal Artillery was highly mechanized during the 1930s, horse riding ability was apparently considered very desirable and Noel proved to be fully capable of reaching an excellent standard. He took part in many horse races, often won, and had many silver trophies to display. When he was still new to British Horse Racing, his future father-in-law bet on him. At the end of the successful race, it turned out that this was the only winning ticket, so the odds were excellent. A win that boded well for his future, no doubt. It was in 1934 that he met Mary Falconer Donaldson, the youngest daughter of a Scottish shipowner, and in 1936 they were married. Army life involved a lot of moving around, and Noel and Mary were no exception. They had four children, Charles Falconer born in 1938, and Katherine Ann in 1940, at which point Mary and the two young children sailed the Atlantic to live in Kingston, Ontario, where they stayed until 1944. After the war, and by now back in Scotland, twins Robert and Rosemary were born in 1945. At the start of the war, Noel was the adjutant attached to a reserve Technical Assistance (T.A.) unit based in County Durham in the north of England, however, within a few months, he was posted to Kingston, as a Staff College instructor. After this, he commanded an artillery regiment during the invasion and conquest of Sicily. Later experiences included Anzio and Ortona. Just at the end of the war, he spent a short time in England, before his second spell in India. Here he became the Acting Commandant of the British Army College in Quetta, in what is now Pakistan, during the months leading up to Independence and Partition; a job that involved overseeing the movement of many thousands of Hindus to the south into safety in India - a huge logistical job, involving the requisitioning of several trains. In 1947 Noel decided to leave the army and he took up a civilian post in Perth, Scotland, administering the T.A. branch of the Scottish regiment, The Black Watch. He still loved riding, and for a while became Master of the Perthshire Drag Hunt. After six years he and Mary bought an arable farm, on which they built a new family-sized farmhouse, and Noel became a full-time farmer. There followed many happy years of farming, breeding Aberdeen Angus beef cattle and Scottish black-face sheep. Noel taught his children to ride, fish, and shoot, passing on his love of sports, horses, dogs, and the outdoors. He could now enjoy fishing and shooting too, and taking part in these two sports was something he continued after he retired from farming until his death in 1988. Ann Carington Smith Back to ALL Bios
- RUSSELL | tidesoftadoussac1
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- Lilybell Rhodes | tidesoftadoussac1
PREVIOUS Lilybell Rhodes 1889-1975 NEXT PAGE Lilybell Rhodes was the daughter of Francis Rhodes and Totie LeMoine, grandaughter of Col William Rhodes (of Benmore, Quebec) and of Canadian author, historian and past President of The Royal Society of Canada, Sir James McPherson Le Moine (1825-1912) of ‘Spencer Grange’ in Sainte-Foy Quebec. She studied art at Les Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City under Henry Ivan Neilson (Professor of Painting, Drawing and Anatomy), as well as with instructor and noted Canadian artist Jean Paul Lemieux. Several of Ms. Rhodes works are currently on display at the Bagatelle Museum (the house where she lived for many years) in Sainte-Foy Quebec. Lily and her sister Frances in 1913 Lilybell Rhodes était la fille de Francis Rhodes et Totie LeMoine, petite-fille du colonel William Rhodes (de Benmore, Québec) et de l'auteur canadien, historien et ancien président de la Société royale du Canada, Sir James McPherson Le Moine (1825-1912) de «Spencer Grange» à Sainte-Foy Québec. Elle a étudié l'art à Les Ecole des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Québec en vertu de Henry Ivan Neilson (professeur de peinture, de dessin et d'anatomie), ainsi qu'avec instructeur et a noté l'artiste canadien Jean Paul Lemieux. Plusieurs des œuvres Mme Rhodes sont actuellement exposées au Musée Bagatelle (la maison où elle a vécu pendant de nombreuses années) à Sainte-Foy Québec. Tadoussac from the Wharf 1935 (Tom/Heather Evans) Tadoussac du quai Tadoussac Wharf 1930's (George/Susie Bruemmer) Le quai de Tadoussac The colour pencil sketches below are from two small books that somehow ended up in my family. 1956-58 Les dessins au crayon de couleur ci-dessous sont de deux petits livres qui en quelque sorte ont fini dans ma famille. Kamouraska Quebec Tadoussac NEXT PAGE
- Tremblay, Pierre
For many years Pierre was the much appreciated caretaker of the summer cottages in Tadoussac. Pendant de nombreuses années, Pierre a été le gardien très apprécié des chalets d’été de Tadoussac Tremblay, Pierre For many years Pierre was the much appreciated caretaker of the summer cottages in Tadoussac. Pendant de nombreuses années, Pierre a été le gardien très apprécié des chalets d’été de Tadoussac Back to ALL Bios PIERRE TREMBLAY 1926 - 1991 Pierre Tremblay est né à Tadoussac le 18 janvier 1926. Il était le quatrième d’une fratrie de cinq enfants. Sa mère Blanche Gauthier avait acquis la Maison Tremblay en héritage de sa mère Sarah Jourdain. Blanche Gauthier a épousé Armand Tremblay. Pierre a vécu toute sa vie à Tadoussac. Dès son adolescence il a commencé à travailler pour M. Hector Gauthier qui était à l’époque le «Caretaker» des cottages des estivants anglophones. Durant ses années à l’emploi de M. Gauthier, Pierre Tremblay a occupé pendant plusieurs années le poste de «Maître du quai» de la baie de Tadoussac. C’est vers l’année 1973 que Pierre Tremblay a succédé à M. Hector Gauthier pour devenir le nouveau «Caretaker» des cottages. Pierre Tremblay s’est marié en 1966 avec Thérèse Ouellet. La Maison Tremblay a été, grâce à eux, pendant des décennies, un lieu de vacances et de retrouvailles pour tous les membres de la famille Tremblay. Ils n’ont pas eu d’enfants. Par contre, ils ont toujours accordé leur hospitalité aux enfants de ses frères et plus particulièrement à ceux de son frère Maurice, capitaine sur les traversiers entre Tadoussac et Baie Ste-Catherine. Ce dernier était un artiste dans l’âme avec des talents de sculpteur et d’ébéniste. On lui doit quelques sculptures toujours en place à l’église Ste-Croix. Maurice est décédé subitement en 1975. Pierre Tremblay adorait les chiens. Quelques fois c’était deux chiens qui l’accompagnaient lors de ses visites aux cottages. Avec son épouse Thérèse, ils prenaient grand soin de la Maison Tremblay et du jardin fleuri tout autour de la maison. Pierre Tremblay a également agi pendant plusieurs années comme sacristain à la chapelle anglicane. Il a également siégé comme marguiller pour la Fabrique Ste-Croix de Tadoussac et il a réalisé pour l’église de nombreux arrangements décoratifs lors des fêtes dominicales. Pierre Tremblay possédait des talents remarquables dans une foule de domaines. Des talents bien souvent innés mais qui ont su se perfectionner au fil de son expérience de travail. Il était un ébéniste, un charpentier et un réparateur de tous les types de problèmes que pouvaient exister dans une maison. Il fournissait en bois de chauffage les cottages des estivants, les ouvrait au printemps et les fermait à l’automne. Il les entretenait et les réparait selon les désirs de leurs propriétaires. Il était dévoué et apprécié de tous. Il a même construit la maison sise au 3 de la rue des Petites Franciscaines. Après avoir rempli des obligations le dimanche, tant à la chapelle Anglicane qu’à l’églises Ste-Croix, Pierre Tremblay aimait se reposer sur la galerie de la Maison Tremblay. Il répondait avec enthousiasme aux salutations des passants sur la rue Bord-de-l’eau. Pierre avait un excellent sens de l’humour. Il aimait les bonnes discussions agrémentées d’un petit gin! Pierre Tremblay est décédé alors qu’il était encore jeune à l’âge de 65 ans en 1991. Il a créé un grand vide dans la vie de tous ses neveux et nièces de la famille Tremblay, dont Louis et Tina qui habitent à Tadoussac. Son épouse Thérèse l’a rejoint en 2019. Rédigé par Robert Tremblay, neveu de Pierre Tremblay Le 1er juillet 2021. PIERRE TREMBLAY 1926 - 1991 Pierre Tremblay was born in Tadoussac on January 18, 1926. He was the fourth in a family of five children. His mother Blanche Gauthier had acquired Maison Tremblay as an inheritance from his mother Sarah Jourdain. Blanche Gauthier married Armand Tremblay. Pierre lived all his life in Tadoussac. From his teenage years he started working for Mr. Hector Gauthier who was at the time the "Caretaker" of the cottages of english summer visitors. During his years working for Mr. Gauthier, Pierre Tremblay worked for several years as "Master of the wharf" in the bay of Tadoussac. It was around 1973 that Pierre Tremblay took over from Mr. Hector Gauthier to become the new "Caretaker" of the cottages. Pierre Tremblay married Thérèse Ouellet in 1966. La Maison Tremblay has been, for decades, a place of vacation and reunion for all members of the Tremblay family. They didn't have any children. On the other hand, they always accorded their hospitality to the children of his brothers and more particularly to those of his brother Maurice, captain on the ferries between Tadoussac and Baie Ste-Catherine. The latter was an artist at heart with talents as a sculptor and cabinetmaker. We owe him some sculptures still in place in the Church of Ste-Croix. Maurice died suddenly in 1975. Pierre Tremblay loved dogs. Sometimes two dogs accompanied him on his visits to the cottages. With his wife Thérèse, they took great care of Maison Tremblay and the flower garden all around the house. Pierre Tremblay also acted for several years as sacristan at the Anglican chapel. He also served as churchwarden for the Fabrique Ste-Croix in Tadoussac and he made many decorative arrangements for the church during Sunday feasts. Pierre Tremblay had remarkable talents in a host of fields. Talents that are often innate but have been able to improve themselves over the course of their work experience. He was a cabinetmaker, carpenter, and repairman of all types of problems that could exist in a home. He supplied summer cottages with firewood, opened them in the spring and closed them in the fall. He maintained and repaired them according to the wishes of their owners. He was dedicated and appreciated by all. He even built the house located at 3 rue des Petites Franciscaines. After fulfilling Sunday obligations, both at the Anglican chapel and at the Ste-Croix churches, Pierre Tremblay liked to rest in the gallery of Maison Tremblay. He responded enthusiastically to the greetings of passers-by on Bord-de-Eau Street. Pierre had a great sense of humor. He loved good discussions with a little gin! Pierre Tremblay passed away when he was still young at the age of 65 in 1991. He created a great void in the lives of all his nephews and nieces of the Tremblay family, including Louis and Tina who live in Tadoussac. His wife Thérèse joined him in 2019. Written by Robert Tremblay, nephew of Pierre Tremblay July 1, 2021. Back to ALL Bios
- Imbeau, Armand
Entrepreneur et Constructeur de goélettes Contractor and Goelette builder Imbeau, Armand Entrepreneur et Constructeur de goélettes Contractor and Goelette builder Back to ALL Bios Armand Imbeau Entrepreneur et Constructeur de goélettes Des personnages, certains lieux, des événements sont incontournables à Tadoussac. La baie, une des « belles baies du monde », les dunes et bien entendu, la «Toupie » du haut-fond prince au lointain, la petite chapelle, tous sont des emblèmes distinctifs de l’endroit. Le feu du Ss Québec au quai de Tadoussac en 1950 restera également un évènement qui restera en mémoire. Parmi les gens, on reconnaît assurément les noms de certains témoins du passé. C’est le cas du célèbre capitaine Jos Deschênes et de l’entrepreneur Armand Imbeau, Tadoussaciens dont on a attribué les noms aux traversiers de première et deuxième générations qui font la navette incessante entre Baie-Ste-Catherine et Tadoussac. Bien avant les traversiers, la Côte-Nord a connu l’âge de la navigation dite de nécessité locale: transport de produits essentiels depuis les grands centres vers les villes et villages, et expéditions de ressources naturelles, notamment le bois des moulins à scie de la région vers les centres de distribution. Pour répondre à ces besoins, les constructeurs navals québécois ont développé une expertise dans la construction de bâtiments de bois, à voiles et plus tard à moteur, particulièrement les goélettes à fonds plats permettant un échouage sur la grève pour faciliter le chargement dans les endroits dépourvus de quai. Parmi ces renommés constructeurs de goélettes de la région de Charlevoix et de la Côte-Nord, Armand Imbeau, fils de charpentier naval de Baie-Ste-Catherine. Navigateur, charpentier, entrepreneur, citoyen impliqué dans sa communauté, Armand Imbeau a marqué sa profession, sa ville, sa région et son époque. Imbeau de Charlevoix Le patronyme Imbeau (Imbeault, Imbault ou Imbeaux) était très répandu dans la région de Charlevoix entre le 17e et le 19e siècle. Nous retrouvons les traces de l’ancêtre des Imbeault, François Imbeault (1737-1823) dit Lagrange, militaire français et de sa conjointe Catherine Ringuet, à La Malbaie–Pointe-au-Pic. Graduellement, on