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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

Captain Dallaire rebuilds a St Lawrence Yawl when he's in his 80's Captain Dallaire's Boat Bateau du Capitaine Dallaire One More Boat It may not seem like it now, but there was a time when Tadoussac rang with the sounds of saws and caulking mallets. The scent of freshly planed cedar and spruce, pine and oak would have been in the air constantly. From the time of Champlain forward, boats were being built and repaired, most often in and around today's cale-seche, long before there were gates to keep the water out. Captain Edgar Dallaire, a man who had worked the river for years as a schooner captain, did more than his share of repairs to the goelèttes that wintered here. In 1950 my father who had recently purchased the St. Lawrence Yawl Bonne Chance, got to know "le vieux Edgar" as he was known. The old man helped repair my father's boat, splicing the stiff wire rigging until his fingers bled, and educating her new owner on how she should be handled. The old captain must have loved her, because 9 years later, at the age of 80, he found a derelict hull of the same type and towed her, half under water, to Tadoussac for a rebuild. He brought her ashore in the corner of the bay where the zodiac docks are now, but up near the road, chocked up above the high tide line, right where Champlain used to leave his pinnaces in the winter when he sailed back to France. Not having money for lumber he would take his flat bottomed skiff and unreliable outboard up the Saguenay to cut cedar trees whose trunks were bent to the northwest wind, the perfect shape for the boat's new ribs. Another promontory would provide gnarled birch trees that would form deck beams and the vital cross members the hull needed. Larger pines were towed back to Tadoussac, taken to a sawmill, and cut into planks. These he bent into shape using a system of chains and wedges while a driftwood fire kept seawater boiling, which was sloshed on the planks with a mop as they took the shape of the boat. There was no electricity at the site - all hand tools and low-tech methods - primitive perhaps, but effective. My father was fascinated by this process and I remember as a small child often standing there, understanding nothing, as he asked the Captain about the work and tried to learn as much as he could. There was never a plan, a blueprint, paper of any kind - just the Captain's knowledge of the shape the hull should take from his long experience with the type. This boat was the last traditional rebuild to take place in Tadoussac. As Captain Dallaire grew older, his vision became weaker, and he would be seen carving out the parts of the boat as much by feel as by sight, rubbing a plank with his work-hardened hands feeling for imperfections as he worked. It was 7 years before she was finished. My father overheard someone ask him what he would do with her. "Are you going to sell her?" he was asked. Captain Dallaire, then aged 87, smiled with a twinkle in his failing but clear blue eyes. "I'm in no hurry," he said. "I have lots of time." Text by Alan Evans, condensed from "Tides of Tadoussac" by Lewis Evans 1950 Captain Dallaire probably talking about boats with his friends. The boat later was bought by Lewis Evans and renamed the "Bonne Chance" 1950 le capitaine Dallaire parle probablement de bateaux avec ses amis. Le bateau plus tard a été acheté par Lewis Evans et a renommé le "Bonne Chance" One More Boat Il se peut qu'il contienne quelques imprécisions par rapport à l'original. Nous espérons néanmoins que cela vous aidera dans vos recherches. Original en anglais Language Weaver Notez cette traduction: Merci pour votre évaluation! L'odeur du cèdre fraîchement plané et de l'épinette, du pin et du chêne aurait été dans l'air constamment. Depuis l'époque de Champlain en avant, des bateaux ont été construits et réparés, le plus souvent dans le cale-seche d'aujourd'hui, longtemps avant qu'il y ait des portes pour garder l'eau hors. Le capitaine Edgar Dallaire, un homme qui avait travaillé la rivière depuis des années en tant que capitaine de la goélette, a fait plus que sa part de réparations aux goélécres qui hivernent ici. En 1950, mon père, qui avait récemment acheté le St. Lawrence Yawl Bonne Chance, connut le «vieux vieux» comme il était connu. Le vieil homme a aidé à réparer le bateau de mon père, en épandant le fil rigide jusqu'à ce que ses doigts saignent et éduquent son nouveau propriétaire sur la façon dont elle doit être manipulée. L'ancien capitaine l'a aimée, car, 9 ans plus tard, à l'âge de 80 ans, il a trouvé une coque abandonnée du même type et l'a remorquée, à moitié sous l'eau, à Tadoussac pour une reconstruction. Il l'a amenée à terre au coin de la baie, où les ponts du zodiaque sont maintenant, mais près de la route, chassés au-dessus de la ligne de la marée haute, où Champlain a laissé ses pinnaux en hiver lorsqu'il a navigué en France. N'ayant pas d'argent pour le bois, il prendrait son skiff à fond plat et sa fuite peu rigide sur le Saguenay pour couper des cèdres dont les troncs étaient pliés au vent du nord-ouest, la forme parfaite pour les nouvelles côtes du bateau. Un autre promontoire fournirait des bouleaux noueux qui formeraient des poutres de pont et les traversées vitales nécessaires à la coque. Des pins plus grands ont été renvoyés à Tadoussac, emmenés dans une scierie et coupés en planches. Il s'est penché en forme à l'aide d'un système de chaînes et de cales, tandis qu'un feu de bois flotté maintenait l'ébullition de l'eau de mer, qui était glissée sur les planches avec une vadrouille alors qu'elles prenaient la forme du bateau. Il n'y avait pas d'électricité sur le site - tous les outils à main et les méthodes de faible technologie - primitifs peut-être, mais efficaces. Mon père a été fasciné par ce processus et je me souviens comme un petit enfant souvent debout là-bas, ne comprenant rien, alors qu'il demandait au capitaine le travail et essayait d'apprendre autant qu'il le pouvait. Il n'y avait jamais de plan, d'un plan, de tout type, juste la connaissance du Capitaine de la forme que la coque devrait prendre de sa longue expérience avec le type. Ce bateau a été la dernière reconstruction traditionnelle à Tadoussac. Au fur et à mesure que le capitaine Dallaire devenait plus âgé, sa vision devenait plus faible, et on voyait qu'il enlevait les parties du bateau autant par la sensation que par la vue, en frottant une planche avec ses mains endurcis pour se sentir imperfectantes pendant qu'il travaillait. Il était 7 ans avant qu'elle ait fini. Mon père a entendu quelqu'un lui demander ce qu'il ferait avec elle. "Tu vas la vendre?" On lui a demandé. Le capitaine Dallaire, âgé de 87 ans, a souri avec un scintillement dans ses yeux bleus, mais ses yeux bleus clairs. "Je ne suis pas pressé", at-il dit. "J'ai beaucoup de temps." Texte de Alan Evans, condensé de "Tides of Tadoussac" par Lewis Evans "Ste. Croix" ~1964 Captain Dallaire and Lewis Evans discuss the progress ~1964 Le capitaine Dallaire et Lewis Evans discutent de l'avancement Alan Evans! My father Lewis Evans set this picture up, bringing his own yawl the "Bonne Chance" into shallow water at high tide so that he could get both yawls in the picture. Mon père Lewis Evans a préparé cette photo, ce qui porte sa propre yole la « Bonne Chance » en eau peu profonde à marée haute pour qu'il puisse obtenir les deux yoles dans l'image. Captains of Tadoussac Capitaines de Tadoussac by Gaby Villeneuve 37

