Yvon Desloges

Behind the Scene of the Lachine Canal Landscape

The Lachine Canal was recognized as a Canadian National Historic Site because of its three major functions: waterway, provider of hydraulic power, and industrial aqueduct. These three characteristics enabled it to become Canada's major manufacturing center from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the next century. The waterway and the energy it provided attracted the most important industries in Montreal and in Canada as it also facilitated interior navigation. The Lachine Canal industrial complex became an incredibly diversified "industrial park." Between 1846 and 1945, its shores were to host between 600 and 800 different companies, representing all 17 manufacturing groups of the 1948 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). These phenomena were closely intertwined and were interdependent. The object of this paper is to give a few examples of this interdependence and to show that interdependence went beyond simply companies producing for one another.

Le canal de Lachine a été reconnu d'importance historique nationale au Canada à cause de ses trois fonctions principales : voie d'eau, pourvoyeur d'énergie hydraulique et aqueduc industriel, trois caractéristiques qui l'ont propulsé au rang de principal centre industriel manufacturier du pays entre le milieu du 19e siècle et la deuxième guerre mondiale. La voie d'eau et l'énergie qu'elle générait ont, d'une part, attiré sur les rives du canal les plus importantes industries de Montréal et du Canada et, d'autre part, conduit à l'amélioration de la navigation intérieure. Le complexe industriel du canal de Lachine est devenu au fil des ans un «parc industriel» très diversifié puisque, entre 1846 et 1945, on recense entre 600 et 800 différentes entreprises qui représentent les 17 groupes de production de la Standard Industrial Classification. Ces phénomènes sont étroitement reliés et même interdépendants et cette interdépendance va au-delà du simple fait de produire l'un pour l'autre chez les manufacturiers.

Factors of Montreal and Canadian Industrialization

From an economy primarily based on commerce and especially the fur trade in the 18th century, Montreal became by the second half of the 19th century an industrial metropolis. Different factors explain this turnabout in Montreal's evolution. Between 1815 and 1850 Montreal received a fair share of migrating Irishmen, as well as British and Americans, thus providing the region with a large labor force, expanding its local and regional markets, and enabling the city to become the largest Canadian urban area. Dredging of the St. Lawrence River allowed Montreal to surpass Quebec City as the major port of interior Canada; Montreal controlled the exports of wheat and lumber coming from its hinterland and expanded its markets further. The capital accumulated during this period was in good part invested in a banking system that seized the opportunity offered by the nascent industries. The repeal in 1846 of the Corn Laws, which curbed agricultural exports to Great Britain, further prompted interest in industrial ventures in Montreal, especially since the first hydraulic lots were put up for rent by the Lachine Canal authorities that same year. Furthermore the establishment of the Grand Trunk railway yards and the opening of Victoria Bridge in the 1850s enhanced Montreal's position as a hub for exterior trade.¹

Although other factors could also be included with the above, such as the development of technology, it was mainly the development of transportation and communications—and especially the St. Lawrence River system—that allowed Montreal's capitalists to expand towards new markets, like developing Ontario [or Upper Canada] and even those areas around the Great Lakes on the American side of the border. From 1850 until World War II the history of industrialization in Canada centers around Montreal's industrialization, and Montreal's industrialization centers around the Lachine Canal industrial complex.²

The Canal's Construction: A Matter of Context

As soon as the French started exploring the St. Lawrence river upstream of the island of Montreal, they faced a major problem.³ A series of rapids with a total fall of 45 feet (14 m) stopped progress upstream. No boat could pass the rapids. The geographic hindrance represented by the Lachine Rapids made Montreal a nodal point of marine shipping, what is termed a breaking point in bulk transport.⁴ Shippers had no other choice but to unload cargo at the port of Montreal and transport it by land all the way to Lachine, a distance of some 8 or 9 miles (14 km), and then reload the cargo on vessels above the rapids for shipment further upstream. Only a canal would allow shippers to circumvent the falls (figure 1).