note la présence des nombreuses familles de la descendance plus au nord de la région, à Saint-Siméon jusqu’à St-Firmain (Baie-Sainte-Catherine). En fin de 19e et début du 20e, des Imbeau se déplacent sur la Haute-Côte-Nord. (1, 2) Né à Baie-Sainte-Catherine le 30 août 1893, Armand Imbeau est le fils de Thomas Imbeau, de Baie-Sainte-Catherine, charpentier de profession et de Marie Laprise de Grandes-Bergeronnes. Son grand-père, Louis Imbeau travaillait aux chantiers de William Price à Baie-Sainte-Catherine et à Rivière-aux-canards. La famille de Louis comprend de nombreux enfants. À cette époque, plusieurs familles Imbeau étaient installées à Baie-Sainte-Catherine. Thomas, le père d’Armand aura deux autres fils, Lucien, Thomas-Louis (Mrg Imbeau, évêque de Charlevoix) et sept filles. Armand fait ses classes en charpenterie et apprend la construction navale auprès de son père. À l’âge de 25 ans, le 22 avril 1919, il épouse à Tadoussac, Marie-Louise Caron, enseignante à l’école du village (1900 -?), âgée de 19 ans, fille de monsieur John (Benny) Caron et madame Éveline Pedneault de Tadoussac. De cette union naissent quatre enfants; Georgette (Marie-Louise-Emma-Georgette), le 11 mars 1920, décédée le 25 mai 1973. Elle épousera Émile Baril (1904-1989) de Saint-Charles de Mandeville le 30 juin 1956. Le couple n’aura pas d’enfant. Monsieur Baril sera enseignant et directeur de l’école primaire de Tadoussac; Jacques, né en 1924 à Tadoussac et décédé à La Malbaie en 2011. Il épouse le 1er octobre 1949 Jaqueline Gauthier (1930-2013), fille de Hector Gauthier, propriétaire de l’Hôtel Gauthier qui deviendra le Manoir Tadoussac, et de Émilie Brisson. Employé du ministère des terres et forêts, Jacques Imbeau est appelé à travailler à Hauterive et à Havre-St-Pierre. Un enfant naitra de cette union, Claudine, dernière de la lignée de Armand Imbeau; Simonne, décédée très jeune (1927-1939); Rachelle (1933-1937) décédée à l’âge de 4 ans; Jacqueline (19??), qui épouse Rosaire Bouchard (1924-1987) le 15 mai 1954 à Tadoussac. Le couple s’installe à Chicoutimi, parents de deux garçons Pierre et Jean, décédés en bas âge. La cale sèche Imbeau À l’extrémité ouest de la plage, donnant sur la baie avant d’atteindre L’Islet, se trouve à droite, au pied sud-est de la colline de l’Anse à l’eau, une petite crique, un bassin naturel qui prolonge l’Anse à L’Islet, dont une bande de rochers délimite l’entrée: l’«Anse à cale sèche». Se remplissant à marée haute, l’endroit donne accès au fjord profond et facilite l’entrée et la mise à l’eau des navires. Du côté de la plage, l’anse est séparée de la baie par un isthme reliant la presqu’ile à la terre ferme. Certains résidents de Tadoussac s’installent à même la plage de la baie pour construire des embarcations. En 1923, monsieur Imbeau loue l’emplacement à ses propriétaires : la Canada steamship lines. En 1930, il fonde la « Cale sèche Imbeau » à Tadoussac, une compagnie spécialisée dans la construction et la réparation de navires à coque de bois, particulièrement ceux destinés au transport du bois et à la plaisance. La cale sèche sera opérationnelle en novembre 1931. Elle sera creusée à la main l’année suivante pour améliorer sa fonctionnalité. Grâce à une subvention gouvernementale obtenue grâce à l’appui de la municipalité et du curé du Village, les citoyens sont embauchés pour deux semaines au chantier de la cale sèche. Afin de stimuler l’économie locale, au bout de deux semaines un autre groupe de travailleurs prenait la relève afin de permettre à un maximum de personne d’éteint un travail rémunéré en ces temps difficiles. Un bâtiment nécessaire à l’entreposage des matériaux et des outils sont érigés sur les rochers, là où actuellement se trouvent les installations du « Centre d’interprétation des mammifères marins ». On retrouvait dans ce garage, les divers outils du charpentier, tel que des herminettes, plusieurs fers à calfat et maillets à calfat, des tarières, chignoles à main, vilebrequins, planes, gouges, plusieurs ciseaux à bois, scies, égoïnes à chantourner, rabots de toutes grosseurs, etc. De massives portes de bois sont installées à l’entrée de l’anse afin d’y contrôler l’entrée d’eau. Les activités de constructions et de réparations s’y dérouleront jusqu’en 1965 environ, quelques années avant le décès de monsieur Imbeau. L’âge d’or des activités du chantier se situant entre 1930 et 1950. Selon les statistiques gouvernementales d’enregistrement des nouveaux navires, au cours de cette période au moins 300 caboteurs de bois à moteur furent construits au total au Québec, dont près de 40% dans la région de Charlevoix. À Tadoussac, c’est une douzaine de bâtiments qui sortiront de la cale sèche Imbeau, dont le Saint-Jude en 1935, le Victoire en 1936, le Tadoussac Transport en 1938, le Royal Trader en 1939 et le Vaillant en 1943, son bateau personnel, le St-Étienne Murray Bay en 1939, le Raguenau en 1941. Étant donné l’espace restreint de la cale sèche, les bateaux construits devaient être de petites et de moyen tonnage. (3, 4) L’essor industriel d’après guerre et la construction de routes reliant les villes et villages des régions de Charlevoix et de la Côte-Nord contribuent à la diminution des besoins en transport naval et marquent la fin de l’ère des goélettes de même que des petits chantiers maritimes. Armand Imbeau continu tout de même la réparation et l’hivernent des bateaux dans la cale sèche jusqu’en 1965 environ. Homme aux multiples talents, il réalise la construction que quelques maisons. Pour combler le temps libre qui lui reste, il bricole, répare tout ce qu’on lui confie. Il va même jusqu’à faire office de cordonnier, domaine dans lequel il excellait. Lors de la création d’un parc national, le « Parc marin du Saguenay–Saint-Laurent » en 1998, le site alors inactif, est acquis par le gouvernement provincial et intégré au parc. Aujourd’hui, sous l’administration municipale, la cale sèche Imbeau accueille les bateaux de plaisance pendant la saison hivernale. En été, le lieu sert de stationnement automobile pour les touristes. Armand Imbeau: Le citoyen impliqué L’implication sociale de monsieur Armand Imbeau est également notable. Conseiller municipal de 1928 à 1939, il a consacré sa vie à favoriser la prospérité économique de sa région et employait jusqu’à 75 personnes au tournant des années 40. (5) Armand Imbeau s’est également engagé plusieurs années dans les organismes de l’église Sainte-Croix comme marguillier ou encore à la Ligue du Sacré-Cœur. Un événement inusité : Le trésor archéologique Un événement inusité arrive à Armand Imbeau en 1923. L’année suivant son mariage, il achète la résidence de Arthur Hovington située près de L’Islet, sur un plateau surplombant l’Anse à cale sèche, orientée face à la rivière Saguenay, le jeune père de famille s’affaire à creuser la cave en terre battue. A quelques coups de pelles de la surface, il fait la découverte d’une pochette de toile contenant des pièces de monnaie anciennes. Le magot était constitué de 102 pièces. Deux d’entre elles étaient des pièces de métal blanc d’une grande équivalente à une pièce d’un dollar canadien actuel. Elles sont en bon état, sans usure excessive et portent l’effigie de Louis XIV, et date respectivement de 1655 et 1659. Deux autres du même métal sont plus petites et plus usées, datant de 1591. Le reste de la collection comprend des pièces de métal jaune, un peu plus grandes qu’une pièce de 10 cents et sont relativement usées par le temps. Elles sont de la même époque que les deux premières. (6) L’histoire ne dit pas si le « trésor » avait une grande valeur marchande qui aurait enrichi son propriétaire, mais selon les archéologues numismates consultés, la valeur historique est réellement importante. Où sont rendues ces pièces de monnaie? Après un certain temps, Armand Imbeau les donne à son garçon Jacques qui en prend un soin jaloux pendant de nombreuses années. Alors que ce dernier résidait à Hauterive, les pièces disparaissent lors d’un vol au domicile familial. Au terme d’une vie bien remplie, Armand Imbeau s’éteint à Tadoussac en 1969 à l’âge vénérable de 76 ans. Une stèle familiale est érigée au cimetière ancestral de Tadoussac. Il laisse en héritage marquant à son village une foule de réalisations économiques et de contributions sociales. Son nom, qui baptise maintenant deux navires de la Société des traversiers du Québec est connu dans toute la province et au-delà de nos frontières. Daniel Delisle PhD avec la précieuse collaboration de Claudine Imbeau, petite fille de Armand Imbeau Inconnu, Illégitimes en Charlevoix (2), les Imbeault, https://www.touslestemps.net/2-imbeault-1-2/ Inconnu, Illégitimes en Charlevoix (3), les Imbeault, https://www.touslestemps.net/imbeault-2-2/ Frank, A., Les chantiers maritimes traditionnels: il était de petits navires, Continuité, 2001, (89), 37-39 Desjardins, Robert, Les voitures d’eau, le cabotage artisanal sur le St-Laurent, 2013, http://goelettesduquebec.ca Société des traversiers du Québec, https://www.traversiers.com/fr/a-propos-de-la-societe/nos-navires/nm-armand-imbeau/ Bulletin des recherches historiques : bulletin d'archéologie, d'histoire, de biographie, de numismatique, etc., décembre 1923 Armand Imbeau Contractor and Builder of Schooners Certain people, places and events are essential to Tadoussac. The bay, one of the "beautiful bays in the world", the dunes and of course, the "Toupie" from the Prince Shoal in the distance, the little chapel, all are distinctive emblems of the place. The fire of the SS Quebec at the Quai de Tadoussac in 1950 will also remain an event that will be remembered. Among the people, we certainly recognize the names of certain witnesses of the past. This is the case of the famous captain Jos Deschênes and the entrepreneur Armand Imbeau, Tadoussaciens whose names have been attributed to the first and second generation ferries that shuttle incessantly between Baie-Ste-Catherine and Tadoussac. Long before the ferries, the Côte-Nord knew the age of navigation born of local necessity: transport of essential products from the large centers to towns and villages, and shipments of natural resources, notably wood from the sawmills of the region to distribution centers. To meet these needs, Quebec shipbuilders have developed expertise in the construction of wood, sail and later motor vessels, particularly flat-bottomed schooners allowing beaching on the shore to facilitate loading in places without dock. Among these renowned schooner builders from the Charlevoix and Côte-Nord regions, is Armand Imbeau, son of a shipwright from Baie-Ste-Catherine. Navigator, carpenter, entrepreneur, citizen involved in his community, Armand Imbeau left his mark on his profession, his city, his region and his time. Imbeau de Charlevoix The surname Imbeau (Imbeault, Imbault or Imbeaux) was very common in the Charlevoix region between the 17th and the 19th century. We find traces of the ancestor of the Imbeault, François Imbeault (1737-1823) dit Lagrange, a French soldier, and his wife Catherine Ringuet, in La Malbaie – Pointe-au-Pic. Gradually, we note the presence of many families of descent further north of the region, from Saint-Siméon to St-Firmain (Baie-Sainte-Catherine). At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th, Imbeau moved to the Haute-Côte-Nord. (1, 2) Born in Baie-Sainte-Catherine on August 30, 1893, Armand Imbeau is the son of Thomas Imbeau, of Baie-Sainte-Catherine, a carpenter by profession, and of Marie Laprise of Grandes-Bergeronnes. His grandfather, Louis Imbeau, worked at William Price shipyards in Baie-Sainte-Catherine and Rivière-aux-Canards. Louis's family includes many children. At that time, several Imbeau families were settled in Baie-Sainte-Catherine. Thomas, Armand’s father, would have two other sons, Lucien, Thomas-Louis (Mrg Imbeau, bishop of Charlevoix) and seven daughters. Armand studied carpentry and learned shipbuilding from his father. At the age of 25, on April 22, 1919, he married in Tadoussac, Marie-Louise Caron, teacher at the village school (1900 -?), 19 years old, daughter of Mr. John (Benny) Caron and Ms. Éveline Pedneault from Tadoussac. From this union are born five children; Georgette (Marie-Louise-Emma-Georgette), March 11, 1920, died May 25, 1973. She will marry Émile Baril (1904-1989) from Saint-Charles de Mandeville on June 30, 1956. The couple will have no children. Mr. Baril will be a teacher and principal of the Tadoussac elementary school; Jacques, born in 1924 in Tadoussac and died in La Malbaie in 2011. On October 1, 1949, he married Jaqueline Gauthier (1930-2013), daughter of Hector Gauthier, owner of the Hotel Gauthier which would become the Manoir Tadoussac, and of Émilie Brisson. Jacques Imbeau, employed by the Ministry of Lands and Forests, is called upon to work in Hauterive and Havre-St-Pierre. A child will be born from this union, Claudine, the last of the line of Armand Imbeau; Simonne, who died very young (1927-1939); Rachelle (1933-1937) died at the age of 4; Jacqueline (19 ??), who married Rosaire Bouchard (1924-1987) on May 15, 1954 in Tadoussac. The couple settled in Chicoutimi, parents of two boys, Pierre and Jean, who died in infancy. The Imbeau dry dock At the western end of the beach, overlooking the bay before reaching L'Islet, is to the right, at the south-eastern foot of the hill of Anse à l'eau, a small cove, a natural