Charlevoix county herald., 1907-09-07

/
French river, Lake Nipissing and the
rivers into the Atlantic. This is the
very route that Champlain followed
when he reached the inland seas and
gazed over their vast expanse.
Over this route for centuries passed
all the traffic between the Canada of
the early days and the western out
posts of the Hudson's Bay company
and this is to be the route of the
Georgian Bay canal, which Canada
now proposes to build and which will
be by far the shortest waterway be-
tween the lakes and the ocean.
The project has been in the air for
years, but not till now has it taken
definite shape. Many questions have
been involved and among them the
form the canal should take. Should it
be a 14-foot canal for canalboats Of
large size, or a 20-foot ship canal or
30-foot ocean steamer proposition, so
that great ocean freighters might load
at lake ports and unload in Europe?
All the questions have now been an
swered. For two years the Georgian
Bay Canal Commission of Canada has
been studying every phase of the en-
terprise and it is now preparing the
plans for the building of the canal.
1t is to be ship canal, providing
continuous and easily navigable water
way, with minimum depth of 81 feet,
from Georgian Bay to tidewater. The
cost is estimated at about $685. 100000
The fact is, there is very little canal
to build. Some long stretches in the
rivers must be canalized at large eX-
penses and about thirty miles of rocky
barrier and few mud and sawdust
banks must be removed, but the whole
cost of connecting the lake ports with
the ocean will scarcely exceed the ap-
preparation of New York state for the
improvement of the Erie canal.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier is reported as
ment of money is provided he will
have the work begun at once.
This will be the nearest approach to
an air line water route between the
lakes and the Atlantic for which nat
ure has provided facilities. 1t will
make water channel between the
500 canal and Montreal $50 miles
shorter than by way of the Welland
canal, the line of least resistance be-
tween the lakes and the ocean.
Not a dallor will have to be spent
on the route from the 500 canal, the
great gateway into Lake Superior to
the mouth of the French river, on the
hug the Canadian coast, passing
through the North Channel, handbook
ed because the long island of Great
Manitoulin Is a bulwark against the
waves of Lake Huron. Thus a deep
and protected channel from one to
fifteen miles wide is provided from the
500 to the French river, distance Of
100 miles.
This river drains the waters of Lake
Nipissing to Georgian Bay, the lake
forming the summit level 70 feet
above the bay. At low water the
French river carries some 10000 cubic
feet of water a second out of Lake
canalization on this river, with three
short rock cuts through the rapids.
East of the lake is the divide, which
is only about two miles wide and a
few feet above Nipissing. Then the de-
\ scent begins through two small lakes
and the Mattawa river, which drops
$50 feet into the broad bosom of the
stately Ottawa. This river, INSTRUCTED
by some stretches of rapids and banks
Of sawdust, is otherwise broad and
deep and will carry the lake fleet to
the st. Lawrence a little above Mont
real.
Producers and shippers in states of
the union bordering the lakes have
taken a great interest in this project
because it promises to give them the
shortest and cheapest water route to
the Atlantic. Not a few western rail-
road men are also in hearty sympathy
with the enterprise.
j. j. Hill Of the Great Northern rail.
road said while ago that the
Georgian Bay canal would be the most
popular enterprise that the Canadian
government would have to carry out
in many years. When 1t is completed,
he said, we shall see the grain bust
ness from north Of st. Louis and as
far west as grain grows in the Platte
valley taking this route to the sea.
Only 80 miles of actual canal would
have to be dug and for the remainder
of the distance existing water chan
nels could be used. with considerable
dredging here and there. He said that
the distance from Chicago or Duluth
to Montreal by this route would be a
li.tle shorter than the lake routes now
in use between these ports and Buff
falo.