Figure 1. Showing the position of the rapids and the Lachine Canal's route. The canal runs from the city of Lachine to the west and extends some 9 miles (14 km) to Montreal harbor. The rapids represent roughly a 45-foot drop over 6 miles (10 km). Cargo had to be shipped by land all the way up to Lachine, meaning lost time and additional costs to send cargo to the newly settled lands of Ontario (or Upper Canada). Figure by Jean-François Caron.

Upon its inauguration in 1825, the Lachine Canal materialized a dream 150 years old. The first proposal to build a canal on the southern portion of the island of Montreal had come in 1670. It would be another 20 years before Sulpician father Dollier de Casson would start deepening little River Saint-Pierre. His death in 1701, along with technical difficulties, ended the project.⁵ Casson not only wanted to allow boats to bypass the Lachine Rapids by canal but also wanted to use the same canal to provide the Sulpician fathers' flour mills with direct waterpower. As early as the 17th century, promoters of the canal wanted it to offer a waterway and energy.

The Lachine Canal's completion at the beginning of the 19th century was influenced by a favorable context in both Great Britain and the U.S., although in the North American context, it would be more appropriate to use the term competition. In Great Britain, the Worsley Canal, inaugurated in 1761, was the first step in the construction of a canal system, an undertaking that would culminate during the Napoleonic wars with the construction of some 55 canals.⁶ America did not at first succumb to the British canal mania, but it would also have its canal era, initiated by the construction of the Erie Canal. Undertaken in 1817, this barge canal would be finished in 1825. Its goal: to divert commerce from the newly settled lands of the Midwest towards the Hudson River and New York.⁷

Montreal merchants shared this same goal as they wished to export crops and raw materials originating from what was soon to become Ontario and from the American states to the British imperial market. It was in this context that the Lachine Canal opened but with a difference: the British military, influenced by their experience in the war of 1812, partly financed this project and others on the St Lawrence in return for free passage for war vessels.⁸ Its integration into a network of Canadian navigation canals constructed partly for military purposes made the Lachine Canal one of the links on the longest inland water corridor in the world.

With traffic growing sevenfold between its opening in 1825 and 1840, canal administrators concluded that the waterway was overcrowded and that boats were too slow getting through the seven locks between Montreal and Lachine.⁹ The canal had to be widened, and the number of locks cut down. In so doing, however, why not imitate the American complexes at Lowell, Lawrence, and elsewhere and create cheap hydraulic energy and attract industrialists to Montreal? The first canal enlargement took place between 1843 and 1848, creating three hydraulic energy sites around the three main pairs of locks in the Montreal portion of the canal. At the same time, the total number of locks was reduced to five, which also illustrates the commercial preoccupation behind the undertaking. The hydraulic lots at the first site were put up for rent directly by the government, while the other two sites were leased to private entrepreneurs who, in turn, sublet the hydraulic lots they had prepared.¹⁰ The canal came to be nicknamed "Little Lowell."¹¹ Industrialists, always in quest of additional power, overconsumed water so that conflicts arose between the canal's two major functions. Everyone lacked sufficient water. Navigators complained about shoals and current speed, whereas industrialists wanted more energy and a faster current and ... more water!¹²

In 1870, a board of inquiry recommended a second enlargement of the canal, even though canals had been giving way to railway transportation since the 1850s in Britain and the U.S.¹³ The recommendation gained support a few years later as the recently created Canadian government (the Canadian Confederation dates back to 1867) tried to cope with the severe economic crisis of 1874 by trying to create a domestic market for Nova Scotian coal in Ontario and one for Ontario's products either in Eastern Canada or abroad. As a result, the Lachine Canal was enlarged a second time between 1874 and 1883.¹⁴

A Quick Tour of the Canal

The canal was a meeting point between high seas vessels and interior navigation, and its installations reflect this as reaches 1 and 2 demonstrate (figure 2). These sections, at the junction of Montreal's harbor and the canal, are deeper. One section is very wide to act as a turning basin for seagoing vessels. Other basins, however, also accommodated high seas vessels. Grain elevators were concentrated alongside such basins, two of them being known as the Flour Basins. Four other basins were designed to receive interior navigation boats. Situated west of Wellington Bridge, they were shallower by 3 feet (1.5 m) because of the smaller size of interior boats and their more limited capacities.