basin which extends the Anse à L'Islet, of which a band of rocks delimits the entrance: the “Dry dock”. Filling at high tide, the place provides access to the deep fjord and makes it easier for ships to enter and launch. On the beach side, the cove is separated from the bay by an isthmus connecting the peninsula to the mainland. Some residents of Tadoussac settle on the bay beach to build boats. In 1923, Mr. Imbeau rented the site from its owners: the Canada Steamship Lines. In 1930, he founded the “Imbeau Dry Dock” in Tadoussac, a company specializing in the construction and repair of wood-hulled ships, particularly those intended for the transport of wood and for yachting. The dry dock will be operational in November 1931. It will be dug by hand the following year to improve its functionality. Thanks to a government subsidy obtained with the support of the municipality and the village priest, the citizens are hired for two weeks at the dry dock site. In order to stimulate the local economy, after two weeks another group of workers took over to allow as many people as possible to get paid work in these difficult times. A building for the storage of materials and tools is erected on the rocks, where the facilities of the "Center for the Interpretation of Marine Mammals" are currently located. We found in this garage, the various tools of the carpenter, such as adzes, several caulking irons and caulking mallets, augers, hand chignoles, crankshafts, planes, gouges, several wood chisels, saws, scrolling hands, planes of all sizes, etc. Massive wooden doors are installed at the entrance to the cove to control the entry of water. Construction and repair activities would take place there until around 1965, a few years before Mr. Imbeau's death. The golden age of the shipyard's activities was between 1930 and 1950. According to government statistics for the registration of new ships, during this period at least 300 motorized wood coasters were built in Quebec, of which nearly 40% in the Charlevoix region. In Tadoussac, a dozen goelettes will emerge from the Imbeau dry dock, including the Saint-Jude in 1935, the Victoire in 1936, the Tadoussac Transport in 1938, the Royal Trader in 1939 and the Vaillant in 1943, his personal boat the St-Étienne Murray Bay in 1939, the Raguenau in 1941. Given the limited space of the dry dock, the boats built had to be of small and medium tonnage. (3, 4) The post-war industrial boom and the construction of roads connecting the towns and villages of the Charlevoix and Côte-Nord regions contributed to the decrease in naval transport needs and marked the end of the schooner era as well as small shipyards. Armand Imbeau nonetheless continued to repair and winterize the boats in the dry dock until around 1965. A man of many talents, he builds a few houses. To fill in the free time that remains to him, he tinkers, repairs everything that is entrusted to him. He even went so far as to act as a shoemaker, an area in which he excelled. When a national park was created, the "Saguenay – St. Lawrence Marine Park" in 1998, the then inactive site was acquired by the provincial government and integrated into the park. Today, under municipal administration, the Imbeau dry dock accommodates pleasure boats during the winter season. In summer, the place serves as a car park for tourists. Armand Imbeau: The citizen involved The social involvement of Mr. Armand Imbeau is also notable. A city councilor from 1928 to 1939, he devoted his life to fostering the economic prosperity of his region and employed up to 75 people at the turn of the 1940s. (5) Armand Imbeau was also involved for several years in the organizations of the Sainte-Croix Church as churchwarden or in the League of the Sacred Heart. An unusual event: The archaeological treasure An unusual event happened to Armand Imbeau in 1923. The year following his marriage, he bought Arthur Hovington's residence located near L'Islet, on a plateau overlooking the Dry Dock Cove, facing the Saguenay River. The young father is busy digging the dirt cellar. A few shovels from the surface, he discovers a canvas pouch containing old coins. The nest egg consisted of 102 coins. Two of them were white metal coins of a size equivalent to today's Canadian dollar. They are in good condition, without excessive wear and bear the effigy of Louis XIV, and date respectively from 1655 and 1659. Two others of the same metal are smaller and more worn, dating from 1591. The rest of the collection includes pieces of yellow metal, a little larger than a dime and relatively worn with time. They are from the same period as the first two. (6) History does not say whether the "treasure" had a great market value which would have enriched its owner, but according to the numismatic archaeologists consulted, the historical value is really significant. Where are these coins? After a while, Armand Imbeau gives them to his boy Jacques, who takes care of them for many years. While the latter resided in Hauterive, the coins disappeared during a theft from the family home. At the end of a busy life, Armand Imbeau passed away in Tadoussac in 1969 at the venerable age of 76. A family monument is erected at the ancestral cemetery of Tadoussac. He left as a legacy marking his village a host of economic achievements and social contributions. His name, which now names two ships of the Société des Traversiers du Québec, is known throughout the province and beyond our borders. Daniel Delisle PhD with the precious collaboration of Claudine Imbeau, granddaughter of Armand Imbeau Photo below Armand Imbeau is sitting on the gate of the drydock as the "Hobo" owned by Guy Smith is entering the drydock for winter storage. Back to ALL Bios
- Picnics and the Beaches | tidesoftadoussac1
PREVIOUS NEXT PAGE Été à Tadoussac Summer 1920-1940 Page 3 of 7 Picnics and the Beaches Pique-nique et les Plages Above Adele Languedoc At right Elizabeth Stevenson (O'Neill), Adele Languedoc, Grace Scott, Margaret Stevenson (Reilley) and others Circa 1928 Above Haycart ride to the Dunes Below Billy Morewood building dams with Jack Wallace, Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) and Ainslie Evans (Stephen) Circa 1927 Above and below Phoebe in front, with all the friends, 1930's Above Betty Morewood (Evans) and Jean Alexander (Aylan Parker) Below Jim Alexander Above Phoebe and Betty at the lake Above and below John Turcot, and Jack Wallace Circa 1934 Below Ainslie, ?, Betty, Phoebe, Trevor Evans, ? Above and right Jack and Doris (Carrington Smith) Molson with Verity and Robin Molson Below ?, Emily (Bethune) Evans, Robin Molson, R Lewis Evans, May Dawson and others Below Elizabeth (Stevenson) O'Neill and Lionel O'Neill Nan (Rhodes) Williams Below ?, Joan Williams (Ballantyne), Susan Williams (Webster), Michael Wallace Left Jim, Susan and Joan Williams Below Susan, ?, Joan and Jim Williams, ?? in the White Boat Both photos Pam Smith (McCarter), Verity Molson, Ann Smith (Van Alstyn) 1936 ?, Nan Wallace (Leggat)?, Elliot Turcot, ?, Boll Tyndale, Moulin Baude River? 1938 Nan Wallace (Leggat), Bill Fleming, Peggie Durnford, ?, Elliot Turcot, Bill Morewood, Helen Price, Ron Alexander, Michael Wallace Frances Holland Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) Susie Russell Betty Morewood (Evans) Ainslie Evans (Stephen) 1937 ??, Betty Morewood (Evans), Bar Hampson (Alexander/Campbell), JohnTurcot, ???, Nan Wallace (Leggat), Elliott Turcot, Peggy Tyndale, ? PREVIOUS NEXT PAGE
- Coad, Barbara Elisabeth Sarah (Sally) (Price)
Sally lived abroad with her military family before settling in England with her husband and four children Coad, Barbara Elisabeth Sarah (Sally) (Price) Sally lived abroad with her military family before settling in England with her husband and four children Back to ALL Bios Sally Coad - 23 September, 1944 - 20 August, 2008 Barbara Elisabeth Sarah Price was the 4th child of Mary & Ted Price (and thus grandchild of Harry & Muriel Price). Always known as Sally (after the dog as she would tell you) she was the little sister of Greville, Ginny & Tim. All were born in England whilst Ted fought with the Canadian Army in Europe, but returned as soon as peace was declared with Sally sleeping in a drawer in Mary’s cabin. The family lived in Ottawa but came every year to Tad, where she remembered vividly Grandad Harry taking all his grandchildren for an ice cream at 12.45 - just in time to spoil their appetites for lunch “Oh Harry ...” as Granny Price would say! They came on the CSL boats but also with Ted driving on the ‘washboard’ gravel roads east of Quebec. Mary especially loved Tad and came for three months every year - June through to Labor Day whenever possible. Ted’s Army career required numerous postings across Canada and in London before Dar e Salaam and finally as Military Attache in Washington. Sally, having been ‘badly educated following the flag’, left Mt Allison University in Nova Scotia to join her parents in Tanzania for two years working as a secretary for the Sisal Board. On their return she took a job as a medical secretary to a heart research consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Always expected by her family to ‘marry an English man’ it was in Montreal in 1970 that Sally met Ross Coad. They married in Ottawa 26th June, 1971, and after a honeymoon in New York City and a weekend in Tadoussac (naturally!) they set up home in Somerset, England. Tori, Jonathan, Gilly and Struan were Sally’s contribution to Ted and Mary’s 16 grandchildren following from Uncle Guy Smith’s wedding telegram: There was a young man named Coad, Who took on quite a load For in marrying our Sally They’ll add to the tally For the Prices are prone to explode! Sally was distinctly a Price - mahogany red hair, a steely will and wonderfully loving. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” was an adage of Mary’s that Sally took as her own (not that she didn’t have some very clear perceptions!). Much involved with South Petherton Infants School in England whose governors she chaired, her family and friends endowed the building of Kasenei School in Kenya in her memory. Sally died 20th August 2008 after nearly 3 years of struggle with ovarian cancer, alert and clear-headed right to the very end. She left 7 grandchildren when she died, Isaac, Annapurna, Jacob, Dexter, Zara, Verity and Robyn; with a further 7 since: Scarlett, Barney, Eddy, Pippa, Grace, Annabel and Archie. Tadoussac was most definitely her spiritual home and if you feel quietly relaxed and warmed by the love & friendship in this place - you will understand why! Photo at left 2003 : picnicking at Moulin Beaude: Ross w Annapurna & Sally Photos below 1967: The Ted & Mary Price family at the Harry Price house Grev, Randy Bell, Sally, Tim & Kerry (Grev’s wife) Ted, Ginny (Bell), Mary w Christopher Bell 1988: Struan, Tori, Jonathan & Gilly Coad Sally & Ross Back to ALL Bios
- Short Stories by R Lewis Evans
Short Stories by R Lewis Evans R. Lewis Evans was an English Teacher who loved to write. Although his books are quite well-known, his short stories and articles belong mostly to the more distant past. It was during the 1940s and 1950s that magazine short stories were popular and sought after and Dad wrote over 20 of them. Most were published, and many are of interest especially to those of us who know and love the Lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay areas of Quebec, so I decided to get them out of the file and onto the web-site where they can be read once again. I've divided the stories into categories. While he wrote mostly river stories about the Tadoussac area, including some historical fiction, he also wrote 6 stories about World War II (4 of which overlap with our beloved river), and a number of odd inspirations, one biblical, several inspired by newspaper items, and even one (gasp!) Science Fiction. There are also some non-fiction articles which will be coming along later in the year. I love them all partly because he wrote about what he loved and I love it too, but partly because his characters are thoughtful, compassionate and real. I've included a few notes that he kept in the file. Some are news articles he drew his ideas from; others are comments he received from editors either printed in the magazine or sent along to him separately. I've also tried to reproduce the illustrations, duly credited, as all the stories that published were supported by visual art. Only one, Casual Enemy, has no illustrator mentioned. My guess is he drew that one himself. I've read all these stories several times in my efforts to get them up onto the web-site correctly and I've never tired of them. I hope you enjoy them. A fair warning: some readers might recognize a few people! Alan Evans NEXT PAGE R Lewis Evans War Stories Casual Enemy (As Published in “Boating Magazine”, Vol. 18, no. 3, April, 1942) by Lewis Evans PIERRE TREMBLAY put down his pipe and listened. The hollow chug of a diesel engine had suddenly broken the silence of the bay as some craft rounded the steep headland at its outer end. “No running lights,” the old French-Canadian murmured to himself, and then he smiled at his own comment, for his own little work boat, anchored close under the rugged hillside near the head of the bay, carried no riding light. The bays off the Saguenay River are deep—thirty to a