Tadoussac Historical Photos of the Hudson's Bay Station in the mid 1800's. Hudson's Bay Station, Tadoussac Looking at many old photos I realized there were many of the Hudson's Bay Station at Tadoussac. En regardant de nombreuses vieilles photos j'ai réalisé qu'il y avait plusieurs de la station de la Baie d'Hudson à Tadoussac. Chief Factor Barnston and R.M. Ballantyne at Tadoussac, 1846 Winter was the favoured season for staff movements. This painting (by Charles Fraser COMFORT 1941) depicts three traders arriving at the Hudson's Bay Company trading post of Tadoussac, their new assignment. The central figure is Chief Factor George Barnston. R.M. Ballantyne is the figure on the left carrying the copper kettle and green blanket. Chef Factor Barnston et R.M. Ballantyne à Tadoussac 1846 Winter était la saison préférée pour les mouvements de personnel. Cette peinture (par Charles Fraser COMFORT 1941) dépeint trois commerçants arrivant à traite de la Compagnie de la Baie d' Hudson poste de Tadoussac , leur nouvelle affectation . La figure centrale est le facteur le chef George Barnston . R.M. Ballantyne est la figure de gauche portant la bouilloire de cuivre et couverture verte . These two remarkably similar images show Tadoussac in the early 1800's, when the Hudson's Bay Post stood alone on the bay. Ces deux images similaires montrent Tadoussac dans le début des années 1800, quand la Hudson's Bay Post était seul sur la baie. 1858 ~1868 And then it's gone! Dufferin House is not yet built in this photo, so the Hudson's Bay Station was demolished around 1870. Et puis il a disparu! Maison Dufferin n'est pas encore construit dans cette photo , la station de la Baie d'Hudson a été démolie vers 1870 . (From Hudson's Bay Archives) Tadoussac was a trading post and fishery. It was also the headquarters for the King's Posts 1821-1822, 1831-1851. It was operated by the Hudson's Bay Company during the trading season 1821-1822 and was again acquired by HBC in 1831. Tadoussac had been a trading post since it was founded by Francois Grave Sieur du Pont in 1600. In 1720 it was named as one of the King's Posts. Tadoussac was the headquarters of the King's Posts until the end of the outfit 1849. In 1851 Governor George Simpson noted that due to a decline in the fur trade, it was only necessary to maintain Tadoussac as a fishing post for the summer months. The vessels that had usually wintered at Tadoussac did so now at Quebec, where the marine stores for the district were kept. On April 4, 1859, Chief Factor Hector McKenzie wrote to Benjamin Scott, who was in charge of Tadoussac, and informed him that the HBC did not intend carrying on the salmon fisheries any longer. Early the same year the fishing material was sold to Henry Simard and he also acquired the salmon fisheries at Tadoussac, the use of the ice house, and store during the fishing season. ( De Archives de Hudson Bay) Tadoussac était un poste de traite et de la pêche . Il était également le siège des Postes du Roi 1821-1822 , 1831-1851 . Il a été opéré par la Compagnie de la Baie d' Hudson au cours de la campagne de commercialisation 1821-1822 et a de nouveau été acquis par HBC en 1831 . Tadoussac était un poste de traite , car il a été fondé par François Gravé Sieur du Pont en 1600 . En 1720, il a été nommé comme l'un des Postes du Roi . Tadoussac était le quartier général des Postes du Roi jusqu'à la fin de tenue de 1849 . En 1851, le gouverneur George Simpson a noté qu'en raison d'une baisse dans le commerce de la fourrure , il était seulement nécessaire de maintenir Tadoussac comme un poste de pêche pour les mois d'été. Les navires qui avaient généralement l'hiver à Tadoussac fait maintenant au Québec , où les magasins marines pour le quartier ont été conservés. Le 4 Avril 1859, l'agent principal Hector McKenzie a écrit à Benjamin Scott, qui était en charge de Tadoussac, et l'a informé que le HBC n'a pas l'intention portant sur la pêche du saumon tout plus longue. Au début de la même année le matériel de pêche a été vendue à Henry Simard et il a également acquis la pêche du saumon à Tadoussac , l'utilisation de la maison de glace, et de stocker pendant la saison de pêche . 14

Été à Tadoussac Summer 1920-1940 Page 5 of 7 PREVIOUS NEXT PAGE Saguenay Trips Des excursions sur le Saguenay 1927 Picnic at Petites Isles Lennox Williams and friends Jack Wallace Sr 1934 Trip to the Capes ?, Jean Alexander (Aylan-Parker), ?, Ainslie Evans (Stephen) & Trevor Evans, Back Jack Wallace and Frank Morewood Bill & Betty Morewood (Evans) Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) at right Trevor, Jack, Betty, Ainslie, Frank My mother Age 12 in 1934>> At the wharf in Tadoussac Au Quai de Tadoussac Bill and Betty Morewood, Jack Wallace 1935 Trip to... Islet Rouge!? Susie Russell Ainslie Evans (Stephen) Betty Morewood (Evans) Frances Holland Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) and others My parents in 1935 Lewis Evans age 24 Betty Morewood age 13 They married in 1944! 1935 Above Lennox Williams Below Frank Morewood and Captain Donat Therrien 1935 Uncle Art taking the girls for a trip Left Peg, Mac? Gertrude (Williams) Alexander Ron Alexander Sr Jean Alexander (Aylan-Parker) Below WOW The Mountain above Petits Isles Sur la Montagne à Petits Isles 1936 Lewis Evans with all the girls, and below, sculling 1938 Ainslie Evans (Stephen) Betty Morewood (Evans) ?? LilyBell Rhodes Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) Jean Alexander (Aylan-Parker) 1939 Lewis Evans and the "Noroua" 1940 The "White Boat" with no life jackets! pas de gilets de sauvetage! Harry Morewood Jimmy Williams Simon Wallace (no relation) Joan Williams (Ballantyne) Frank Morewood Susan Williams (Webster) Jennifer and Delia Tudor-Hart Bobby Morewood PREVIOUS NEXT PAGE

Tadoussac Historical Photos and Stories - Buildings Disappeared - Batiments Disparu Bâtiments qui ont disparu Buildings that have disappeared La PISCINE D'EAU SALÉE a été construite en même temps que le nouvel Hôtel Tadoussac, en 1942. De nombreuses personnes se souviennent de s'être baignées dans la piscine étant enfants. La photo est probablement une photo de tourisme de CSL. La piscine a été remplacée par la piscine actuelle devant l'hôtel, vers 1958. La charpente en ciment est toujours là, comblée et utilisée pour les tables de pique-nique et la biblio-plage de Tadoussac. The SALT WATER POOL was built at the same time as the new Hotel Tadoussac, in 1942. Numerous people remember swimming in the pool as children. The photo is probably a CSL tourism photo. The pool was replaced by the present pool in front of the hotel, around 1958. The cement frame is still there, filled in and used for picnic tables and the Tadoussac Beach Library. from a Williams photo album 1950's There's a video! on Youtube/ReelLife (Sorry ads...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmRgMGTP2FQ look at 3:35 1.5 minutes Il y a une vidéo ! sur Youtube/ReelLife (Désolé annonces...