Figure 2. Montreal entrance to the canal, also known as the terminal zone, from reach no. 1 to Wellington Street. The 16-foot-deep terminal zone was the only portion of the canal where oceangoing vessels were able to dock. Within this zone were a number of secondary basins. The obtuse angle produced by the change in direction of the canal created the turning basin, where ocean-bound ships turned around. The interior navigation basins (only 14.5 ft. deep) were located west of the terminal zone. Partly shown are the Grand Trunk yards and the location of Victoria Bridge (upper right) crossing the St. Lawrence River. The first hydraulic lots rented in 1846 were on the south shore of reach no. 2. Original photograph from the National Air Photo Library, Natural Resources Canada, A-12584-46, 1950.

The first hydraulic lots offered for lease were situated on the south shore of reach no. 2 where there is a fall of 22 to 24 feet (6.8 to 7.4 m) between the canal and the St. Lawrence River.¹⁵ The second series of hydraulic lots were situated approximately 1 mile (1.5 km) away on both the north and south shores of Lock St. Gabriel. Here was the only area where hydraulic lots were situated on both shores. The third hydraulic site was still a little further west at Côte St. Paul, situated approximately halfway through the canal. These last two sites had falls of around 8.5 feet (3 m).¹⁶ Beyond Côte St. Paul the reach covered nearly 4.5 miles (7 km) (figure 3).

Figure 3. The Lachine Canal National Historic Site boundaries, showing the position of the different locks and municipalities bordering the canal. Reach no. 2 ran from lock no. 2 in the harbor all the way down to St. Gabriel lock [position 2], a distance of approximately a mile (2 km). Associated with this reach was Griffintown (A), a suburb that initially was home to the first Irishmen arriving in Montreal. The next reach extended from St. Gabriel to Côte St. Paul [position 3], a distance of 3 km. Associated with this reach were the municipalities of Ste. Cunegonde (C) and St. Henri (D) on the north shore and Point St. Charles (B) on the south shore. The last reach extended from Côte St. Paul all the way to Lachine [position 4], a distance of some 7 km. It was associated with the municipality of Côte St. Paul (E) and the cities of LaSalle and St. Pierre, which developed mostly after 1910. Drawing done by Christiane Hébert, Parks Canada, Québec Service Centre.

Montreal, a Reservoir of Manpower

Through its triple role as a generator of hydraulic energy, industrial aqueduct, and a part of a major navigation network, the Lachine attracted numerous industries on its shores. Such a heavy industrial presence attracted rural populations who left the province's countryside and settled in Montreal, notwithstanding the waves of foreign immigrants arriving in Montreal during the 19th century and at the beginning of the next century.¹⁷

As Table 1 shows, population grew fivefold in Canada between 1851 and 1941, while the relative importance of Quebec's population was in constant decline.¹⁸ In 1900, Montreal accounted for 40 percent of the total urban population of the Province of Quebec. It was the metropolis of Canada, its population far surpassing that of other cities. In 1921, Toronto represented 35 percent of Ontario's urban population, whereas Montreal represented 54 percent of Quebec province's urban population. Thus urbanization in the Province of Quebec was highly concentrated in Montreal, and this situation had a corollary: the Lachine Canal corridor was in part responsible for this population growth, at least in the southwest part of the island. Between 1871 and 1911, the population of the municipalities and wards bordering the canal grew from 25,000 to more than 122,000. This represented 17 and 22 percent of the total population of the island of Montreal at these same dates. Thus Montreal had an abundant pool of cheap manpower to offer industries locating along the Lachine Canal.