hundred fathoms; small craft have to anchor close to shore in order to find bottom, and lights of any kind attract mosquitoes from the woods. The jarring clang of a bell slowed the engines of the incoming craft, and Pierre sat back and drew on his pipe again. She was the “Phantome”. He knew that engine bell—it had been cracked for years. The “Phantome” was a diesel-engined coaster with a shady history. Five years ago, meeting her under the same conditions, Pierre would have known that she was bootlegging cheap French liquor from St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the dry counties up river. Not much money in that game now, though, and the “Phantome” had been out of it since her crew had had to jettison a cargo worth well over a thousand dollars, and the pursuing government patrol boat had just enough evidence to get Xavier Bouchard, the “Phantome’s” captain and Pierre’s sister’s son, two years in the Quebec jail. Well, he hoped that Xavier was up to nothing that might get him into trouble again. That jail sentence had nearly broken his mother’s heart, for she was a gentle and pious woman. Perhaps he was netting salmon—that would get him a fat fine if he were caught, but the government boats were too busy trying to keep the St. Lawrence free from German submarines these days to worry about coasting vessels breaking the Fish and Game Laws. Only a week ago a freighter had been torpedoed out in the Gulf, not so very many miles from the Saguenay. Two patrol boats had already claimed the destruction of the submarine. Why couldn’t Xavier get some honest work, and save Marie, his mother, the anxiety which was making her old before her time? Honest work was to be had easily enough these days, though Pierre himself was not too sure what kind of a job he could pick up now that this work on the fish-hatchery dam was over. His had been the supply boat for that—a government project to build a salmon hatchery on the stream that emptied into the bay. Today the dam had been finished, the gang had been taken out by launch, and Pierre’s boat was loaded with shovels and picks, unused food stores, cement and dynamite. Ah well—he’d get something to do. There was work going on aboard the “Phantome” — sounded like heavy oil drums being rolled along the deck. Surely they would not be shifting their cargo at this time of night. Still no lights, and only occasionally came a subdued order. Pierre could see nothing — bateme, but the night was a black one. Then came the louder rumble of oil drums — empty ones. Pierre suddenly stood up and peered into the darkness. Surely Xavier could not be such a fool . . . but still, the St. Lawrence was a long way from Germany, and diesel engines needed fuel oil, and Xavier had always liked easy money . . . Quietly Pierre hauled in the painter of the ten-foot flat-bottomed boat that served him as tender. As he eased himself aboard he remembered to leave his pipe behind — the dynamite was stowed in the tender for safety’s sake. Two stealthy strokes with a paddle moved him away from his boat. The tide had begun to rise and a slight current set round the bay, drifting him towards the “Phantome”. At last he could make out the shape of the coaster, her stump mast, and the wheelhouse at her stern dimly silhouetted against the mouth of the bay. Pierre peered at her waterline . . . was there? . . . yes — a long, low, shelving shape protruded astern of the coaster. The submarine lay on the far side of the “Phantome”. Pierre worked his boat back against the tide, which was running more strongly now, and almost bumped his work boat before he saw it. He got aboard and sat down, holding the tender’s painter. Poor Marie — what would she do if Xavier got into trouble for this piece of work? And this might be only the first of many refueling episodes. Straightening up with decision, Pierre hauled his tender to that side of his boat farther from the “Phantome”. Leaning over, he worked fast. Once he paused to peer at the position of the coaster, once to dip his hand into the current slipping past the side of his boat, testing its strength. He rummaged in the cockpit and came up with a large reel of cod line, one end of which he secured to the tender. Leaning over the smaller boat and opening his coat wide as a shield, he struck a match. An end of fuse lay in the bottom; he lighted it and doused the match quickly. Manoeuvring the tender round the stern of his boat, he felt to make sure that the cod-line was not snarled, and then gave the tender a long, gentle push towards the “Phantome”. Sitting down, he carefully paid out the line as the little craft, in the grip of the tide, asked for it. The rumble of oil drums on the “Phantome” had ceased, and now came a clanking. She was weighing anchor. Pierre gave his tender more slack and felt her take it up. Slowly the coaster’s anchor chain clanked inboard, and her engine was started up. So much of the cod-line was now in the water that Pierre could not feel a definite pull from the tender, but he went on giving slack. The cracked engine bell jangled aboard the “Phantome”, and her propeller kicked ahead slowly. The clanking of the chain had ceased. Pierre found that the end of the cod-line was in his hand. Knowing the length of the line, and praying that his judgement of distance was right, he pulled in a fathom or two, and crouched in the cockpit. Suddenly there was a hoarse shout in the darkness — the tender had been seen. Pierre tensed, gripping the cockpit coaming. Then a flash lit the bay — lit up for a second the silver streak of the submarine stretching forward from the flash, three figures on the deck frozen in their movement, and the “Phantome” clear of the submarine and heading out of the bay. Pitch darkness blinded Pierre; a scrap of wood clattered into the cockpit beside him — of the tender’s gunwale, by the feel of it; his ears, deafened by the blast, heard dimly confused shouts and the hurried thump of the “Phantome’s” motor as she fled out of the bay. The old man, trembling a little, hauled up his anchor and started his motor. Expecting a fusillade of rifle shots at the very least, he zig-zagged along close to shore, heading for the open. No shots followed him, and he rounded the headland and dropped his hook in the next bay down the river. On such a night that explosion should have been heard in Tadoussac, two miles away at the mouth of the Saguenay. If so surely the patrol boat based there would investigate. Not long afterwards he heard the drone of the patrol boat. It swept up the Saguenay towards him, its searchlight probing. Pierre hastily lighted his running lights and got under way back towards the bay. The patrol boat caught up to him just off the headland. Pierre pointed towards the bay and was left rocking in the wake of the grey launch. By the time he had rounded the head the patrol boat was almost alongside the submarine, her searchlight and gun trained on it. There was no resistance, however, for the submarine was submerged and aground at the stern, her bow protruding from the surface at a sharp angle, her crew clinging to the deck. Apparently the blast had occurred near the stern, which had gone down, while the forward part of the hull remained buoyant. Pierre drifted up to the patrol boat. “What do you know about this?” demanded the Naval Reserve Lieutenant in command. Pierre explained, partly in French and partly in broken English, with expressive gestures, but not mentioning the “Phantome”, which by now should be far up the Saguenay, frightened to death but above suspicion. The Lieutenant expressed his amazement profanely, and added: “Meet us in Tadoussac. The government will be very grateful . . .” Marie would be grateful too, if she knew, thought Pierre. “And we'll get you a new tender and some more dynamite,” went on the officer. “Oh, the dynamite — it belonged to the government anyway,” said Pierre. The End He heard a yell and the sound of quick movement from the pit as he swooped towards it and tossed the grenade Monte Cassino Downhill (Published in The Montreal Standard, Spring of 1944) Lieutenant Johnny Martin takes a long chance on a tricky slope by Lewis Evans ILLUSTRATED BY GEOFFREY TRAUNTER TO USE his own expression, Lieutenant Johnny Martin was skunked. He crouched and shivered in the hole he had scooped in the snowdrift under a stunted bush and mentally compared it with what the Americans called foxholes in the Pacific battle zones. The only fox that might condescend to call this "home,” thought Johnny, would be an Arctic fox. The miserable shelter in which he crouched was on the southwest shoulder of Monte Cassino, and below him was the valley in which lay one of the main roads to Rome, the valley up which units of the Fifth Army were advancing towards the town of Cassino. Johnny could see the road down there, about a thousand feet below him, and the gaps in it where the retreating Germans had blown up the culverts. He could see the railway line, too, with the twisted girders of a steel bridge sagging into a small river; the Fortresses had fixed that, in a precision daylight attack weeks ago. The slopes on which he lay, and all the other mountains in that jumble of southern spurs of the Appenines, were deep in snow on their summits but on the lower contours the snow became patchy, and down in the valleys mud reigned supreme. The regiment would be wallowing in it as usual, Johnny thought. The Italian weather had been horribly wet for weeks, and turning cold in December had resulted in the unusual amount of snow on the mountains. Well, he thought, at least his snowdrift, if cold, was cleaner than the mud down in the valley. Opposite him to his left were the slopes of a smaller valley running into the main one, and that was where his regiment was. His problem was to rejoin them. The considerable obstacle directly in his way was a small sector of the German defenses, consisting of a machine-gun nest in the lee of a knoll about halfway down the shoulder of the floor of this minor valley. In front of the nest and below the knoll stretched a mare’s nest of barbed wire, protecting the gunners from a frontal charge. Their field of fire covered the lower slopes of the mountain, where the snow gave way to grass and mud. Monte Cassino had been causing the Allies plenty of worry as they hammered their way through ancient Campania. It was crowned by the huge monastery which had been founded by St. Benedict in the year 529, but that historical fact held little interest for the men whose job it was to rid the mountain of Germans. They hoped that the monks had had the sense to clear out before their mountain became a military objective, and wanted desperately to know if the Germans had established any form of artillery in or near the monastery or the ruined castle just below the two valleys and could break up any advance in force towards Cassino. Air reconnaissance had failed to reveal any gun sites, but the two buildings afforded such opportunities for concealment that the risk of advancing without further information was too great—hence Lieutenant Martin’s uncomfortable presence on the mountain and on the wrong side of the remnants of the German rearguard. JOHNNY had been amongst the Canadians who had qualified as paratroopers at an American training camp early in the war, and last night he had been dropped onto the slopes of Monte Cassino from an ugly Lysander Army Reconnaissance aircraft. In the gray December dawn he had scrambled up and onto the monastery courtyard to find the snow lying clean and untracked, and the great stone well standing in the middle as it had stood through the centuries of war and peace. Then he had slithered down to the ruined castle and satisfied himself that the Germans had established no artillery in either place. Possibly, Johnny thought, they considered the buildings to obvious, too likely to be bombed flat by Allied planes. Into the first rays of the morning sun as it rose behind the Allied armies Lieutenant Martin had flashed the pre-arranged signal which told the watchers that the buildings hid nothing of military importance, and then he had started for home. Worming his way down the shoulder he had seen the machine-gun post. He had expected something of the sort somewhere, and after reconnoitering enough to find that there were other similar nests on other parts of the lower slopes which the advancing troops would probably have to silence by mortar fire, he decided that his only chance was to wait until dark or until the Allied advance had cleared the enemy from their positions. So he lay and shivered, and considered the terrain below him. As the hours crawled by the sun warmed him a little, and the surface of the snow melted. Like spring snow in the Laurentians, thought Johnny, and his memory conjured up visions of Hill 70 at St. Sauveur, and beer and singing in the pub at night, and ski races against Dartmouth, and the Quebec Kandahar on Mont Tremblant, in the days when he was a Red Bird and used to ski for McGill. He thought of standing on the brow of Hill 70 in the cold brightness of a Sunday morning and watching the Montreal train, looking ridiculously small from where he stood, pulling into the station, and the unbelievable number of skiers who poured out of it and fanned out towards their favorite hills. From the stationary locomotive a great