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmRgMGTP2FQ regardez à 3:35 1,5 minutes Vers les années 1940, la piscine semble en construction Circa 1940's the pool look like it is under construction Plus tard, des huttes de changement ont été ajoutées Later, change huts have been added Comments (Facebook) Finally, I am happy to see this swimming pool, in operation! Magnificent ! I had never seen this mythic swimming pool My brothers and I loved that pool By 1958 we were signed up to use the present pool I remember when it was empty with a lot of broken glass, 1960? That is where I learned to swim ... maybe one of those little kids? I remember this pool but thought I imagined it. We had a nice thing in Tadoussac Ho! The site of the biblio-plage! Definitely a spot predestined for projects that are out of the ordinary! Wow beautiful this pool and also I see the cruise ships arriving at the dock beautiful memory My parents met there - so the story goes ... at the pool? Yes. At the pool. Dad playfully tossed her bathing cap into the bay. A study had been carried out to assess the feasibility of bringing it back into office but the structure would have needed too many repairs. It should come back, it is great a little idea for the new mayor We should create a new one. Seawater and heated, it would be an attraction for Tadoussac If we managed to operate a seawater swimming pool in 1950, 71 years later what is stopping us from taking up the challenge? Thank you for this photo, for a long time I have imagined this saltwater pool ... I see it finally! We were born in the wrong era Commentaires (Facebook) Enfin, je suis content de voir cette piscine, en fonction ! Magnifique ! Je n'avais jamais vu cette piscine mythique Mes frères et moi avons adoré cette piscine En 1958, nous nous sommes inscrits pour utiliser la piscine actuelle Je me souviens quand c'était vide avec de verre brisé, 1960 ? C'est là que j'ai appris à nager... peut-être un de ces petits gamins?? Je me rappelle de cette piscine mais je pensais que j'avais imaginé. On s'est bien amusé à Tadoussac Ho ! Le site de la biblio-plage! Décidément un spot pré-destiné aux projets qui sortent de l'ordinaire ! Wow magnifique cette piscine et aussi je vois le bateaux de croisière qui arrivent au quai beau souvenir Mes parents se sont rencontrés là-bas, donc l'histoire se passe... à la piscine ? Oui. À la piscine. Papa a joyeusement jeté son bonnet de bain dans la baie. Une étude avait été menée pour évaluer la faisabilité de sa remise en fonction mais la structure aurait nécessité trop de réparations. Ça devrait revenir comme ça c'était super une petite idée pour le nouveau maire On devrait en creer une nouvelle. À l’eau de mer et chauffée, elle serait toute une attraction pour Tadoussac Si on a réussi à exploiter une piscine à l'eau de mer en 1950, 71 ans plus tard qu'est-ce qui nous empêche de relever le défi? Merci pour cette photo, depuis le temps que j'imagine cette piscine d'eau salée... Je la vois enfin! On est nées dans la mauvaise ère Left and above, 1950-1960, below 2022 4-5' more sand on the beach!! 4-5' de sable en plus sur la plage !! RESTAURANT de GOLFE Circa 1940 & 50's Un ancien restaurant de Tadoussac à côté du quai dirigé par Johnny Audet. Ses filles ont épousé Simard, Deschênes, Harvey, Gagné, il a également eu un fils Joseph dont la femme travaillait également au restaurant. C'était autrefois notre spot de billard préféré. Ce restaurant auquel j'ai beaucoup fréquenté dans les années 1950 était très occupé par les équipages des lignes de Canadian Steamship et nos armateurs. (Paulin Hovington) GULF RESTAURANT Circa 1940's & 50's An early Tadoussac restaurant beside the wharf run by Johnny Audet. His daughters married Simard, Deschenes, Harvey, Gagné, he also had a son Joseph whose the wife also worked at the restaurant. Used to be our favorite pool spot. This restaurant I attended a lot in the 1950's was very busy with the Canadian Steamship lines crews and our shipmen.. (Paulin Hovington) Il y avait aussi une cabane de pêcheur autour du coin sur le point où nous avons acheté du saumon! La dalle de ciment est toujours là. There was also a fisherman's hut around the corner on the point where we bought salmon! The cement slab is still there. HOTEL TADOUSSAC The largest building to have disappeared in Tadoussac is the Hotel Tadoussac! It was originally built in 1864. It was lengthened and then towers were added in about 1900. It was demolished in about 1942 to make way for the present Hotel Tadoussac. Le plus grand bâtiment à avoir disparu à Tadoussac est l'Hôtel Tadoussac! Il a été construit en 1864. Il a été rallongé, puis des tours ont été ajoutées vers 1900. Il a été démoli vers 1942 pour faire place à l’hôtel Tadoussac. Original Hotel original 1864-1900 Expanded Hotel élargie 1900-1942 Hotel Demolition 1942 THE HYDROELECTRIC POWER STATION The rebuilding of the hotel in 1942 likely provided an impetus for the town to build its hydro station. By then many Québec towns and villages smaller than Tadoussac and beyond the grids of the major power companies had electricity, so no doubt local residents would have been agitating for power for some years. The HydroElectric Power Station at Moulin a Baude, with water coming down a large pipe from the dam on the Baude River. Built in the early 1940's, it was enlarged to accommodate a second turbine and generator in 1954. The original station had one generator of about 200 kilowatts. A 450-kilowatt unit was added as demand for power grew. (Thanks to Gary Long, retired geographer in Sault Ste. Marie, studies the history of early hydroelectric development in Canada) Paulin Hovington: My grandpa Noel Brisson developed this electrical power and built the stone house at that time. LA CENTRALE HYDROELECTRIQUE La reconstruction de l'hôtel en 1942 a probablement incité la ville à construire sa centrale hydroélectrique. À l’époque, beaucoup de villes et de villages québécois plus petits que Tadoussac et au-delà des réseaux des grandes entreprises d’électricité disposaient de l’électricité. Les habitants de la région auraient sans doute agité depuis quelques années. La centrale hydroélectrique de Moulin a Baude, avec de l’eau descendant par un grand tuyau du barrage sur la rivière Baude. Construite au début des années 1940, elle a été agrandie pour accueillir une deuxième turbine et un groupe électrogène en 1954. La centrale originale avait un groupe électrogène d'environ 200 kilowatts. Une unité de 450 kilowatts a été ajoutée à la demande croissante d’électricité. (Merci à Gary Long, géographe à la retraite à Sault Ste. Marie, étudie l'histoire des premiers aménagements hydroélectriques au Canada) Paulin Hovington: Mon grand-papa Noel Brisson a déveloper ce pouvoir électrique et a construit la maison de pierres à cette occasion. A pipeline approximately 225 metres long ran from the dam to the powerhouse. The head of water on the turbines was 50.3 metres (165 feet). The Québec government nationalized electricity in 1963, and by 1966, Hydro-Québec had apparently closed the Moulin-a-Baude hydro station. Un pipeline d'environ 225 mètres de long reliait le barrage à la centrale. La tête d’eau des turbines était de 50,3 mètres (165 pieds). Le gouvernement du Québec nationalisa l'électricité en 1963 et, en 1966, Hydro-Québec avait apparemment fermé la centrale hydroélectrique de Moulin-à-Baude. In the photo below there is a Sawmill! More photos of the sawmill on the "Dunes" page. (click the arrow) Sur la photo ci-dessous il y a une scierie ! Plus de photos de la scierie sur la page "Dunes". (cliquez sur la flèche) POINTE ROUGE AND JESUIT GARDENS between Pointe Rouge and the Clay Cliffs circa1950 POINTE ROUGE ET DES JARDINS DES JÉSUITES entre Pointe Rouge et les falaises d'argile There was a navigation beacon on Pointe Rouge, probably circa 1900 Il y avait une balise de navigation sur Pointe Rouge, probablement vers 1900 Today Aujourd'hui Lionel and Elizabeth O'Neill FIRST NATIONS This drawing must be very old, showing native teepees on the plateau where Dufferin House now stands, and the small church and the Hudson's Bay Post in the background. The hotel is not built, maybe 1840. PREMIÈRES NATIONS Ce dessin doit être très ancienne, montrant des tipis indigènes sur le plateau où Dufferin House est maintenant, et la petite église et la Hudson's Bay Post sur le fond. L'hôtel n'est pas construit, peut-être 1840. 