Table 1. Population of Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and Montreal, 1851–1941
Year	Canada	Quebec		Ontario		Montreal
Year	Total	Total	% Canada	Total	% Canada	Total	% Canada	% Quebec
1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 191l 1921 1931 1941	2,436,000 3,220,000 3,689,000 4,325,000 4,833,000 5,371,000 7,207,000 8,788,000 10,376,000 11,507,000	890,261 1,111,566 1,191,516 1,359,027 1,488,535 1,648,898 2,005,776 2,360,510 2,874,662 3,331,882	36.54% 34.51% 32.30% 31.42% 30.80% 30.70% 27.83% 26.86% 27.70% 28.96%	952,004 1,396,091 1,620,851 1,926,922 2,114,321 2,182,947 2,527,292 2,933,662 3,431,683 3,787,655	39.08% 43.35% 43.93% 44.56% 43.75% 40.64% 35.07% 33.38% 33.07% 32.92%	57,715 90,323 107,225 140,747 216,650 267,730 467,986 721,184 818,577 903,007	2.36% 2.80% 2.90% 3.25% 4.40% 4.98% 6.49% 8.20% 7.89% 7.84%	6.48% 8.12% 9.00% 10.36% 14.55% 16.24% 23.33% 30.55% 28.47% 27.10%

Montreal: Turntable for Continental Transportation

As early as the 1830s Montreal's merchants persuaded the city government to establish a harbor commission to improve the harbor. One of its first presidents would be John Young, one of the lessees of hydraulic lots at St. Gabriel.¹⁹ Under Young's presidency the river channel was deepened from 12.5 feet to 16 feet in shallow Lac St. Pierre, allowing bigger boats to come to Montreal. As a result, the number of overseas ships visiting Montreal tripled from 258 in 1851 to 731 in 1874, while tonnage grew sixfold.²⁰

Rail transportation reinforced Montreal's pivotal location. In 1855 the Grand Trunk Railway established its workshops at nearby Point St. Charles, halfway between Toronto and Portland (Maine), since the portion of its line between Montreal and Portland offered a winter link to the seaboard when the St. Lawrence was shut down to navigation.²¹ By 1886, the Canadian Pacific Railway would also connect Montreal to Western Canada.²² Added to the fact that the Lachine Canal was the link between ocean and interior navigation, this combination made the Lachine Canal the nexus of transportation in interior Canada.

Manufacturing Production in Canada

What was produced and shipped away or abroad? According to Table 2, food and beverage production came to be Canada's and Montreal's leading manufacturing sector.²³ This sector comprised, along with wood and iron and steel production, the top-three manufacturing sectors in Canada. In 1871 these three manufacturing sectors accounted for 60 percent of the total Canadian manufacturing production; in 1939, they still accounted for 40 percent. No other manufacturing sector ever accounted for more than 10 percent, except for leather production. It has to be noted that leather production decreased steadily from 1870 to 1940, declining from 12 to 2 percent of Canadian manufacturing output. The garment industry rose during the period from 6 to 10 percent, while transportation and textile manufacturing maintained their position between 4 and 6 percent. Textiles profited by the National Policy, which enforced tariffs upon imports, while the transport sector took advantage of railway construction and growing urbanization, which prompted the demand for trams. Papermaking showed remarkable progress as of 1900 because of technological advances that enabled mass production. Tobacco production was mainly concentrated in the province of Quebec. Nonferrous metal manufacturing progressed slightly, while the production of chemical products seems to have been sparked by World War I.²⁴

Table 2. Progress of Manufacturing Sectors in Canada, 1870–1939
Rank	Manufacturing Group	1870	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17	Food and beverages Wood Iron and steel Garment Transportation Leather Textiles Printing Paper Nonferrous metals Chemicals products Nonmetallic minerals Miscellaneous Coal and petroleum Tobacco Electrical appliances Rubber	4 1 2 5 6 3 7 9 15 14 9 8 11 13 12 17 16	3 1 2 5 6 4 7 9 15 12 10 8 11 13 14 17 16	1 2 3 4 7 5 6 8 13 10 11 9 12 15 14 17 16	2 1 4 3 7 5 6 8 9 10 12 11 14 15 13 16 17	2 1 2 4 5 6 7 10 9 8 11 11 14 16 13 15 17	1 3 2 5 4 9 7 8 6 11 10 12 14 14 17 16 13	1 3 2 5 4 13 8 7 6 9 10 12 16 14 17 11 15	1 4 9 3 5 11 8 9 6 7 10 13 17 14 15 12 16