white plume of steam would go up like a huge mushroom, and yet he would be looking down on its top, just as he was looking down on this valley and the occasional mushroom of smoke from a bursting shell as some German gunners far up the main road searched for the Allied advance units. SUDDENLY Johnny’s gaze centred on a movement halfway down the slope and well to the right of the machine-gun post. Working round the shoulder of the hill was a man in the white parka of a ski-trooper, and to Johnny’s incredulous eyes he appeared to be on skis. He had apparently come from the steep zigzag road which connected the monastery with the valley below, and where another of the enemy outposts was. From his actions as he traversed the hillside he appeared to be carrying a load, and Johnny figured it must be ammunition or food for the post directly below. His surprise diminished as he realized that the man would hardly dare approach the post in daylight without that white protection, for a field uniform would be seen against the snowy slope from the other side of the valley. Perhaps the Germans had some mountain-trained and equipped regiments here. Their organization was supposed to be efficient and controlled by such inflexible rules that they might easily have sent skis with troops who were to fight in mountainous country even if the mountains were in Southern Italy. The skier moved on and eventually came to the post, stooped to undo his harness, and then dropped out of sight over the lip of the emplacement. Johnny’s thoughts ran on the subject of skis and skiing. Looking down over the machine-gun nest by the knoll and its protecting wire, he idly wondered whether a good skier taking off from the knoll could clear that wire below it. It might be possible, he figured, as the lower face of the knoll was cutaway steeply and the wire ran close under the face. The landing would be too flat for comfort, he thought, but one could hardly expect a natural jump to have everything. If he had some skis he could wait for night and the moon, which was strong, and then run straight for the knoll, lob a grenade into the nest as he passed, and hope that his speed would take him clear of the wire before he landed. If the grenade did its job and if no other machine- gun covered that field of fire — and he had seen no other post close enough to do so — he might ski on down to the snow-line and find cover and perhaps his own advancing units beyond that. Oh, well — what was the use of wishing? — but it seemed silly that after volunteering for a special ski course and being bored to death learning to “bear-walk” and do the “crawl” all over the snowy flats of Petawawa he should need a pair of skis in Southern Italy, of all places. The sun was sloping westwards toward the Mediterranean, and the air was getting colder. Johnny Martin thought of the long night on the mountain – he did not dare seek shelter in the monastery or the old castle as some of the Germans might have the same idea. Another twelve hours before he could reasonably expect his friends to attack – Johnny shuddered. “If I stay here all night,” he said to himself with a smile that was a bit grim, “I shall probably wake up in the morning with a very bad cold in the head – if I wake up. And if the attack doesn't drive those Germans away, or if we don't attack at dawn, I may have to stay on and on.” Anything was better than that, he thought. If that fellow in the parka would start back, and if he could get his skis. . . Johnny got out his large scale map. There was Monte Cassino, there was the winding road from the monastery to the valley, and there was the contour line followed by the skier from the road to the macine-gun emplacement. Johnny's finger followed along the contour line and stopped where it swung deeply in towards the mountain and out again. That must be a stream or stream-bed seaming the slope, he knew. If he could meet the skier in that gully they would be invisible from anywhere but directly above or below; they would be, as it were, in a fold in the ground. JOHNNY MARTIN got going. He wriggled out of his foxhole, and keeping the height of the drift between him and the post below he crawled up the shoulder towards the ruined castle, and then bore to the left towards the upper end of the gully. He reached it and slithered into it. It was just what he had expected – a rocky stream-bed with a trickle of water from the day's melting, a trickle that would be a torrent if the weather warmed up a little. Johnny scrambled down it till he came to the tracks made by the skier crossing the gully on the way to the post, and then he crouched by a rock a little uphill from the tracks and where he could see them disappear around the shoulder of the slope. The sun had gone, and visibility was being cut down to a few yards, until at around nine o'clock the rising moon should increase it considerably. Finally Johnny heard the indescribable sound of skis over snow, and a figure loomed against the sky-line. The Canadian gripped the icy butt of his automatic and tensed himself for a spring. The skier slid into the gully, lost his balance as his ski tips hit the opposite slope, and crashed with a grunt. He grunted once more – a grunt of surprise – as Johnny jumped on him and slugged at his head with the heavy gun. Johnny struggled to strip off the man's parka and heard it rip as at last it came away. Then he freed the skis and picked them up, together with the single ski-pole the German had been using, and started climbing up the gully with his spoil. Back in his shelter in the drift Johnny waited while the moon cleared the silvery summits of the distant hills. His plan was a chancy one, he knew, but he could not face any more hours in the damp cold and inactivity. WAITING for the moonrise he adjusted the leather harness to fit his boots, and his thoughts went back to cable bindings and long arguments before log-fires on the merits of super-diagonal and other down-hill devices. “'The time has come,' the Walrus said . . .” murmured Johnny and stretched himself flat on his skis. Using his hands and feet as a seal uses its flippers he slowly and cautiously tobogganed down the slope as far as he dared. There was a bush a hundred yards or so above the emplacement, and there he stopped. Beyond was the clear, steep ground, ground bathed in moonlight where he would be spotted if he tried to sneak across, then the knoll with the shadow of the weapon pit to one side of it, and dimly seen below the knoll was the tangle of wire. Crouching, Johnny got his feet into the harness and produced his two grenades from under his parka. One he left on the ground by the bush – he would only have time to use one, and he didn't like the idea of taking a mighty tumble with enough explosive on his person to blow him to bits, safe though grenades were supposed to be until the pin was out. Slowly he straightened up and launched himself forward. His skis gathered way, and for a moment his mind flipped back to a mad moonlight race on Mount Baldy one March long ago – then he was checking with a forced stem in the yielding snow and pulling the pin from the grenade. His skis came parallel again and he heard a yell and the sound of a quick movement from the pit as he swooped towards it and tossed the grenade in. Then he was on the knoll with his knees bent deep, snapping straight as he crossed the lip of the mound, and he had a blurred impression of white ground surging up at him and a roar from behind him. His skis hit the snow and he wavered, steadied, hit a bump and crashed with a cracking sound that he hoped was breaking skis, not rifle fire. He struggled up to find one ski intact and the other broken off short behind his foot. On he plunged towards the darkness of the valley, trying to keep most of his weight on the unbroken ski. A clump of bushes loomed up and he swung round it in a forward leaning turn that would have been appreciated on the Taschereau run, only to see a great patch of snowless ground beyond it. He tried to stop but his skis bit the earth, and he somersaulted madly. In the first roll his head hit a chunk of half-frozen turf and he was unconscious as he hurtled into a depression in the ground where a very large Canadian sergeant and two men with evil designs upon the German machine-gun nest were setting up a mortar. EVER since dark the sergeant had been heaving his bulk forward from cover to cover to get within range of that emplacement. To have his prospective target blow up for no good reason at all was one thing, he thought, but to have a one hundred and eighty pound unconscious lieutenant impinge on his stomach at that time of night was something else again. Johnny Martin came to dizzily to hear the sergeant emphatically muttering what seemed to be a prayer – except that the words were in quite the wrong order. The End NOTE: It was the following article in the February 7th, 1944 edition of the Globe and Mail newspaper which gave Dad the idea for this story. The (fuzzy and difficult to read despite my best efforts) original is included below. Germans Shell Abbey Housing Own Troops Montecassino Monastery (arrow) high above the town of Cassino, was founded by St. Benedict in 529, on the site of ancient Temple of Apollo. By C. L. SULZBERGER - New York Times Special to The Globe and Mail. Copyright With the 5th Army in Italy, Feb. 5 (Delayed).—German artillery, for some peculiar and perverse reason, today shelled the famous old monastery atop Monte Cassino where the Benedictine Order was born, although there is every reason to believe some of their own troops were within the vast abbey which the enemy is believed using as an observation post. Shortly after 3 p.m. this correspondent happened to be looking at the historic landmark above the lacerated town of the same name, where American troops are slowly battling their way forward in vicious street fighting, when geysers of smoke billowed from the abbey, standing out clearly in the crisp, bright atmosphere. As the smoke drifted southward in huge clouds, careful scrutinizing through binoculars revealed no visible damage. In order to ascertain the reasons for this extraordinary event, since Lt.-Gen. Mark W. Clark has issued strictest orders to his army not to fire on the abbey or any other papal property or a series of specified clerical buildings unless it is a question of the most vital military necessity, the writer made a careful inquiry among American artillery officers. Major A. J. Peterson, Minneapolis, Minn., who observed the same bursts and then inquired of various artillery observation outposts in the immediate vicinity of the monastery, said: “We could identify the shell bursts. There was one direct hit on top of the abbey. Our observers were able to plot the direction of the shells. They came from the north, in the Atinia region, and from the northwest which areas are in enemy hands.” Meanwhile, further evidence of Nazi violation of those few courtesies remaining in modern warfare was received when a French prisoner who escaped last night informed Allied authorities the Germans were forcing British, American and French captives to carry ammunition and dig positions in the Cassino vicinity. These prisoners are forced to labor under the shellfire of Allied guns, and there have been casualties among them. The Frenchman escaped during the night in the confusion following an especially heavy Allied barrage on Cassino positions still held by the Germans. He said that to the best of his knowledge, 12 Englishmen, six Americans, and two Frenchmen still remained with the enemy as prisoners in his group, doing forced labor under fire. Of Assistance to the Enemy (Published in the Montreal Standard, Date unknown) By Lewis Evans ILLUSTRATED BY BEN TURNER “AND SO,’’ concluded the announcer who was summarizing the news in French over Radio Rimouski that night, “of the ten German long-range bombers which made an attempt at five o’clock this morning to destroy the great dams at the head of the Saguenay River, seven were brought down by interceptor aircraft from Bagotville and Mont Joli before they reached their objective, one dropped its bomb load harmlessly into the waters of Lake St. John and was brought down by anti-aircraft fire, and the remaining two fled south from the fighters towards the St. Lawrence, jettisoning their bombs over uninhabited parts of the Laurentians. The crews of these two bombers are believed to have bailed out over the north shore of the St. Lawrence, as their aircraft were observed to crash in the river some miles off-shore. These men are being sought by military units and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. So ended the first enemy attempt to do to a Canadian industrial centre what the British succeeded in doing to the Mohne and Eder dams in Germany some time ago.” Old Captain Tremblay switched off the radio in the cabin of the coasting schooner St. Casimir, tied up at the wharf in Ste. Catherine’s Bay at the mouth of the Saguenay, and listened for a few moments to the comments of his companions as they continued their late meal. Outside, rain had come up on the rising east wind, and the three French-Canadians who formed his crew did not hurry over their food. They were in no haste to return to the rain-swept wharf and get on with the job of loading the St. Casimir with pulp