1887 Theodore Gagne, Huron of Loretteville opened a boutique of Amerindian souveniers near the wharf 1887 Theodore Gagne, Huron de Loretteville a ouvert une boutique de souvenirs amérindiens près du quai THE BEACH Many buildings on the beach have come and gone, not surprising considering the 17 foot tidal range, and the ice in the winter. Below, late 1860's, the Hotel Tadoussac, and the Hudson's Bay Post in front of the hotel. Boatbuilding on the beach, only one house on the main street, no church, no Cid store. LA PLAGE De nombreux bâtiments sur la plage sont venus et ont disparu, ce qui n'est pas surprenant compte tenu de l'amplitude des marées de 17 pieds et de la glace en hiver. Ci-dessous, fin des années 1860, l'Hôtel Tadoussac, et le Poste de la Baie d'Hudson devant l'hôtel. Construction de bateaux sur la plage, une seule maison sur la rue principale, pas d'église, pas de magasin Cid. Circa 1880's Circa 1890's Circa 1920's These boathouses were there until about the 1960's, my father Lewis Evans used the one on the right. Ces hangars à bateaux étaient là jusqu'à environ les années 1960, mon père Lewis Evans a utilisé l'un sur la droite. Robin Molson When I was a kid my Dad had an old yawl, the "Bonne Chance" on a buoy on the bay. We often parked the car at the top by the old church and came down those stairs to the beach, to get at the punt. There was a chain around the yard at the top made entirely of bottle caps strung together, 1000's of them. A few years ago (late 1990's?) there was a fundraising effort to buy the building which was very successful, and the building was demolished. Quand j'étais jeune, mon père avait un vieux yawl, la "Bonne Chance" sur une bouée dans la baie. Nous avons souvent garé la voiture au sommet pres de la vieille église et sommes descendus les escaliers à la plage. Il y avait une chaîne autour de la cour en haut entièrement en capsules de bouteilles enfilées, 1000 d'entre eux. Il y a quelques années (fin des années 1990?) il y avait un effort de collecte de fonds pour acheter le bâtiment qui était très réussie, et le bâtiment a été démoli. 1950 the house is one floor raised on stilts against the tide. Below the house is growing! Also the remains of the swimming pool. 1950 la maison est d'un étage sur pilotis. En dessous la maison s'agrandit ! Aussi les restes de la piscine. David & Lois Evans Artiste inconnu ! These cottages perched on the school wall for a brief period in the 1960's. Below that's Alan Evans tying his sailing dingy to the buoy, demonstrating safe boating technique. The punt was built by Lewis Evans, it had wheels to pull it up the beach. Ces chalets perchés sur le mur de l'école pour une brève période dans les années 1960. Ci-dessous, c'est Alan Evans attachant sa lugubre de la voile à la bouée, ce qui démontre la technique de la sécurité nautique. Le 'punt' a été construite par Lewis Evans, il avait des roues à tirer vers le haut de la plage. HOUSES ON INDIAN ROCK Pilot House is visible above on the right, it's the only one of these houses still in place. MAISONS SUR LE POINT D'ISLET Maison de Pilote est visible en haut à droite, il est le seul de ces maisons encore en place. Late 1800's Note from Lewis Evans: Les Maisons sur Pointe de l'Islet La plus proche de Pilot House, Johnnie Hovington, Capitaine de "Jamboree", Nicolas, Donat Therrien, Morneau Quand CSL les a expulsés en 1911 ils ont reconstruit autour de la cale sèche et derrière la cale sèche Dominique Desbiens Souvenir de Tadou!! Maisons de (squatters) vers 1900. Parmie les familles residentes de l'Islet, Maher, Caron, Boulianne, Gagnon; il y avait la Famille Morneau de mes Ancetres du coté de ma Grand Maman Maternelle (Florence Martel) sa Maman était une Morneau qui fesait partie de ces Familles qui furent expropriées (expulsées) graduellement entre 1890 et 1920. Ceux-ci partirent s'établirent aux Milles-Vaches et d'autres a S-C, Bergeronne, Escoumins Houses at the top of the hill, 1890's. Possibly one of these houses was moved into the park, now known as "Tivoli". Maisons en haut de la colline, 1890's. Peut-être l'une de ces maisons a été déplacé dans le parc, maintenant connu sous le nom "Tivoli". Rhodes Cottage Brynhyfryd, Tadoussac On Rue des Pionniers, built 1861, burned in 1932 and replaced the same year Rue des Pionniers, construit 1861, brûlé en 1932 et a remplacé la même année Rhodes Cottage Page Click/Cliquez Hudson's Bay Post, Tadoussac In front of the hotel, built about 1821, demolished about 1870 En face de l'hôtel, construit vers 1821, démoli vers 1870 Hudson's Bay Post Page Click/Cliquez Radford House, Tadoussac Built in the mid-1800's, enlarged in the 1870's, burned in 1932, home of Joseph Radford Construit au milieu des années 1800, agrandie dans les années 1870, brûlé en 1932, la maison de Joseph Radford Radford House Page Click/Cliquez 79

The Parents of the William Rhodes who came to Canada and Tadoussac The RHODES Family Back in time, in England... William Rhodes 1791-1869 and Ann Smith ~1795-1827 Lived at Bramhope Hall, near Leeds, Yorkshire, England. The house no longer exists. Married 1817. Children Caroline 1818, James 1819, Ann 1820, William 1821 , Godfrey 1823, Francis 1825, and then Ann died in 1827. Everybody on the Rhodes family tree is descended from these two. about 1920 These lovely paintings of Ann Smith and William Rhodes are from about 1820, before photography was invented! Thanks to Ainslie Stephen and Lew Evans. These are the PARENTS of William Rhodes (1821-1892) who immigrated to Quebec City, married Anne Dunn, had 9 children, and built the original Brynhyfryd in Tadoussac in 1860. Ann Smith died in 1827, 2 years after her 6th child was born. William lived a further 42 years, and never remarried. He wrote many letters back and forth with son William in Canada, and over 100 letters between them and other family members (between 1836 & 1890) have been compiled (with illustrations & photographs) in a 300 page book! I have printed and distributed about 20 copies, if you would like to get in on the next printing let me know! William (the father) lived in England his whole life, but he did come to Canada once, as he was a military man, and he fought for the British in the War of 1812, mainly in the Eastern Townships/Richelieu River area. He helped Canada stay out of the hands of our southern neighbours! Well done GGGGrandPa! Bramhope is just north of Leeds inEngland 8

BELLE

William Rhodes 1851-1921 & Caroline Hibler 1848-1929 William Rhodes is the third oldest of 9 children of Col William Rhodes and Anne Catherine Dunn. Their daughter is Carrie Rhodes, my grandmother. She married Frank Morewood, their children are Betty Evans (my mother, 1922-1993) and Bill Morewood (his family live in New Jersey). William Carrie was born in 1881 so this is about 1887, Carrie and her father This group photo (early 1890's) is on the Col. Rhodes/Anne Dunn page William isn't in it, but he was there that day, and had his picture taken below! He was probably the photographer. That's his daughter Carrie (right side) and just to her left, her future husband Frank Morewood (first cousins!). In the photo below William is missing his right arm-the story goes that he went to Australia on business, and wasn't heard from for a year, much to the concern of his family...he had lost his arm in an accident and didn't write home until he could write with his left! Carrie and her mother Caroline on the porch at Benmore about 1893, with sister-in-law Minnie Rhodes Morewood, and Isobel (Billy)and probably Frank. Caroline and William Rhodes and their daughter Carrie - William liked to have his picture taken from his left side so his missing arm wasn't visible.

Family Tree of William Rhodes and Anne Dunn Col. William Rhodes 1821-1892 Anne Catherine Dunn 1823-1911 Children and Grandchildren The Rhodes had 9 children, and 26 grandchildren. 17 of the grandchildren are connected to Tadoussac, and 8 of them had descendants. In total there are over 190 descendants of Col & Mrs Rhodes, most of whom visit Tadoussac regularly, where they own 12 houses! (Not counting the Boston family). Look for your name! If I've missed it let me know!

