The Paugan Dam, constructed between 1926 and 1932, changed many aspects of the community of Low. “That dam put Low on the map. Many a farm would have a new team, new buildings, even, after the dam was built,” Nellie McLaughlin (née Foley) remarked. She remembered the church picnics held south of the Paugan waterfall before the dam was built and when Kate Hickey told her of the plan to build a dam, “I thought it was the greatest fish story I ever heard. (Kate) showed me the place. We saw a lot of people taking a look at it. There was really just a trickle of water; you wouldn‘t believe it could have all that power.”

During the building of the dam, the Gatineau River was diverted into what was known as "the bypass." There, one day, a terrible disaster took place. The man who had been asked to open one of the side gates opened the center gate by mistake, just as a boom came along on the upper Gatineau River. This boom was sucked through the gates by the great force of the current. A number of men went down with the logs. Some managed to jump and swim ashore however, two men drowned.

The prosperity of the village of Low continued to depend on the dam. At one time, 125 men were employed there, 75 on the booms alone. By 1990 there were less than twenty, and their activity will be entirely phased out within a few years. It is now possible to cross the Paugan dam by car on a well-protected road. The best time to see the waterfall there in full action is early in May when, looking down several hundred feet to the bottom of the rapids from the east end of the dam, one can appreciate what it must have meant to take a team across this narrow cement road when it was still unguarded. For work on the dam, Frazer & Brace, the construction company paid 60 cents an hour if a team of horses was provided 20 cents if not. Many farmers had made less than that in a day.

Farmers close to the river, whose land was bought by the Gatineau Power Company, on the whole were satisfied with the bargain they struck.

After the dam was built, the river backed up as far as Lac Ste. Marie. Some of the farmers who could not quite believe that the water would rise as high as it eventually did stayed on their farms. Bill Ryan’s descendants still remember how the water rose to fill the lower floor of the house, so that they had to leave, by boat, from the upper floor.

Andy Brennan particularly remembered May 1928, when the dam was sufficiently complete to allow crossing to the east side of the Gatineau. He was twenty-two when the foreman of construction at the Paugan dam, Neil Stewart, tried to find someone who would risk taking his team across the dam, which was then without guard rails or any kind of protection. None of the older teamsters wanted to risk their horses or their own lives. Andy Brennan said that he would, and he remembered Neil Stewart walking away laughing. Shortly afterwards, Andy was asked to go into the company office. That, to the young man, meant only one thing; getting fired. But when he entered the office he was merely asked whether he had life insurance. He said no. How much insurance did he want on his life? He had never even thought of such a thing. Then he was asked at how much he valued his horses. They‘re not for sale-, he replied. He was assured that no one wanted to buy them, but they were to be insured as well. And whom should they put down as Andy’s beneficiaries? “My parents, I guess,” the young man suggested. Life insurance at $100,000 was taken out for Andy and at $80,000 for his team. For the next six months Andy made six trips daily across the narrow cement dam. His team never faltered. There was a lot of dynamiting still going on, stones flying in all directions at times. Once one of them hit one of the horses, which was badly cut and Andy nursed it at home with some ointment. The foreman heard of the cut and came to examine it. He suggested that, until it was healed, Andy switch that horse for one his father worked. He was a good foreman, Andy said. Asked why he had not refused to cross the dam, he could only say that on the whole that foreman could be trusted.