logs. The Captain reached for his battered green-covered copy of “The St. Lawrence River Pilot” and turned to the chapter that dealt with the mouth of the Saguenay and the waters of the St. Lawrence in that vicinity, for he and his ship usually plied farther upstream, and his present route was not a familiar one. With his finger on the place he looked up. "Get going,” he ordered. “About twelve more cords to load. Tide’s full now. so the sooner we can sail the better — the ebb will be in our favor, and I don’t want to waste it.” “The three men, two deckhands and an engineer, put on their sodden caps and went out. Climbing the steep face of the dock they mounted the pile of four-foot pulp logs and bent to their work. With one hand they drove their short hooks into the logs and jerked them upwards, and then hook and free hand heaved them forward and downward into the semi-darkness to land with hollow thunder on the St. Casimir’s wooden deck, illumined by the half-hearted floodlight permitted by the dim-out regulations. When half an hour before midnight Captain Tremblay came out on the bridge to see how the work was going, the twelve cords on the wharf had become six and his men were on the schooner's deck converting the jumbled pile into a well-stowed deck load. The east wind had increased and even in Ste. Catherine’s Bay, sheltered by reefs from the open St. Lawrence, small waves were bunting the schooner against the wharf and her rubbing strake groaned from time to time on the massive piles. The Captain moved aft to slacken a taut mooring line, for the tide had dropped a foot or so. When he turned back there were four men on the deck amidships instead of three. As the newcomer’s shadow came between them and the light the workers straightened up from their task and stared. “Good evening,” said the stranger. “May I speak with your Captain?” He spoke in French, but each of the men listening knew at once that he was no French-Canadian. He was speaking careful school-book French, as most English-Canadians and Americans do. The engineer indicated Tremblay with a gesture and the stranger turned towards him. “Captain, you have a small boat—” he jerked his thumb aft, where the schooner’s lifeboat hung on davits across her stern— “and I want you or one of your men to take me out beyond the reefs to the St. Lawrence. I will pay you what you ask for your trouble.” “Impossible, monsieur,” exclaimed Tremblay. He motioned towards the pulp logs. “We have work to do and besides, the weather ...” He gestured vaguely towards the rainy darkness off-shore, and through his mind went the words he had heard less than two hours before—“The crews of these two bombers are believed to have bailed out over the north shore of the St. Lawrence. . .” “Nonsense!” said the stranger rather abruptly, and he took a step nearer the Captain. “There is no sea to speak of, and I saw from the wharf that your boat has an engine. I will pay you well. I must insist.” Tremblay was silent, staring at the man before him, a tall, fair fellow, bareheaded, who kept his hands in the pockets of a raincoat so soaked and dirty as to be colorless in that dim light. At length he spoke. “No sir,” he said firmly. “It can’t be done.” It was no surprise to him when his words seemed to lift the stranger’s right hand— and Luger—out of the pocket. “Listen, Captain,” said the German. “I am in a hurry. You or one of your men must take me where I want to go — out beyond the mouth of the Saguenay.” “Submarine!” murmured the Captain, stating a fact rather than asking a question. “Ha!” said the other. “You’ve heard of the bombing. There are U-boats at points off the north shore tonight and we were instructed to get to them if we could. You see my position — I will stand no foolishness. Make up your minds — will one of you take me, or . . .” THE CAPTAIN’S eyes travelled over the German. The man was tired — that was obvious. His clothing bore the marks of a day-long battle with the Laurentian bush. A tired man, but the tired man held the gun, and was impatient. The Captain turned to his men. “Lower the boat,” he ordered. The three men turned slowly and shuffled aft to uncleat the falls, conscious all the time of the gun behind them. Captain Tremblay followed. He was under no illusion — that Nazi might shoot one or all of them, whether they did as he told them or not. The blocks squealed and the eighteen-foot boat slid towards the black water. Tremblay glanced over his shoulder and saw the German peering at the illuminated dial of a military pocket compass—but the Luger in his other hand was still on the job. He turned to the German, who was putting the compass back in his pocket. “I’ll go with you,” said Tremblay decisively - and out of the corner of his eye he noted his men’s heads turn suddenly toward him. “That little compass you have - it's no good in a small boat because of deviation caused by the engine . . . and there are reefs outside, you know, and cross-currents. You must have a man with you who knows these waters.” “And you know them?” asked the German drily. “I was born near here,” stated Tremblay, conscious of the stares of his crew, who knew well that he was a Baie St. Paul man. The German was no fool. He saw the men stare and he saw the craftiness in the Captain's eyes, so naive that he almost laughed aloud at it. He could trust him as far as he could see him — and not even that far in a small boat. “Good,” he said. “Get into the boat, then, and start the engine.” Tremblay’s stomach felt cold. He had tried to make the man suspect a trap, and he did not know whether he had succeeded. He turned and swung over the schooner's rail and dropped into the boat under her counter. The German moved up and straddled the rail so that he could watch both Tremblay and the men on deck. The Captain set about priming the engine. After a preliminary cough or two it spluttered to life. The Nazi swung his other leg over the rail. “You make one move from where you are and I'll shoot your Captain,” he threatened the three men on deck, and then he, too, dropped into the boat. “Cast off those ropes and then get back aboard,” he ordered Tremblay. “Back aboard?” echoed the Captain. “Maybe you know these waters too well. Get back,” snapped the German reaching for the clutch lever, and as the other took a grip on the ropes hanging over the schooner's stern he eased it forward. The propeller bit the water and the boat shot forward and was swallowed up in the windy darkness. As Captain Tremblay climbed over the rail the three men on the St. Casimir's deck looked at one another and then all broke out talking at once. The Captain said nothing but made straight for the cabin, where he slumped onto a chair by the table on which still lay the battered green pilot book, open as he had left it. The others followed him in, jabbering. “Why did you offer to take him?” demanded one of the deck hands angrily. The Captain looked up wearily. “Because I wanted him to go alone. I remembered your Marie, Jacques, back in Baie St. Paul. She seemed too eager for the wedding, so you jilted her.” The deck hand’s puzzled look slowly gave way to one of understanding. Suddenly the engineer broke in. “Shouldn’t we go ashore and find a telephone?” he asked. “Perhaps a patrol boat could be warned to pick him up.” The Captain roused himself. “Telephone? Yes one of you had better report about the submarine.” “But the airman,” insisted the engineer. "Couldn’t they—” “They won’t get him,” stated the Captain. The finality of his tone fixed their questioning glances on him, and in explanation he pushed the open pilot book across the table towards them. “Read that,” he said, pointing to a paragraph. “It’s what I was studying after supper.” The engineer picked up the St. Lawrence River Pilot and read the paragraph aloud. “ 'The Mouth of the Saguenay River . . . The ebb tide from the Saguenay River on meeting the ebb from the St. Lawrence sets up very heavy tide rips, so strong as to interfere with the steerage of a vessel. When these ebbs are opposed to a heavy easterly gale, a particularly dangerous cross-sea is raised, which is considered dangerous to small craft, and in which no boat could live’.” The End The Sitting Duck (Published in The Montreal Standard, Date unknown) By Lewis Evans ILLUSTRATED BY GEOFFREY TRAUNTER THE LANDING BARGE lay as still as if she were floating on the fog rather than upon the waters of the North Sea. Somewhere, invisible, the sun was rising, and slowly the thick fog turned from black to grey. For the first time in hours the R.C.N.V.R. Lieutenant on the bridge could see the lines of his ship before him—that is if a medium sized landing barge can be said to have any lines at all. Lieutenant McNeil doubted it, and never could look at the scow-like bulk of his craft without seeing in his imagination the dashing motor-torpedo-boat he had hoped to command. At her very best speed his landing barge could hardly be called dashing, and for the greater part of an hour she had been anything but — she had been left powerless by a defective unit in her reduction gear. McNeil resisted the urge to go below again to see how repairs were progressing. He might as well stay where he was, and if he was sweating with impatience he knew well that the Petty Officer below was sweating too — sweating blood to get the repairs effected. Somewhere to the south and east was the attacking-force of which his craft was supposed to be a part — by now it should be fifteen miles away and almost grounding on the long, low sandy beaches of the Belgian coast, but there had been no sound of gunfire as yet. When his engines had failed he had had simply to drop out of the armada, the dense fog and strict radio silence preventing from letting even the commanding officer know of his plight. NO ONE but the commander of the force knew whether this attack was part of the real thing, the invasion itself, or merely one of the dress rehearsals or feints promised by the Prime Minister. Whatever it is, thought the Lieutenant as he gazed down into the waist of his ship, it will have to get along without those two tanks. He could just see them now, crouched one behind the other, facing the closed ramp at the bow, and their crews lounging round them and smoking. Suddenly McNeil raised his head and listened. Then he glanced at the Leading Seaman in the other wing of the bridge. He, too, had heard the faint throbbing and was peering into the blankness of the fog ahead. The Lieutenant crossed to him. “What do you make of it?” he asked quietly. “Sounds quite close, sir, but faint. Certainly not an aircraft — might be an M.T.B. or an E-boat throttled right down.” They listened again and the subdued hum continued, punctuated once by a faint clang. The killick swung toward McNeil. “Sub, sir!” he whispered urgently. “Surfaced and charging her batteries — that clang could have been a hatch-cover.” “Go forward,” ordered McNeil, “and tell ’em to keep completely quiet. Send someone below to tell the engine-room, too — and find out how much longer they’ll be.” “Aye, aye, sir.” The Leading Seaman slid down the ladder into the waist of the barge. The Lieutenant went from one to the other of the machine-gun crews at either end of the bridge and warned them. Their weapons were designed to ward off low-flying aircraft, and would be practically useless against the sub’s gun. The sun’s warmth could now be felt, and soon the fog would thin away. “That’ll be the pay-off,” thought McNeil, and resolved that while landing barges usually were known by numbers rather than by names, this one might well go down in history as “The Sitting Duck.” “Don’t know about history,” he added aloud, “but we might well go down.” THE IRONY of the situation struck him. For months as the junior officer in a Fairmile he had patrolled the Strait of Gibraltar hoping for a chance at a sub, and the nearest they had got was to let fly at a rock awash in the seas in the grey light of a dawn such as this. In consequence they had become the butt of their flotilla until a few weeks later when their flotilla leader made the same mistake himself with the same rock. Now, here he was with a sub within three hundred yards, and instead of commanding the M.T.B. or Fairmile that he had hoped for when he got his second stripe, instead of having a fighting ship to meet this opportunity, all he had under his feet was a glorified ferry-boat. The men were still lounging by their tanks, but their little motions and gestures of a moment ago had ceased. They were very still, very quiet. The Leading Seaman silently rejoined the Lieutenant on the bridge. He looked straight up into the sky above the ship, and then peered again towards the source of the steady humming. “Fog’s getting thinner, sir,” he said. “Whatever it is, it seems to be dead ahead.” McNeill resisted a light-headed temptation to say, “Wish it were dead, ahead,” and at that moment the Leading Seaman stiffened and pointed. Right over the ramp at the bows McNeil could make out a darker blur of fog. “Oh for a gun, a real gun,” he thought, and then swung towards the killick. “Lower the ramp,” he ordered, and threw himself down the ladder and made for the sergeant in charge of the forward tank, leaving the killick wondering if the Lieutenant had gone crazy. FOR MONTHS of the tank gunner's training he had been prepared