At one point or another between 1846 and 1945 on the shores of the Lachine Canal, one or more companies manufactured one or more products associated with all of these industrial sectors. It is interesting to consider that some areas of production like wood, leather, and nonferrous metals waned not only in Canada but also in Montreal and especially alongshore of the canal. Although new manufacturing sectors appeared along the canal, like electrical appliances, other new industries, like aluminum, did not. There is evidence of papermaking at St. Gabriel but only on a limited scale.²⁵

The Lachine Canal was Montreal's most important manufacturing complex and Montreal Canada's most important manufacturing center.²⁶ As Table 3 demonstrates, between 1880 and 1940, Lachine Canal industrial plants hired an average of almost 15 percent of all Canadian manufacturing employees, paid them almost the same proportion of all salaries paid to Canadian manufacturing workers, had an average of almost 12 percent of all the capital invested in the Canadian manufacturing sector, and, finally, produced yearly around 15 percent of all the manufactured goods in the country.²⁷

Table 3. Relative Importance of the Lachine Plants in Regard to Canadian Manufacturing Plants, 1880–1940
Years	Industrial Plants	No. of Employees	Salaries Paid	Invested Capital	Gross Production Value
1880 1890 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940	3.16% 2.50% 6.65% 6.34% 5.81% 5.13% 6.68% 7.55% 7.78% 9.40% 10.05%	13.80% 11.33% 15.16% 14.26% 13.77% 17.30% 16.84% 17.00% 16.04% 16.82% 16.42%	15.76% 14.17% 23.66% 15.18% 14.99% 16.80% 16.47% 16.99% 16.71% 15.95% 16.13%	20.31% 16.08% 15.29% 12.92% 11.46% 15.31% 14.10% 13.97% 10.07% 9.04% 12.84%	17.61% 15.62% 16.86% 16.35% 15.11% 17.52% 15.15% 15.94% 16.16% 14.46% 14.99%

Lachine Canal Complex: Manufacturing Production

From the outset, manufacturing on the shores of the Lachine included both heavy and light industries.²⁸ Industrial production evolved around three major poles: iron and steel production of all kinds, rolling stock manufacturing, and, last but not least, carbochemistry. A good number of satellite manufacturers would gravitate to the fringes of the canal corridor to serve these three major industrial sectors and would profit by them.

Although hydraulic energy was associated in 1882 with 10 production sectors, iron and steel production far surpassed all others. Around 40 percent of the companies established on the canal's shores at that period were associated with this area of production.²⁹ Each hydraulic site along the canal had distinct characteristics. For instance, reach no. 2 was home to nail producers and various foundries, notably W. P. Bartley and Peck and Benny—the first would eventually be integrated in the Stelco family. St. Gabriel was home to Caledonia Iron Works, specializing in rolling stock products. Production at the Côte St. Paul dealt mostly with hardware.³⁰ At the beginning of World War II, companies associated with iron and steel production still dominated the landscape, but they now composed only one-fourth of all companies.³¹

As the years passed, industries multiplied, each requiring more and more water, and existing hydraulic lots proved insufficient. Industrialists soon had to look for another source of energy, which coal provided. The establishment of the Grand Trunk Railway at Point St. Charles between the river and the canal (figure 2) provided a means by which wholesalers could import coal from three different sources, thus giving Montreal a competitive advantage over other Canadian locations. Coal in Montreal came from Nova Scotia and from Ohio and Pennsylvania, but it also came from Great Britain in the form of ballast on ships.³² Here again Montreal's position as a hub is clear, and the canal played an important role because coal was one of the three main commodities shipped through its locks, either down- or upstream.³³ Thus by the 1880s steam had become the predominant source of energy. No wonder it was nicknamed Smoky Valley!