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

Grandchildren of William Rhodes, Quebec & Tadoussac, Quebec MORE of Tadoussac Grandchildren of William Rhodes and Anne Dunn Keep going! Lots more photos, more or less in chronological order, of the 18 Grandchildren, mostly in Tadoussac. Hopefully you can recognize them now! 1890 Frank and John Morewood, Lilybell Rhodes, Nancy Morewood, Carrie Rhodes (Morewood) and 3 babies 1891 Carrie Rodes (Morewood) and her mother Carrie Rhodes, Minnie (Rhodes) Morewood with Nancy and Frank, at Benmore 1890 Frank and Nancy Morewood, Jim Williams 1891 Jim Williams, Frank and Nancy Morewood, Lilybell Rhodes, at Brynhyfryd 1891 John and Frank Morewood, Carrie Rhodes (Morewood) (30 years later she married Frank...) 1892 Five Women (2 on left probably "help") and six kids on the beach below Brynhyfryd, what a zoo it must have been! 1892 Nancy Morewood and Jimmy Williams with Granny Anne Rhodes 1893 Charlie Rhodes and Uncle James Rhodes (William's brother) at Benmore 1893 Granny's 70th birthday (Col William died 2 years ago). Its a big family, 11 grandchildren in the picture. 1893 Granny's 70th birthday, same day. Kneeling in front is William Rhodes, Jr, Carrie's father. He lost his arm in an accident with a locomotive he was delivering to Mexico. Maybe he took the photo above, and Godfrey took this one? 1893 CharlieRhodes, Minnie Morewood, John Morewood, Carrie Rhodes mother and Carrie daughter, not sure, Frank Morewood in Tadoussac at Brynhyfryd, an amazing photo 1893 Jim and Mary Williams, Nancy, Frank and John Morewood, Carrie and 2 babies! You can see right through Brynhyfryd to the hills Three photos probably all at Benmore, 1894 GrannyCharlieDorothyNanMaryJim 1894 CharlieLilyJimmyMary?inWhite 1894 GrannyFrankJimmyCharlieMary For some reason no photos for 3 years, the next are 1897, kids are going up! 1897 Frank, John and Billy Morewood and Charlie Rhodes 1897 back Dorothy Rhodes (Evans), Nancy and Billy Morewood front Gertrude Williams (Alexander) Mary Williams (Wallace) The Williams kids 1899 Jimmy 11, Gertrude 8, Mary 9, Sidney the baby 1899 Bobby Morewood, Frank Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes 1899 back Nancy, Catherine, Mary middle Dorothy, Billy, Gertrude front Jimmy, Bobby, Bob Campbell Bob Campbell was a family friend who lived opposite Benmore in Quebec 1899 adults maybe Nan (Rhodes) Williams, maybe Katie (VonIffland) Rhodes, for sure Minnie (Rhodes) Morewood kids Billy Morewood Mary Williams (Wallace) Dorothy Rhodes (Evans) Nancy Morewood Bobby Morewood Fabulous outfits, hats 2 dolls 1899 Dorothy and Billy with Hem who was a friend of Granny's and spent a lot of time with the family 1899 Charlie, Nancy, Dorothy, Billy (same day) 1899 Nancy and Mary with their dolls 1899 Gertrude, Nancy, Dorothy 1899 Nancy Catherine Mary Billy Dorothy Gertrude 1902 Frank Morewood and Jim Williams Gertrude and Dorothy with the horse and buggy at Benmore Nancy Morewood, Catherine Rhodes, Frank Morewood circa 1901 2 photos from the same picnic on the beach at the far end of Moulin Baude. There was a sawmill up the hill and for a while there was a dock built out of slab wood from the mill. above back row Frank and john Morewood, Lily and Frances with their father Francis Rhodes, Dorothy with her father Army Rhodes front Nancy, Catherine and Charlie at right Nancy and Catherine, note the 2 others in the distance! A Fishing Expedition Lennox Williams and M. Poitras Jimmy, Charlie and John All they caught was 2 small fish? left Carrie Rhodes (Morewood) and others below Brynhyfryd below Catherine and Nancy It's a cool day on the Saguenay, on Therrien's yawl "Laura" back Charlie Rhodes, John Morewood, Phillippe Therrien, Jim Williams, Army Rhodes front Gertrude Williams, Billy Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes, Catherine Rhodes, Nancy Morewood 1902 Brynhyfryd back Carrie Rhodes and her mother Carrie, ?, Mr Jamison, Nancy Morewood, Hem Irvine, Bob Campbell, Lily Rhodes (Godfrey's wife) middle Granny Anne Dunn Rhodes front Billy Morewood, Nattalie Dodds, Dorothy Rhodes, Catherine Rhodes, Bobby Morewood NEXT PAGE How do I know who's who? It helps when I get this, thanks to somebody for writing the date and names! Who's in both photos? Bobby, Billy and Nancy Morewood, and Bob Campbell! 1902 back Frank Morewood, Bob Campbell, Sidney Williams, Minnie Morewood, her kids Bobby and Billy, Katie and Army Rhodes, Nan and Lennox Williams front Charlie Rhodes, unknown person, Nancy Morewood and Mary Williams on Donat Therrien's yacht "Laura" Note! 3 kids in the front row have cameras! Where are those photos? Charlie Rhodes, Jim Williams Billy Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes and a friend 1902 Godfrey Rhodes, Minnie Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes, unknown, Billy Morewood, Carrie Rhodes Pretending to launch a norshore canoe 1902 Brynhyfryd back John Morewood, Granny, Katie Rhodes, Hem, Mary Williams middle Minnie, Nancy, Bobby Morewood, Army Rhodes front unknown, Gertrude, Sidney and Nan Williams, Charlie Rhodes ~1905 Dorothy Rhodes, Jim, Nan and Lennox Williams, Minny and Bobby Morewood, unknown, Mary Williams front Sidney and Gertrude Williams, Granny, Nancy Morewood Frank, Bobby, Minnie Morewood, at the seawall below Brynhyfryd Lennox Williams, Dorothy Rhodes, Gertrude and Jim Williams, Bobby Morewood, Nan and Syd Williams ~1904 Bob Campbell, MaryWilliams, CarrieRhodes, Nancy Morewood on the street in Tadoussac Bobby and Nancy Morewood with Carrie Rhodes 1904 NancyMorewood and Mary Williams 1904 Mary Bob Sid Gertrude Nancy Mary Williams and Harriet Ross 1905 BillyMorewood, ??? Carrie Rhodes, Gertrude Williams, John Morewood 1905 Billy, Dorothy, Gertrude 1905 Billy, Mary, Dorothy, Minnie, Nancy 1905 Charles Jenning who is Catherine Rhodes (Tudor Hart)'s actual brother, she was adopted by Godfrey and Lily Rhodes. Nancy Morewood and Catherine are visiting the Jennings family somewhere in the US. Nancy Morewood, HarrietRoss, BobCampbell ~1905 Nancy, Catherine, Harriet Ross ~1905 Minny Gertrude Granny Nancy Catherine, Godfrey, Nancy Swimming in the bay! Cool looking boats in the background 1905 right Monica Rhodes and Gertrude Williams below Army Rhodes, Frank Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes, Granny Rhodes, Monica Rhodes, Mary Williams, Nancy Morewood at Brynhyfryd ~1906 Dorothy Rhodes, HarrietRoss, Billy Morewood, Lilybell Rhodes ~1908 Monica Rhodes, Sidney and Gertrude Williams, Katie, Dorothy and Charlie Rhodes Katie is Armitage Rhodes' second wife, Monica their daughter, Dorothy and Charlie his older children 1908 Sept 7 Granny Anne Rhodes' 85th at Benmore? back Lennox Williams 49. his son Jim 20, Nancy Morewood 20, Mary Williams 18 and her mother Nan 47, Billy Morewood 17, her mother Minny 51 and brother Frank Morewood 22 front Gertrude 17 and Sidney Williams 9, Hem, Granny 85, Bobby Morewood 11, Monica Rhodes 4 and her dad Army 60, Dorothy Rhodes 16 All 6 of the Williams family, 5 Morewoods missing dad Harry and oldest son John, Army with 2 of his children but not his wife. Harriet Ross, William Rhodes, Gertrude Williams. Billy Morewood, Sidney Williams, Minny Morewood, Mary Williams Prayers on the porch at Brynhyfryd! back Lennox and Sidney Williams front Nan Williams, , Dorothy Rhodes, Gertrude Williams, Evelyn Meredith (Jim's future wife) Mary Williams Mary, Lennox, Gertrude, Dorothy left Mary Williams, Carrie Rhodes, Nancy Morewood below Billy Morewood, Gertrude Williams, Punting Dorothy Rhodes, Gertrude Williams and others, probably Jim Williams at right Dorothy Rhodes and Harriet Ross Minny Morewood, Dorothy Rhodes, and Mrs Ross (Shirt's mother, if you know who Shirt is) Catherine Rhodes with Monica and baby Armitage (Peter) and their grandmother Mrs Von Iffland Siblings Frank, Bobby and Nancy Morewood with Sidney Williams in the foreground, lunch on the beach! 