to deal with various beach defences. Now as the ramp before him ponderously swayed outwards and sloped away to a level position he saw, framed in the gap, the silhouette of a submarine against the receding fog. “Gaw’ love me,” he muttered, spinning wheels efficiently, “join the Army and see the world." Figures rushed to the sub’s gun and it swung towards the landing barge. The tank gunner fired and as the barge shuddered at the shock there was a great splash close to the sub’s conning-tower. A shell from the sub screamed over the barge, carrying away the wireless mast. “Get his gun, blast you!” yelled McNeil in the general direction of the tank. He was back on the bridge and on either side of him the machine-guns were chattering ineffectually, for the sub’s gunners were protected by a gunshield. He afterwards thought that, though his words were inaudible in the surrounding bedlam, he had been rather rude to the tank gunner who, after all, was performing somewhat in the capacity of a guest artist. The tank’s second shell was over, but its third took the sub’s gun fair and square, and that was that. The figures on the sub's conning-tower disappeared and slowly her deck became awash — she was submerging. “Red, one-four-five, a ship, sir,” called the Leading Seaman. "Destroyer - one of the Hunt class, sir.” McNeil gave it a brief glance and then went on watching the disappearing conning tower. The sub had moved forward and was no longer ahead of the barge – the tank gunner could no longer see his target. IN A MATTER of seconds the destroyer plowed through the swirl left by the U-boat and let go a pattern of depth-charges. “That ought to fix 'em,” muttered the killick. Apparently the destroyer thought so too, for she paid no further attention to the sub but swung in a wide arc and steamed past fifty yards from the landing barge. MacNeil could see a figure in the wing of her bridge, and a megaphone pointed in his direction. “Quite a fighting ship you have there,” came the voice. “Good luck!” and the destroyer melted into the remnants of the fog, bent on her own urgent affairs. As an engine room artificer stepped up to MacNeil and said, “All set now, sir,” far to the southeast all hell broke loose. “The Sitting Duck” hauled up her ramp and set off towards it. The End Surprise Party Published in "The Standard" (date unknown, $20.00!) By Lewis Evans ILLUSTRATED BY ROY DYER HIS SUBMARINE idling at periscope depth in the cold waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Ober- leutnant Seidel watched the plume of smoke climb over the horizon. It was still too early to figure the ship’s course and manoeuvre into effective range, and far too early to identify the type of ship. “Well,” he thought to himself, “at least she is no Banks fishing schooner—not with that plume of smoke.” He still regretted the expenditure of his last but one torpedo on that fisherman two nights ago. She had been running under auxiliary power, and with her stump masts he had mistaken her size in the gathering darkness. An investigation of her wreckage with the sub's searchlight had revealed several broken-backed dories and a mess of cleaned and salted codfish, and his second in command had looked for a moment as though he wanted to laugh. Ah, well, the destroyed schooner didn’t look so badly in the sub's logbook as “motor-driven coastal cargo ship.” Oberleutnant took another long look at the approaching vessel. She was no destroyer, anyway—her slow speed and broad beam told him that. He made out derricks on her foremast—that ruled out a corvette. She was steaming almost at right angles to his bows, and would pass about two miles ahead of him. He decided to close in, and grated an order to his second. The order echoed from man to man in the steel hull, and the sub began to move. Five minutes passed, and then Seidel slipped off his stool. “What do you make of her?” he asked his second in command, motioning him towards the eyepiece. That officer peered for a minute. “Flushdecked,” he muttered, “A tanker, sir but . . .” He hesitated, still peering. “But what?” “Her engines are amidships, sir. Unusual for a tanker.” Seidel took up his position at the periscope again and had another look. Then he lowered the periscope below the surface, ordered half-speed, and turned a superior smile on his puzzled second. No wonder the fellow was puzzled, thought Seidel—the ship was unusual, all right, but he knew what she was. Just before the war he had been on a training cruise and had put in at Bergen, and there he had seen a vessel with a peculiar stern like that. “She’s a whale factory,” he said, and laughed at the expression on the other’s face. “The Norwegians had such ships before the war — South Atlantic, mostly. There is a great ramp in the stern, and they used to pull a whale’s carcass aboard whole and do all the work of a whaling station while keeping up with the trawlers that did the actual harpooning. Our friends must be very short of ships if they’re using that tub for cargo-carrying.” He took another sight at the ship. He could see her ensign flying from a gaff on her mainmast, but it was either too dirty or too distant for him to tell whether it was Norwegian or British. His thoughts went to the single torpedo in the forward tubes, and to the long trip home. Then he looked at the expressionless face of his second in command and made his decision. He didn't want it said that he had expended his last two torpedoes on a fishing schooner and a whale factory, of all things. “We’ll surface and attack by gunfire,” he said. Bells rang and the gun crew got ready for their dash to action stations. The sub lifted towards the surface. ABOARD the ex-Norwegian whale-factory Odda a lookout had reported a periscope off the starboard bow, distant the best part of a mile. Gongs had clanged for action stations, and the ship held her course. The R.C.N.V.R. lieutenant on her bridge was pleased. “Not forty miles from where the Coastal Patrol plane reported wreckage of that schooner yesterday,” he thought. He glanced astern over his strange command and saw the men who handled the smoke-pots at their stations right aft. He could not see the old whale-ramp because of the superstructure amidships, but he could imagine the scene there . . . the fifty foot motor-launch in her sliding crib, her bow towards the Odda’s stern, her high-powered, specially cooled engines warmed and idling, her crew tense and watching the great steel flap which cut off the after end of the ramp from the sea, the rows of depth charges on the launch’s after deck. “Sub on starboard beam!" Two lookouts dead-heated on the shout. There she was, white water pouring from her decks, about half a mile off. As her gun crew swarmed on deck a machine-gun from the Odda started an intermittent chattering, and a gun crew staged a well-rehearsed rush for their antiquated weapon mounted on a bridge-like structure over the ramp astern. When their first shot eventually got away it raised a spout of foam just where they wanted it—three hundred yards wide of the sub and a little short. The first shell from the sub screamed over the Odda’s bows. The second hulled her forward, at the waterline. The lieutenant on the bridge thought of the watertight bulkheads and the whale-oil tanks now crammed with buoyant lumber, and grinned. His quartermaster, according to plan, swung the ship towards the sub to close the distance, and the sub altered course to port to evade any ramming action by the Odda . Another shell from the sub crossed the Odda’s bows and a fourth burst on the superstructure abaft her funnel. The whale-factory’s machine-gun fell silent, but it had not been hit. The smoke-pots astern burst into acrid life and their contents billowed over and around the Odda’s stern. The lieutenant snapped an order and a clang from far astern told him that the great flap had been lifted, and he could imagine the released crib sliding smoothly aft with its load. "Surprise, surprise!” he murmured happily to nobody in particular. The motor-launch’s heavily guarded screws were already turning as she took the water, and then she was out of the smoke and roaring for the sub, a heavy machine-gun on her bow searching for the gun crew, and echoed by renewed fire from the Odda’s guns. OBERLEUTNANT SEIDEL knew all about the “Q-ships” of the last war. He was not to be fooled by them, but this was different. He took one more amazed look at the grey shape bouncing towards him, ordered a crash dive, and threw himself down the conning-tower hatch. His gun crew, less three men who had been hit, scuttled for safety. As the sea foamed over the submerging U-boat the launch roared past parallel to her, not twenty feet away, and two ash-cans set for eight fathoms plopped into her seething wake. The Oberleutnant’s thoughts at this moment, freely translated into English, would have been “Let’s get to hell out of here,” which is precisely where he got. The End Down To Heaven (Published in “The Standard” Montreal, September 27, 1941, $12.50!) By L. EVANS He dropped to Earth and thought he was in heaven HIS packed parachute bumped clumsily against the back of his thighs as he crossed the dark field towards the sound of the idling motors. He tried to make himself believe that this was just another practice, that he was still in training, but the horrible emptiness in his middle gave him the lie. He was scared, and he was thankful that the darkness hid his face. He and his companions groped their way into the big transport and sat down. A dim light forward showed them the pilot and navigator, their heads bent over a map. Helmut stared at them fixedly, hoping that concentration of his mind would prevent him from being sick — sick with fear. Their job was simple, he thought. They just had to fly high to certain points, dump their living cargo, and fly home. Compared with his job theirs seemed easy, safe, comfortable. IT was the unknown that frightened a man thought Helmut. The plane crew knew what to expect in the way of danger - attack by fighter planes, anti-aircraft fire, or forced landing on land or sea. But he - Helmut - how could he know what was in store for him? Death, probably; death or capture certainly. But how? Before or after he had done his job on the power plant? How? A sentry’s rifle? A night watchman’s baton? A farmer’s pitchfork? Helmut shuddered and closed his eyes. The plane took off, climbed gradually, and steadied on its course. There’s the difference, thought Helmut suddenly. The plane crew’s brightest hope is return, and my brightest hope is capture. The very best I can expect is capture and internment. A fine thing my life is, when prison seems like heaven! The plane droned on through the black night, flying very high and very steadily. The parachutists began fidgeting with their equipment. They’re scared too, thought Helmut, but the younger ones, anyway, are partly afraid of failing in their task. They know only this stern life, and they are efficient. So am I, or I wouldn’t be here, but I am older. I can remember another way of life. The navigator made a signal, and two men moved towards the door. Another signal, and they were gone. The plane altered course, and in a few moments the navigator’s gloved hand reappeared. Two more men dived into darkness. MY objective is the third we come to thought Helmut, and the waiting is over. I am not afraid of the jump - I know all about that part of the job. I fear only the unknown future. The glove moved and Helmut flung himself into the blackness and cold. The opening ’chute jerked him savagely, and gradually his dizzy swinging slowed down. As he drifted downwards he tried to figure the direction and force of the wind, if any. That was the first thing - to fix his own position, and then to find the power plant. The little fear he felt about landing was lost in the great fear of the unknown future, and he felt little relief when he dropped on open ground, though it might have been a wood or a power line. His, efficient training showed as he quickly got rid of his parachute. He did not have to think - his hands busied themselves and the complicated tangle of ropes and material was stowed under a stunted bush. Luminous compass in hand, Helmut crouched, listening. The silence terrified him. He felt the whole hostile countryside of England round him, deadly still, but ready at any moment to extinguish this lone enemy by some unknown unpredictable action. Helmut forced himself to read the compass, putting it on the ground and getting as far from it as sight permitted, so that the metal in his equipment would not affect the needle. He was supposed to have been dropped two miles south of his objective; so he started to move northwards. If he did not find it in the first half hour he would start circling east and west. He crept on across the field, surprised that it took him so long to reach its boundary. He expected a hedge - England was covered with hedges, they said. HE encountered no hedge - he came to wire. A fine seven foot barbed wire fence, and on each side a barbed wire apron, arranged with ingenuity. Helmut stared at it in amazement. According to his instructions the power plant was the only important point in the district, and therefore the only one likely to be so protected. Could he have hit upon it already? He could cut his way through the fence, but those aprons would take time. He decided to move along the fence to the west, and perhaps he would find a spot where the aprons were less formidable. A hundred and fifty yards to the west he stopped. The fence made a right-angle turn - to the south. Helmut was inside the angle. His training made him turn east, retrace his steps, and he moved faster than before, with less regard for stealth. Two hundred yards or so, and another angle - turning south. His stomach cold as ice, Helmut threw one look over his shoulder and started cutting the wire. Whether he was inside the defenses of the plant or not he would need some means of exit. He would make a passage through the wire, and then find out what lay to the south. He cut rapidly and the apron gradually yielded a passage. Suddenly he paused. Someone was coming - a sentry? A flashlight flicked on and off. Helmut’s training sent his hand towards his gun. A cut end of wire scraped on the shears in his left hand. The flashlight’s beam cut the darkness, wavered, and then fixed on him. Helmut froze. A safety catch clicked. So this was the unknown. “Don’t move,” commanded the advancing voice. Then - “Wot the ’ell! It’s a ruddy parashooter! Come out of that, Jerry, you’re home. You’ve landed inside an internment camp." The End NEXT PAGE