The Grand Trunk and its 20th-century counterpart, the Canadian National Railways, needed wheels, rails, locomotives, and cars (both passenger and freight), only to mention basic needs. This attracted to the canal corridor companies such as Canada Switch and Spring, Caledonia Iron Works, and later Canada Car and Foundry, which would become Canada's second largest producer of rolling stock.³⁴ The fallout from the railway industry was not limited to this. Dominion Bridge was established at Lachine and produced railway and road bridges [notably all those crossing the canal] as railroads had to overcome rivers and ravines (figure 4).³⁵

Figure 4. This drawbridge was built in 1912 from a design created by the Strauss Co. of Chicago and licensed to Dominion Bridge of Lachine. The counterweight was activated by two electric motors. This was the only bridge of this type crossing the canal, at least until the 1960s. All the other bridges were Howe truss bridges. "Jackknife Bridge-Lachine Canal," National Archives of Canada, Merrilees Collection, PA 202368, undated.

The Montreal Rolling Mills (soon to be Stelco)³⁶ produced iron plates and later all sorts of iron and steel products ranging from tubes to nails, whereas any of the 29 different nail companies could furnish any kind of nail from thumb nails to cover passenger seats all the way to spikes to fix the rails. In the 19th century, the canal's nail factories at one point produced up to 90 percent of the total Canadian production of nails.³⁷

Moreover, bridges and locomotives rust, so Sherwin-Williams planted its first Canadian paint factory alongside the canal, more interested initially in industrial clients than in domestic, having bought beforehand the Canada Paint Co. at St. Gabriel.³⁸ Moreover, Dominion Bridge served not only the canal corridor's railroads but also carried out contracts at various times with other Lachine corridor enterprises, including Montreal Light, Heat and Power, Canada Malting, Northern Electric, Consumers' Gas, and Canada Sugar (Redpath), to name but a few, and it bought its rivets and other small objects from small foundries in the vicinity of the canal, like Clendinneng's (figure 5).³⁹

Figure 5. Pulverizer to crush sugarcane built by the Dominion Bridge Company for the Canada Sugar Company's plant on the Lachine Canal. This photograph demonstrates the close links between industries in the Lachine Canal industrial complex. "Pulverizers made by Dominion Bridge for the Canada Sugar Company," National Archives of Canada, Dominion Bridge Company Collection, PA 109073, 1935.

Another part of the Lachine Canal story involves railway and boat passengers, as crews and passengers alike had to nourish themselves. Railways and navigation companies could buy their sugar from Redpath's and their meats from Laing or Wilsil, later to be known as Canada Packers.⁴⁰ These meat processors were established close to the Montreal terminal; they were ready to export through the nearby basins and could readily receive their cattle by train as the Grand Trunk had a siding leading to the Montreal Stockyards.⁴¹ A hotel would even accommodate cattle people on the premises.⁴² This sector of the Lachine Canal corridor was known as Little Chicago (figure 2).⁴³ In the 1930s animal carcasses produced in this sector would be recycled and sent upstream, pollution and odors obliging, where they would be turned into fertilizers of all kinds by Nutrite, a subsidiary of Canada Packers.⁴⁴ This is not to mention the bread made out of Ogilvie and Robin Hood flours. At one time, Ogilvie owned five flour mills alongside the canal.⁴⁵ As one can observe, there was a critical mass of companies within the industrial complex, which meant that companies were producing for one another.