1905 Monica Rhodes and Gertrude Williams Harriet Ross, Dorothy Rhodes, Catherine and her father Godfrey Rhodes, together on a trip to Europe! The girls are all sidesaddle. Carrie Rhodes, Dorothy Rhodes, Billy Morewood l to r 1910 Dorothy (Dorsh) Rhodes (Evans) 18, Carrie Rhodes (Morewood) 29, Billy 19 and Nancy 22 Morewood 1910 Lennox and his kids Mary, Gert and Sid Williams, on the beach, they had a great seawall! Gone now ~1911 Monica, Dorothy, Katie and Peter Rhodes with Rachel Webb (Stairs) somewhere ~1914 Monica Rhodes, Nancy Morewood, Peter Rhodes, Gertrude Williams Dorothy and Gertrude and others and a couple of rowboats, somewhere on the Saguenay ~ 1910 Rachel Webb (Stairs), Gertrude Williams (Alexander) and Dorothy Rhodes (Evans) According to Ainslie (Evans) Stephen these 3 were at school together and this was how the Stairs family started coming to Tadoussac. More info if you have it please! ~1914 The Williams family Mary, Sid, Jim, Lennox, Nan and Gertrude, with Jim's future wife Evelyn Meredith (sitting, with the tie) and cousin Bobby Morewood. The Merediths had a summer place in St Patrice (near Riviere du Loup). Fun having a second photo taken at the same time, with the addition of an unknown lady (probably a maid) and 2 dogs! 1917 Nan Williams with Lilybell and her sister Gertrude Rhodes, the only photo I have of Gertrude 1917 Nan and Lennox Williams with Lily and Frances and May in the White Boat! The next 15 photos are from an album put together by Sidney Williams, starting in 1917 when he was 18, and he's in many of them. Bobby Morewood on the left, Sid on the right below Gertrude Williams and Lilybell Rhodes The photo below was taken at Cap a Jack, a cabin 10 miles up the Saguenay belonging to Dean Lewis Evans, who is on the right. They would have travelled in the Evans motorboat "Minota" 1917 WillaLennSidAdeleMay?NanLilyBellStCathBay 1918SydDoroLilyRachelGert right ~1923 Billy Morewood, Althea, Gertrude (Williams) below Bobby and Billy Morewood, Deane, Althea, MissYoung, Gertrude and Ron Alexander right Carrie Rhodes and Sid, Carrie's parents William and Carrie in the back seat below Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) and Nancy Morewood ~1923 Saguenay boat trip on Therrien yacht right Gertrude and Ron Alexander, Bobby Morewood below Sidney, friend, Gertrude and Lilybell ~1924 Katie Rhodes, Lilybell and Frances Rhodes, and Katie's daughter Armitage/Peter ~1926 Frances Rhodes, Billy Morewood, Jack, Nan and their mother Mary (Williams) Wallace ~1926 the guys are Lex Smith (Guy's brother) Bobby Morewood and Sidney Williams the girls are Althea, Ruth, and friend right ~1930 Dr McLean (who sold Tivoli to Dewarts), Erie Languedoc (mother of Adele, cousin of Russells, Stevensons) and Frank Morewood below 1932 Totie (Le Moine) Rhodes,Frances and Lilybell, Monica Rhodes ~1935 on the porch of Brynhyfryd back row Jean and Jim Alexander, Sidney Williams, Gertrude and Ron Alexander, Percy Tudor-Hart, Jack Wallace front row Mary and Michael Wallace, Catherine Tudor-Hart, Lennox and Nan Williams Brynhyfryd again, a year later? 1936? Perhaps the entire Williams Family? back row Jack Wallace, Jim and Ron Alexander, Jack Wallace middle row Mary Wallace, Nan Williams, Jean Alexander, Nan Wallace (Leggat), Enid (Price) Williams, Lennox Williams, Gertrude Alaxander front row Jim, Sid and Susan Williams (Webster), probably Ronnie Alexander, Joan Williams (Ballantyne), Michael Wallace ~1938 back not sure, Lilybell Rhodes, Jean Alexander (Aylan-Parker) front Ainslie Evans (Stephen), Betty Morewood (Evans). Phoebe Evans (Skutezky) teenagers! ~1936 with some Prices back unknown, Frank Morewood, Jim & Gertrude Alexander, unknown, Sidney Williams middle Nan Williams, Henry and ? Price, Lennox Williams, Enid (Price) Williams with Susan front Nan Wallace, Joan Williams, Mary Wallace, and probably Ronnie Alexander 1943 Brynhyfryd Photos taken with different cameras! l to r Jack Wallace, Billy Morewood, Ronnie Alexander, Mary Wallace, Sheila Williams (Campbell). The two kids behind Lennox Williams are war refugees, Simon Wallace and Sylvia Dixon, not related. Joan Williams (Ballantyne), Enid and Sidney Williams, holding a camera. Below Susan Williams (Webster) has joined the photo on the left, so she probably took the first photo, she has a camera! Ronnie looks a bit less unhappy, and Jack has switched sides, Sid has gone to take the picture. Lennox has put on his hat for the sun. ~1945 Phoebe Evans (Skutezky), Dorsh (Rhodes) Evans, Ainslie Evans (Stephen) at the cottage in Tadoussac. Billy, Monica, Lily ~1950 Sidney Williams (2nd from left) with the Morewood Family, Margaret, Bobby, Harry and Frank. ~1955 Billy Morewood, Anne Hargreaves (Cumyn), Frances Rhodes, and Anne's mother Armitage/Peter (Rhodes) Hargreaves ~1951 Gertrude Rhodes (Williams), Lilybell Rhodes, Jean (Alexander) and John Aylan-Parker, Joan Williams (Ballantyne), Nan (Wallace) Leggat, her mother Mary (Williams) Wallace and grandfather Lennox Williams Circa 1957 Our Aunt Bill was always cracking jokes, that's me Tom Evans and brother Alan, sister Anne, Granny Carrie on the Bonne Chance. Anne's friend Jane Kirkpatrick in the lower photo. ~1960 we have colour! Nora Ellwood, Mary and Lennox, Lilybell, Jean, son Ted and Mike Wallace on the wharf in Tadoussac. Leaving on the boat? 1961 My Granny Carrie (Rhodes) Morewood 80th Birthday party. Only 3 of the Rhodes grandchildren are there but familiar faces from the 1960's. That's me Tom Evans and my brother Alan giving her a birthday card before the party! below Grace Scott, Dorsh (Rhodes) Evans, Carrie (Rhodes) Morewood, Sidney Williams right Jack Molson and Sidney Williams Enid (Price) Williams, Mrs Turcot (background), Doris Molson, Rachel (Webb) Stairs, Carrie (Rhodes) Morewood Phoebe (Evans) Skutezky, Betty (Morewood) Evans, Ainslie (Evans) Stephen, and my parents Betty and Lewis Evans A nippy day on the Saguenay on the Bonne Chance! Miss Maloney (from BCS) with Carrie (Rhodes) Morewood and Billy Morewood Cousins getting together in a favourite spot! Dorothy (Dorsh) (Rhodes) Evans, Billy Morewood, and Carrie (Rhodes) Morewood Well done you made it to the end!! Remember that this was all about the 18 RHODES GRANDCHILDREN? Of course they are all gone now, here's the list in order of DOD. Jimmy Williams 1888-1916 28 Gertrude Rhodes 1896-1926 30 John Morewood 1884-1944 60 Frank Morewood 1886-1949 63 Nancy Morewood 1888-1946 58 Charley Rhodes 1890-? Gertrude Williams Alexander 1891-? Bobby Morewood 1897-1964 67 Armitage (Peter) Rhodes Hargreaves 1909-1969 60 Catherine Rhodes 1888-1972 84 Carrie Rhodes Morewood 1881-1972 91 Sidney Williams 1899-1972 73 Lily Bell Rhodes 1889-1975 86 Frances Rhodes 1892-1976 84 Isobel (Billy) Morewood 1891-1977 86 Dorothy Rhodes Evans 1892-1977 85 Monica Rhodes 1904-1985 81 Mary Williams Wallace 1890-1989 99 132 Please send me a note if you made it to the end and it made any sense! This hit counter counts hits on this page!