- Scott, Frances Grace
Owner of Spruce Cliff Cottage, Grace was a churchwoman and teacher, and a long-time president of the Tadoussac Chapel Scott, Frances Grace Owner of Spruce Cliff Cottage, Grace was a churchwoman and teacher, and a long-time president of the Tadoussac Chapel Back to ALL Bios Francis Grace Scott 1904 - 1993 Francis Grace Scott was born in 1904, in Quebec City. She lived there until the age of eight when her family moved to Kenmore, New York. She was the daughter of Mabel Emily Russell and Charles Cunningham Scott. Grace taught English at Kenmore West High School for almost forty years. Kenmore was a suburb of Buffalo. Never having married, she lived in the same house for her whole life, looking after her parents. Grace had a commanding presence and was strict and disciplined. Her niece, Susie recalls summers in Tadoussac were quite structured and very social. Grace loved to know what was going on in the village and the door was always open for people to come and visit. For many years she was the President of the Tadoussac Protestant Chapel. One of her lasting legacies is taking her niece, Susie, to church every Saturday morning to practice the hymns for church on Sunday. Grace also had high ideals and morals reflecting the times she grew up in. She was an avid reader and always liked to discuss what people had just read, current events and American politics! She was a devoted lover of dogs, and had several black cocker spaniels. She loved to sit on the back porch with a dog on her lap, looking at the view. Grace loved Tadoussac, and couldn't wait to get there every summer. She inherited Spruce Cliff from her mother Mabel Emily Russell Scott. When summering in Tadoussac, Helen Price, Lily Bell Rhodes, and Adele Languedoc would often stay with her at Spruce Cliff. Her niece, Susie (Scott) Bruemmer also spent many summers staying with her and eventually inherited the cottage. Grace died at the age of eighty-eight in 1993 in Kenmore, N.Y. And is buried in Mount Hermon Cemetery in Quebec City with her parents. Brian Dewart Susie Bruemmer Photos below Mrs Christine Scott, Nonie and Elizabeth O'Neill, Grace Scott Susie Scott (Bruemmer), Aidan O'Neill, Bobby Scott, Katherine and Patrick O'Neill Adele Languedoc, Grace Scott, Elizabeth Stevenson (O'Neill), Phyllis Humphrys, Russell Scott, Shirley?, Margaret Stevenson (Reilley) Back to ALL Bios
- Smith, Arthur Carington
"Uncle Art" was a legendary character and sailor Smith, Arthur Carington "Uncle Art" was a legendary character and sailor Back to ALL Bios Arthur Carington Smith 1875-1952 Arthur was born in Quebec City in 1875, the sixth son of Robert Herbert Smith and Amelia Jane LeMesurier. His older brothers were Robert, Herbert, Charles, George and Edmund. He also had two sisters, Edith and Blanche. He attended the Royal Military College in Kingston. He married Constance Naomi Hamilton also of Quebec City. They had one son, Hugh Hamilton Smith 1909 - 1974. Arthur played hockey for the Quebec Bulldogs and was a prolific goal scorer. He was influential in the introduction of netting between the goal posts to ensure the confirmation of goals scored! He served overseas in the first World War with the Royal Rifles. Arthur was a banker but ended up his career as a stock broker for Greenshields in Quebec City. As with all the Smith boys, his true love was Tadoussac and his boat the Empress of Tadoussac. He was the favourite uncle to a large number of Smith and Price offspring. To be invited to sail with Uncle Art was the highlight of the summer. The stories of adventures on the Empress are legends. Eve Wickwire Photos Jack and Doris Molson with Arthur Smith The Empresses of Tadoussac I and II Arthur Smith with Nancy?, Trevor Evans, Phoebe Evans (Skutezky), R Lewis Evans, and in front, Ainslie Evans (Stephen) ~1930's Back to ALL Bios
- Morewood, Frank & Carrie (Rhodes)
Frank Morewood was an architect and designed several cottages in Tadoussac including his own, Windward. Morewood, Frank & Carrie (Rhodes) Frank Morewood was an architect and designed several cottages in Tadoussac including his own, Windward. Back to ALL Bios Caroline Annie (Rhodes) 1881 – 1973 & Francis Edmund Morewood 1886 - 1949 Carrie was born in 1881, to William Rhodes and Caroline Annie Hibler in Adelaide, Australia. William was superintendent of railway systems and was presumably in Australia to assist in building their railway. Carrie’s first visit to Tadoussac was in the summer of 1882. When in Tadoussac the family stayed at the original Rhodes cottage that was on the same site as today’s Brynhyfryd. In 1885 - 86 Carrie and her mother again visited Australia. A brother Godfrey was born in 1890 and died in 1892. The family lived in Philadelphia, but spent much of their time at Benmore in Quebec City, especially when William was travelling. William’s sister, Minnie, married Harry Morewood. The family lived in New York but spent a great deal of time at Benmore and Tadoussac – important because one of their sons, Frank, born 1886, would eventually marry Carrie in 1919 or 1920. Carrie was thirty-eight when she married, Frank about thirty-five, and they had two children, Bill and Betty. Nothing is known about Carrie’s schooling, but Frank went to Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville at age fourteen. It is believed that Frank was an architect and he designed several houses in Tadoussac: Windward, the Turcot house, and the new Brynhyfryd. He also did a great deal of design work for the chapel, having the steps and the back door added to the building in cement, as well as the rose window on the street side. Frank was said to have had polio; Betty, his daughter, told stories of how he had to manually lift his left leg to step on the brake while driving, which made for a terrifying trip from Quebec City to Tadoussac on the old, narrow, and hilly roads. Frank was an artist and many of his watercolours are hanging in houses in Tadoussac. He died in 1949, having met just one of his grandchildren, Anne, whose only memory of him is having him paint her face like a bunny. After Frank’s death, Carrie lived with their son Bill and his family outside Philadephia. She travelled often to Lennoxville and Tadoussac to spend time with Betty and her family. Carrie was active in the church in Pennsylvania. She was a quiet, gentle woman who did not interfere with the upbringing of her grandchildren but had a big influence on all of them. She was a very positive role model. Granddaughter Anne remembers her catching her doing something she was forbidden to do in Tadoussac, and telling her she would not tell her parents if she promised never to do it again. Somehow when Granny gave a reason why it was dangerous it made sense, so Anne did not do it again. As an old lady Carrie (Granny) had some sort of palsy so she typed everything. When Anne was first married, Granny wrote to her every week and Anne wrote back every Friday while sitting at the laundromat. When Anne and Ian bought their first house, she gave them a washer and dryer! Uncle Bill told Anne that Granny fussed terribly if her note did not arrive on Wednesday. She had a series of heart attacks in her last few years and died in 1973. At that time, she had met her first great-grandchild and knew the second was on the way and would be named Carrie, after her. And today, Carrie (Belton) Mintz and her older brother Ian Belton love to come and stay in their great-grandparents' cottage with their own families. Anne Belton Back to ALL Bios
- Languedoc, Adele
Adele had a very successful career as a librarian that led her to the National Archives of Canada Languedoc, Adele Adele had a very successful career as a librarian that led her to the National Archives of Canada Back to ALL Bios Adele de Guerry Languedoc March 1904 – December 1993 On Sunday, August 5th, 2007, the congregation of the Tadoussac Protestant Chapel laid a headstone in memory of Adele de Guerry Languedoc on the chapel grounds. Adele was born in Tadoussac in the early 1900s and summered here with her family throughout her life. Adele’s stepmother, Erie Russell Janes Languedoc, was the granddaughter of Willis Russell who, along with Colonel Rhodes, were among the first to build summer cottages at Tadoussac in the 1860s. Erie purchased the lands that later became known as Languedoc Park after she married the widower, George de Guerry Languedoc. The four original cottages in Languedoc Park were Erie's cottage and the cottages of the three Stevenson sisters who were great-granddaughters of Willis Russell. At the time of her death, she was remembered by the National Archives of Canada for her distinguished career as a librarian. Her career began with her undergraduate degree at McGill University including a library diploma and she received a Bachelor of Library Service from Columbia University in 1946. Adele served for five years with the American Relief for France during the Second World War and her efforts helped to restore the regional libraries that had been so damaged during the war. She also set up the first children’s library that existed outside Paris. On her return to Canada, she was hired as an ‘Accessions Librarian’ at the Canadian Bibliographic Centre which was later named the Library and Archives of Canada. She helped to build our now-famous collection of Canadian literature and documents. She was named Assistant National Librarian in 1964. Through her work in Ottawa, she was asked to represent Canada as a member of the UNESCO seminar on libraries and served as a consultant in Africa. The National Library News wrote of her at the time of her death “To all her work, she brought a broad, deep knowledge and experience of Canada’s French and English tradition.” Adele is remembered by her friends in Tadoussac as a friendly, smiling member of the community sitting on her porch at her cottage in Languedoc Park. Few realized what important work she had done at the National and International levels. She was a neighbour and a friend. Adele was born in Tadoussac in the early 1900s and summered here with her family throughout her life. Adele’s step-mother, Erie Russell Janes Languedoc, was the granddaughter of Willis Russell who, along with Colonel Rhodes, were among the first to build summer cottages at Tadoussac in the 1860s. Erie purchased the lands that later became known as Languedoc Park after she married the widower, George de Guerry Languedoc. The four original cottages in Languedoc Park were Erie's cottage and the cottages of the three Stevenson sisters who were great granddaughters of Willis Russell. At the time of her death, she was remembered by the National Archives of Canada for her distinguished career as a librarian. Her career began with her undergraduate degree at McGill University including a library diploma and she received a Bachelor of Library Service from Columbia University in 1946. Adele served for five years with the American Relief for France during the Second World War and her efforts helped to restore the regional libraries that had been so damaged during the war. She also set up the first children’s library that existed outside Paris. On her return to Canada she was hired as ‘accessions librarian’ at the Canadian Bibliographic Centre which was later named the Library and Archives of Canada. She helped to build our now famous collection of Canadian literature and documents. She was named Assistant National Librarian in 1964. Through her work in Ottawa she was asked to represent Canada as a member of the UNESCO seminar on libraries and served as a consultant in Africa. The National Library News wrote of her at the time of her death “To all her work, she brought a broad, deep knowledge and experience of Canada’s French and English tradition." She is remembered by her friends in Tadoussac as a friendly, smiling member of the community sitting on her porch at her cottage in Languedoc Park. Few realised what important work she had done at the National and International level. She was a neighbour and a friend. Back to ALL Bios