In another area, such as carbochemistry, examples of interdependence are verifiable but not as evident. The canal was home to four different gas plants. Obviously, they produced gas from coal and obtained coke from a second process. Before it started building its plant in the 20th century, the LaSalle Coke Co. assessed its potential market by considering the various foundries and companies alongside the canal, including Simmons, the mattress company.⁴⁶ Many other coal byproducts came to be used by Lachine Canal companies. For example, Dominion Tar (known commercially as Domtar) would build its building products plant along the canal in LaSalle, and coal tar was also used to produce synthetic textile dyes.⁴⁷ Of course, the future Dominion Textile company had a coloring and whitening plant on the canal's shore (first known as The Colonial Bleaching Company).⁴⁸ Yet the Dominion Textile plant sold its waste fibers to Dominion Wadding, which produced wadding for cushions and for furniture makers established around St. Gabriel lock. In the 20th century, Domtex would produce cotton casings for Northern Electric's electrical wires.⁴⁹ Nutrite also depended on the Montreal Coke and Mfg. Co. in LaSalle (known commercially as LaSalle Coke) for its ammonia sulfate (figure 6).⁵⁰ The ramifications are numerous and, sometimes, unforeseen.

Figure 6. LaSalle Gas and Coke Co. plant of Montreal Light, Heat and Power Consolidated on the Lachine Canal in 1930. This plant produced gas and all its byproducts, but it also produced electricity as the thermal station (lower left) indicates. This photograph shows the scale of the last of the four gas plants that went into production alongshore. Today, nothing remains of this plant except for the conveyor tower used to unload the boats. "Montreal Light, Heat and Power Consolidated/La Salle Gas," Hydro-Québec archives, Montreal Light, Heat and Power Consolidated collection (F9), F9/700763, 1930.

This crisscrossing from one company to another shows the great diversity of production on the canal's shores. Interdependence among the various industries was evident as they produced for one another. But this aspect had a corollary: Lachine industries did not need huge warehouses in which to keep the components needed for their production, especially after truck transportation became widespread.

These companies were also Montreal's most important in magnitude. On the eve of World War II, Lachine Canal companies hired, on an average, 280 workers each, while all the other companies on the rest of the island of Montreal hired no more than 45 persons each. As for the value of Lachine industrial products between 1846 and 1945, it varied usually from 87 to 99 percent of the total production of the manufacturing sector on the island of Montreal; for the entire province of Quebec, these numbers represented 47 to 63 percent of the total industrial production.⁵¹

Industry and Navigation

However, there is a little more to add before the story is complete. The Lachine Canal's history also encompasses maritime transportation companies, for many Lachine Canal industrialists were either shareholders, members of the board, or simply managers of various shipping companies. Although a history of inland navigation and merchant marine is still lacking, it is possible to give a few indications on the subject.

Between 1845 and 1945 more than 50 different navigation companies either rented wharves or storage space alongside the canal.⁵² This is but a fraction of all the shipping companies transiting through the canal. Nonetheless, within this group one finds some of the important companies associated with interior navigation in Canada. Among these figure Tree Line Navigation, the Montreal Transportation Company, and the Société de Navigation du Richelieu. The latter two eventually became part of the Canada Steamship Lines.⁵³ All these transportation companies had their wharfing space or storage on the Lachine.

The Montreal Transportation Company, one of the future components of Canada Steamship Lines, had its homeport on the Lachine Canal. Created in 1868, it had among its shareholders Hugh McLennan, one of the first lessees of hydraulic lots on reach no. 2. McLennan operated a grain elevator, but he would also become president of the Montreal Warehousing Co. Specializing in grain and flour handling, this company had a warehouse on both shores of the canal, one beside the flour basins, the other near Little Chicago (figure 2). McLennan was associated with Jean-Baptiste Auger, a shipbuilder whose naval yard was situated a little upstream of St. Gabriel. One of the board members of the Montreal Transportation Co. was William Watson Ogilvie,⁵⁴ owner of Ogilvie Flour Mills, the most important miller of the British Empire who eventually owned four different flour mills on the canal, besides his Glenora Mills at St. Gabriel. Montreal Transportation had bought the entire barge fleet of the Chaffey Bros in Kingston as, prior to 1904, grain had to be trans-shipped onto barges in Kingston (figure 7).⁵⁵ Thus during the 1890s the Montreal Transportation Company carried in its 29 barges two-thirds of the grain shipped by boat to Montreal. The Montreal Transportation Co. would be purchased by Canada Steamship Lines in 1920. Ten years later, Ogilvie Flour Mills would buy the Tree Line Navigation and its 13 boats to transport its own grain.