James William Williams 1888-1916 & Evelyn Meredith 1889-1985 Jim Williams is the oldest son of Lennox Williams and Nan Rhodes. Born in 1888, married Evelyn Meredith January 3, 1916. He was killed in the First World War at the Somme in November 18, 1916 at the age of 28. Jim with some of his first cousins, Frank (Morewood) is my grandfather, about 1892. Jim with his mother Nan Rhodes Williams. Jim with his father Lennox Williams, about 1894. NEXT PAGE PREVIOUS Jim with Granny Anne Dunn Rhodes. Granny, Frank and Jimmy, Charlie Rhodes and Mary Williams Wallace at Benmore (Quebec). First cousins: Nancy, Catherine, Gertrude, Dorothy, Billy, Gertrude, Jim and Bob Campbell (?) Jim is at the bottom of this photo of his family and some friends. Jim with cousin Alice Burstall, not sure what's going on ... Granny and many first cousins, from left: Catherine, Sidney, Bobby, Charlie, Jim (center), Billy, Nancy, Gertrude, Gertrude, Dorothy. Frank Morewood and Jim were cousins and good friends Poitras, Jim, John, Lennox (his father), Charlie with some fish Evelyn Meredith Williams Prayers on the porch at Brynhyfryd? Evelyn Meredith is second from the right. Jim Williams and Evelyn Meredith Williams Sep 11th (1916?) My dear Nan & Daddy, I am writing this by the light of the moon at 2:30 AM, sitting on the fire step of a trench. Things are pretty quiet tonight – just occasional shots with a few bursts of machine gun fire. Our friend the Bosch is just 160 yards in front of us. I received a letter from you this morning – in fact I have had quite a number from you lately but have not had time to answer them. We will be leaving the trenches before long for a rest, bath and brush up generally. We will have had 24 days of it working 19 hours a day and very often 21. In the front line the officers go to bed at six a.m. and get about 4 hours sleep. The men are getting pretty tired. It is the first time in and 24 days is a longer period in trenches without a rest than any Canadian battalion has ever had. We have been fortunate as regards casualties though we have had quite a number. I had 3 men in my plat(oon) killed back in the reserve trench and two wounded. One of the men killed was an excellent NCO and an awfully nice fellow. I shan`t be able to replace him. Thank you for remembering me in your prayers. I expect they were answered last Tuesday night when we had quite a bombardment on. We blazed away at the Hun and their artillery replied. In the of trench which I was commanding it was like Hell let loose for a while. A man was blown in pieces ten yards from me, I was knocked down and the wind taken out of me – I got up and started on when another landed where I had been lying blew me along the trench – fortunately in toto and not in ( Narus partibus). I had to retire when the shelling ceased as I was a bit shaken up. I am all right now and think I got well out of it. They levelled about 30 yards of my trench with the ground, however a working party built it up again before the next morning. Our artillery gave three shots to their one so they have shown no inclination for another bout since then. Evelyn is now on the ocean on her way home. I think it was undoubtedly the wisest course for her to take. She will be happier at home and the climate will be more agreeable. We have had two or three gas alarms since we came to this place. They are rather terrifying at first. The gas has never reached us yet but on the occasion of the 1st alarm we really thought it was coming. One of my sentries said he heard the hissing noise it makes when coming out of the cylinder and shouted ``Here it comes!`` Gongs sounded – sirens blew and tin cans rattled all down the trench and we stood there waiting for it to come over the parapet with very mixed feelings I can assure you. It was a dark night with a drizzling rain and we couldn`t see a thing. A flare went up and the men looked very uncanny with their gas helmets on and the bigh goggles with a rubber tube sticking out in front to breathe out through and on top of it all their steel helmets. It was a great relief when the order came down about an hour afterwards to take helmets off as the gas had passed over some distance to our right. I have had three different servants during the last 3 days. The night I was biffed about my man while coming up a communication trench was blown six feet in the air. He was coming to join me, which he did – apparently none the worse for his ascent – the next day however he was a bit broken up and asked to be relieved so I got another man who wore his boots right down to his socks so I had to get another. In the meantime my first man has been wounded in 3 places – not seriously but he is hors de combat for some time. I think my present man will be kept on permanently. For a servant out here you do not want a valet who will keep your trousers nicely pressed but rather a stout fellow who will plough through mud and water after you with a bomb in one hand and a cup of hot coffee in the other. Well – the moon is on the wane and this luneral letter must end. I will now patrol my trench and see that all are awake. My love to my fair sister and brother and to yourselves. Your letters are very welcome. Your affectionate son J W Williams (transcribed by Jim's great neice Catherine) in France The Sackville Connection After Jim's death Evelyn Meredith married Donald Fisher of Sackville, New Brunswick, and she stayed in touch with the Williams family. We recently met their grandaughter Meredith Fisher (below right holding the photo with my wife Heather) and some of the photos above came from a Fisher album. Meredith also found in her attic a trunk full of photos and other items from World War One, belonging to her grandfather and to Jim Williams. In particular, there was a tie that appears in one of his (civilian) photos above, and his spats, with his signature on the back, shown below. Our daughter Sarah (and Al) recently moved to Sackville and opened a coffee shop (The Black Duck) and often see Meredith and her daughter Robin. Many of the Fisher family went to BCS, and must have known my father (who taught there for 39 years) and many other Tadoussac people. Also the Fishers have a summer house in St. Patrice, which is just on the west edge of Riviere du Loup. NEXT PAGE MORE LETTERS written by Jim Williams have been compiled into a very interesting book by Catherine Williams! Ask her to borrow a copy! I have a copy also in Tadoussac. The following was written by John Leggat Lieutenant James William Williams 87th Battalion (Canadian Grenadier Guards) Canadian Expeditionary Force James William Williams was my Great Uncle, the eldest of four siblings and the brother of my maternal grandmother Mary Wallace (nee Williams). He was born in Quebec City in January 1888. He was the son on the Rt. Rev. Lennox Williams, Anglican bishop of Quebec and his wife Nan (née Rhodes). He served as an officer in the 8th Battalion Royal Rifles of Canada (militia) and volunteered for overseas service in September of 1915 along with my maternal grandfather, Jack Wallace. At the time, they were both lieutenants in the Royal Rifles. Officers of the Canadian Grenadier Guards (87th Battalion) Jim Williams second from left, Jack Wallace second from right They proceeded overseas with the 87th Battalion Canadian Grenadier Guards in 1916. Before the battalion left Quebec City, Jim married Evelyn Fisher and Jack became engaged to my grandmother. After sailing to England in April 1916, the battalion was stationed there as part of the 12th Infantry Brigade (until June) and then 11th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Canadian Infantry Division until August of the same year. On August 11/12, the battalion crossed over to France and served the duration of the war as part of the 11th Infantry Brigade, 4th Canadian Infantry Division. Jack and Jim met up with another one of my uncles upon arriving in France. He was Ronald Alexander, a permanent force officer with the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles). At the time Ronald was serving as a major in the battalion and assumed command of the unit in November 2016. Ronald’s military career included staff appointments at RMC in the period between the wars. He retired as a major-general and commanded Pacific Command during WWII. He married Jim’s sister Gertrude in 2017. His memoires describe the conditions at the Somme in September and early October 1916: The Brickfields “On the 10th of September the [24th] Battalion arrived in “the Brickfields”. These consisted of the completely flat plain behind Albert. At 3:15 p.m. on the 29th of September we attacked the enemy’s front line, known as Regina trench, but failed to take it owing to uncut wire entanglements and withering fire. At 6:00 p.m. the enemy counter-attacked but we successfully stopped him. On the 29th and 30th, we were very heavily shelled not only by the enemy, but also with our own guns. We repulsed another enemy counter-attack. At 3:15 p.m. on 1 October our barrage went over our heads and we went over the top. The 5th C.M.R. on our left failed to get across, which left my left flank in the air. The 25th Battalion on my right was held up by wire. Some of the 24th Battalion succeeded in getting into a German trench, but whether it was Regina trench or not, we did not know. Our casualties had been very heavy and the whole situation looked very critical. That night we finally came to the conclusion that the 24th were in Kenora trench, but Regina trench everywhere was in enemy hands. On 2 October, the Battalion, or what was left of it, was relieved. In order to pick up the wounded in Nomansland, one of our stretcher bearers painted a red cross with jam on a white bandage and walked out holding it aloft. In a few minutes both sides were picking up their wounded under the protection of a white flag. Back in the Usna Valley the battle scared remnants of the [5th Infantry] brigade were fed from a field kitchen. They only totalled 600 and of these less