The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-11
SHOOTING THE LACHINE RAPIDS
A Famous St. Lawrence Pilot.

A Famous St, Lawrence Illol l Let us stand on the long iron bridge that spans the St. Lawrence just above l Montreal the very place to study the | river as 1t narrows and runs swifter | for it's smashing plunge through yon- | der rapids to the east, the dreaded La | chine rapids, whose snarling teeth hash white in the sun. Look down into the
 grenish rush, and see how the waters
 hurl past these god stone piers, sharp pointed upstream against the tearing
 of winter ice! HeHe goes the torrent of
 Niagara and the inland ocean of Super for and Erie and Ontario, all crushed into a funnel of land by this big island
 at the left that blocks the flow, and
 gourged by the inpour of the Ottawa few miles back that brings down the floods of southern Canada. As fast as
 a horse can galfop runs the river here,
 and faster and faster it goes as the long slant takes 1t, 10, F. 14 miles an hour
 (Which Is something for river), until
 dozen islands strewn across the fun
 neTs lower end gdad }the rapids to their
 greatest rage. Here is where they kill
 Then suddenly all is quiet, and the
 river. spreading to a triple width, rests,
 after it's madness, in Montreals placid
 harbcr. V
 Standing here, think of my first ex-
 perienca in shooting these rapids Git
 was on enc of the large river boats)
 and I must confess that it gave me no
 very thrilling sense of danger, There
 were two or three blunges, to be sure,
 at the steepest part, and little sway
 ing or lurchng. but. so far as movement
 goes, nothing to disturb one accustom-
 ed to the vlcissitudes of, say ordinary
 trolley car navigation. However, when
 I came to the reason of this fairly
 smoth descent, and saw what it means
 to stand at the wheel through that
 treacherous channel, I found my won
 der growing. I thought of the lion tam
 CT. whose skill is shown not so much
 by what happens in. the cage as by
 what does not happen. A hundred ways
 of doing the wrong thing with one of
 these boats, and only a single way of
 doing the right thing. For four miles
 the pilot must race along a squirming,
 twisting, plunging thread of water,
 that leaps ahead like greyhound and changes it's crookedness somewhat from da.y to day with wind and tide. In that thread alone is safety; elsewhere is ruin and wreck. Instantly he must read the message of boiling eddy or the menace of a beckoning reef, and take it this way or that instantly, for there are the hungry rocks on either hand. He must know things without seeing them; must feel the pulse of the rapids, as it were, so that when a mist clouds his view or the shine of low hung rainbow dazzles him, he may still go right. It is fact that with all the pilots in this pilot land, and all the hardy watermen born and brought up on the St. Lawrence, there are not ten not six-men in Canada to- day, French CT English or Indian, who would dare this peril For all other rapids of the route, the Gallop rapids, the Splitrock rapids, the Cascades, and the rest, there are pilots in plents; but | not for these Lachine. And, to use the | same simle again, I saw that the l of these Lachine rapids is like | the tanning of a particularly fierce | lion; it is business by itself that few | men care to undertake.
 So it came that I sought out one of | -hese few, Fred Ouillette, pilot, and son l of pilot, an idol in the company's eyes, l hero to the boys of Montreal, figure l 70 be stared at always by anxious pas iengers as he peers through the window atop the forward deck, a man whom
 be people point to as he passes: ] There's the fellow that took us through he rapids That's Ouillette." This |, lnsought notoriety has made him shy, He does not like to talk about his work IT tell you how it feels to do this thing. dash of Indian blood is in him. with ome of the silent, stoic, Indian na- ure. Yet certain facts he vouchsafed, | when l went to his home, that help one c an understanding of his life.
 He emphasized this, for instance, as ssential in man who would face that ury of waters with many lives in his -eeping; he must not be afraid. One would say that the rapids feel where he mastery is, whether with them or II with the pilot, and woe 10 him if \ heart or wavering hand be- ray him. The rapids will have no aercy. And there are pilots, it ap-