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Up the Gatineau! Article

This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 17.

The Paugan Dam

Gunda Lambton

The Paugan darn, 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 (nee Foley) remarked. She remembered the church picnics held south of the Paugan waterfall before the dam was built and that, when Kate Hickey told her of the plan to build a darn "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."1

But there were great changes: North of Low the currents and rapids of the Gatineau River could be heard from a distance as Annie Coyle of Venosta and many others remember. After the dam was built, the river backed up as far as Lac Ste. Marie and flooded its banks, affecting a number of farms.

Ramsay homestead
Ramsay homestead, built in 1860.

Another change was economic. The inhabitants of Low, Venosta and Farrellton had supplemented their farm income by working in the bush, taking their teams to lumber camps north of Maniwaki, a walking trip of five days. 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. No wonder, then, that almost all able-bodied young men from nearby communities in the late 1920s worked at the Paugan dam.

Farmers close to the river, whose land was bought by the Gatineau Power Company, on the whole were satisfied with the bargain they struck. Albert Wilson (just north of the dam) was able to remove most of the farm buildings, fencing and other valuables; however there were some who could not quite believe that the water would rise as high as it eventually did. They stayed on their farms. The area near Lac Ste. Marie was then known as Ryanville, and 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.

A farm that was affected in a particular way was that of Thomas Ramsay in Denholm township, opposite Martindale, on the east side of the Gatineau. In the early 1920s Thomas, then in his mid-eighties, suffered a stroke which affected his judgment and memory. The younger family members were absent when a representative of Gatineau Power visited the farm and the old man signed away a large part of his land. Thomas Ramsay's sons and daughters contested what they considered the misuse of the old man's signature, and took the case to court. They were advised by lawyers to leave all the buildings - house, bam, other outbuildings — until the case was settled. When the dam was completed and the gates were closed, the water began to rise.

Paugan Dam construction
Paugan Dam construction, looking downriver from the cut. (GVHS 768/6)

Floods covered the Ramsay farm, including the house and barns. One of those who remember working on the construction of the Paugan dam is Howard Kealey who still lives in Farrellton; he was a young man of twenty when he was employed there using the team of the Brooks family in Low. Andy Brennan (1906-1985) particularly remembered May 1928, when the dam was sufficiently complete to allow crossing to the east side of the Gatineau. Andy Brennan was one of the farm boys who had started working in the bush at a very young age. He had begun as a skidder when thirteen, working his way up to drawing and cutting wood. 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.“3

Channel bypass
Channel bypass. (GVHS 2153.9/19)

Other teamsters eventually also crossed over the dam. Bill O'Connor was one of them, and his younger brother, Basil, relates that his team was, then, simply evaluated by the foreman (in his case at $500).

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 centre 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. Andy Brennan never forgot their screams as they neared the gate and rushed through. Some managed to jump and swim ashore; two men drowned.

Reno Ramsay remembered this accident, and another one, when "only one man had the same fate; his body was never found. He became part of the Paugan dam legend, and it was rumoured that he had survived. but had made his escape from an unhappy marriage.

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.

Footnotes:

  1. Interview with Nellie McLaughlin (at Gracefield Foyer d'Accueil) August 1984.
  2. This information is from interviews with Reno Ramsay (Low) in 1984.
  3. 3. Information from interviews with Andy Brennan (of Brennan's Hill) May 1983.

Addendum

We have since learned that the first crossing for a man with a team of horses during the construction period was made by Howard Kealey with the Brooks family team.


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