than 100 were mine. There were tears running down the cheeks of Brig. Gen. Archie MacDonnell [RMC #151, Commandant RMC 1919 to 1925] as he stood and looked at what was left of his brigade” During this period my Uncle wrote these words to his parents: September 11th “I am writing this by the light of the moon at 2.30 a.m., sitting on the fire step of a trench. Things are pretty quiet tonight - just occasional shots with a few bursts of machine gun fire. Our friend the Bosch is just 160 yards in front of us. We will be leaving the trenches before long for a rest, bath and brush up generally. We will have had 24 days of it working 19 hours a day and very often 21. In the front line the officers go to bed at 6 a.m. and get about four hours sleep. The men are getting pretty tired. It is their first time in and 24 days is a longer period in trenches without a rest than any Canadian battalion has ever had. We have been fortunate as regards to casualties, though we have had quite a number. I had 3 men in my plot killed back in the reserve trench and two wounded. One of the men killed was an excellent NCO and an awfully nice fellow. I shan’t be able to replace him. Thank you for remembering me in your prayers. I expect they were answered last Tuesday night when we had quite a bombardment on. In the sector of trench which I was commanding it was like Hell let loose for a while. A man was blown to pieces ten yards from me. I was knocked down and the wind taken out of me - I got up & started on when another landed where I had been lying & blew me along the trench - fortunately in toto and not in nariis partibus. I had to retire when the shelling ceased as I was a bit shaken up. I am alright now & think I got well out of it. They levelled about 30 yards of my trench with the ground, however, a working party built it up again before the next morning. Our artillery gave three shots to their one so they have shown no inclination for another bout since then. We have had two or three gas alarms since we came to this place. They are rather terrifying at first. One of my sentries said he heard the hissing noise which it makes when coming out of the cylinders & shouted “here it comes”. Gongs sounded - sirens blew and tin cans rattled all down the trench and we stood there waiting for it to come over the parapet with very mixed feelings I can assure you. It was a dark night with a drizzling rain & we couldn’t see a thing. A flare went up & the men looked very uncanny with their gas helmets on & the big goggles with a rubber tube sticking out in front to breathe out through & on top of it all their steel helmets. It was a great relief when the order came down about an hour afterwards to take the helmets off as the gas had passed over some distance to our right. I have had five different servants during the last 3 days. The night I was biffed about my man, while coming up a communication trench was blown six feet in the air. He was coming to join me, which he did - apparently none the worse for his ascent - the next day however, he was a bit broken up & asked to be relieved so I got another man who wore his boots right down to his socks so I had to get another. In the meantime my first man has been wounded in 3 places-not seriously but he is hors de combat for some time. I think my present man will be kept on permanently. For a servant out here you do not want a valet who will keep your trousers nicely pressed but rather a stout fellow who will plough through mud and water after you with a bomb in one hand and a cup of hot coffee in the other!” November 2nd “We have been in this town for two days now. When I last wrote we expected to go into the front line that night and I had just about said my last prayers as we were in for something pretty heavy however, the weather put a stop to it and we were taken back here till things dry up a bit which is just as well as we hadn’t many men to carry on. Our ranks were badly depleted in our last tussle with the Hun. I am told that the Battalion was mentioned in dispatches for what we did. It is an awful country up there near the front. You cannot find four square yards which has not been ploughed up by a shell and dead Huns lie round all over the place, also our own dead, some of whom have been there for months and the stench is awful. One of our men found Harry Scott’s body and buried it. It is hard enough to get the wounded out of that place and as a rule all one can do for the dead is to recover their identification discs. The whole place is under shell fire all the time.” November 14th “I expect to be in the front line tonight but orders were changed and we are still in our dugouts in reserve. We provide working and carrying parties to go up to the front but I was not called on tonight. Errol Hall went up with one & Sam & I are waiting for him to return. We lost Todd in our last turn and I must write his father (he is in the CR in Mont) as I was the last officer to see him. I was sniped by the same chaps that got him but was fortunately missed. I had to go overland about 40 yards from the Bosch line in broad daylight. They were decent enough not to fire – if they had they could not have missed. The sniping came from further back. We had to go overland that day because the communication trenches were waist deep in mud. We had gone ahead to look over the trenches the battalion was to take over in the evening” Events of November 18th Shortly after 6:00 a.m. on November 18th the Canadian 11th Brigade attacked Desire Trench. The 87th Battalion was one of four of the Brigade in the assault that was supported by a heavy creeping artillery barrage. The brigade achieved its objective and two of its battalions, the 87th and the 38th continued on from Desire Trench to Coulée Trench and Grandcourt Trench, all by 9:00 a.m. Formations on the flanks, however, were not able to achieve the same results. The two battalions being in a rather precarious salient were ordered to return to the original objective, Desire Trench. It was during this withdrawal the Lieutenant Williams was killed by enemy machine gun fire. He was buried at Bapaume Military Cemetery. The action of the day is described in both the war diary of the 87th and the war diary of the 3rd Siege Battery RCA that was penned by my paternal grandfather Lt Col William Leggat, whose unit was among those providing artillery support on the day. Excerpts from the 87th Battalion War diary – November 18th “The objective was Desire Support Trench .... The night was extremely cold, the ground being frozen and a light snowfall about 3 a.m. had obscured all trace of the trench lines. The attack commenced a 6:10 a.m. and following the barrage closely, the objective was taken without a great deal of resistance by the enemy. Major F.E. Hall, Lieut. E.V. Hall, Lieut. J. W. Williams, Lieut. C.H. Eagley. Lieut R.G. Lefebvre. 39 other ranks and 2 machine guns proceeded on to Grandcourt Trench, part of which they captured taking in the operation some 112 Germans who were sent back to our lines under escort of wounded men. Owing to the attack on the left not being in position to push further, Major Hall was ordered to evacuate the Trench at dusk dropping back to Desire Support Trench. This was done but in so doing Major Hall and Lieut. Williams were killed and Lieut. Hall and Lieut. Eagley wounded. Casualties among officers 4 killed and 9 wounded, and among other ranks 26 killed. 50 missing and 148 wounded.” From the 3rd Siege Battery War Diary – November 18th “Opened fire today at 6:10a.m. in support of the attack on Desire Trench. The weather was thick, with flurries of snow and underfoot the ground was in dreadful condition. The following divisions took part in the attack. 4th Canadian Division, support by the 1st and 3rd Canadian Divisional Artillery; 19th Imperial Division, supported by the 11th and 25th Imperial and 2nd Canadian Divisional Artillery; 19th Imperial Division supported by the 17th, 18th and 19th Imperial Division Artillery and one Brigade R.H.A. We expended over 600 rounds on this task. Our troops gained their objective and pushed on to Coulee Trench where they were subject to heavy bombardment and were forced to retire to Desire Trench. It is reported that we took 1600 prisoners.” A poem by Frederick George Scott seems fitting. He was known as the Poet of the Laurentians. An Anglican Church minister, he joined the Canadian Army in 1914 at the age of 53 and went overseas as the Senior Chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division. ------------------------------------- A Grave in Flanders All night the tall trees overhead Are whispering to the stars; Their roots are wrapped around the dead And hide the hideous scars. The tide of war goes rolling by, The legions sweep along; And daily in the summer sky The birds will sing their song. No place is this for human tears. The time for tears is done; Transfigured in these awful years’ The two worlds blend in one. This boy had visions while in life Of stars and distant skies; So death came in the midst of strife A sudden, glad surprise. He found the songs for which he yearned, Hope that had mocked desire; His heart is resting now, which burned With such consuming fire. So down the ringing road we pass, And leave him where he fell. The guardian trees, the waving grass, The birds will love him well. St. Jans Capelle 1915 ---------------------------------- From In Sun and Shade, A book of Verse Canon Frederick George Scott, C.M.G., D.S.O. Dussault and Proulx Rgd, Quebec, 1926 Canon Scott’s son, Henry Hutton Scott, was an officer in the 87th Battalion. He was a close friend of Jim Williams and Jack Wallace. He was killed at Regina Trench on the 21st of October 1916 and is also buried at Bapaume Military Cemetery. Scott dedicated In Sun and Shade to his son with this short verse: “E’en as he trod that day to God, So walked he from his birth, In simpleness and gentleness, In honour and clean mirth Prepared by 8833 Colonel (ret’d) L. John Leggat – January 2018