Figure 7. Barges transporting grain on the Lachine Canal in 1903. Lachine Canal barges in this period were often converted sailboats. Because these vessels had often been fully paid for by the time of conversion, they were very productive and efficient investments. "Barges Towed on the Lachine Canal, 1903," National Archives of Canada, Andrew Merrilees collection, PA 202565, 1903.

The first 10 years of the 20th century were associated with the birth of conglomerates, a trend the companies of the canal complex would not escape. Among the emerging conglomerates in the area were Dominion Textile, Canada Car and Foundry, and the Steel Company of Canada, commercially known as Stelco.⁵⁶ Lachine-related maritime operations were no exception to this as Canada Steamship Lines emerged in 1913 out of the merger of 10 different companies, among which was the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation, itself formed from a marriage in 1875 between the Compagnie du Richelieu and the Canadian Navigation Company, property of Sir Hugh Allan. The Richelieu and Ontario had very close ties with the Grand Trunk Railway, while the Inland Navigation Company had ties with the Steel Company of Canada, which owned four different plants alongside the canal. Furthermore in the 1920s, Canada Steamship Lines would buy the George Hall Corporation of Ogdensburg, the Hall Coal Company of Montreal, and also Century Coal, three companies associated with the coal transportation business that had wharves on the Lachine Canal.

Navigation and Naval Construction

Maritime transportation bears yet another indicator: shipbuilding. Already the example of the Montreal Transportation Co. alluded to shipbuilder Jean-Baptiste Auger. The canal shores were home to up to seven different naval yards, the most important being Augustin Cantin's Canada Marine Works, which was located in the vicinity of St. Gabriel lock and that built boats, notably for the Société de navigation du Richelieu. Cantin's yard was Montreal's most prominent shipyard in the 19th century (figure 8).⁵⁷ However Cantin specialized in wooden boats and, from 1875 on, he would build mostly tugs since he was incapable of competing with Ontario naval yards.⁵⁸ Across from his premises, he succeeded in attracting Consumers Cordage, which fabricated all kinds of ropes. Among the other yards, one has to name the Montreal Dry Docks, which took over the Tate Brothers dry dock and which was, in turn, swallowed by Canadian Vickers in 1928. Situated on reach no. 2 just south of Wellington basin (figure 2), oceangoing boats could thus be repaired. Finally, Dominion Bridge also built steel-hull boats during both world wars. However, even Ontario shipyards would experience problems competing with British shipyards as major Canadian shipping companies would mostly buy British steel-hulled boats throughout the first part of the 20th century.⁵⁹

Figure 8. The Cultivateur in the harbor of Montreal around 1875. A wooden side-wheel vessel, 154 feet long by 23 feet wide, with a draught of 7 feet, the Cultivateur had been built in Augustin Cantin's Canada Marine Works in 1855. It could easily enter the enlarged canal's locks, which were 200 feet long and 45 feet wide. "River Boats, Montreal," by Alexander Henderson, John A. Brooke Collection, National Archives of Canada, C 004850, c. 1875.

Pollution and Public Health Issues

Such a heavy industrial presence with its light and heavy production sectors had an important impact on the environment. Already the nickname Smoky Valley points to obscured skies. The animal carcasses being transferred upstream to be processed into fertilizers also denotes pollution issues. The municipality of Côte St. Paul banned from its jurisdiction and expropriated between 1889 and 1892 all slaughtering houses and soap and candle factories. As early as 1863, what was then termed "petroleum" products could no longer be stored downstream of St. Henri (figure 3), so that both Imperial Oil and Sun Oil built their tanks on the opposite shore of this municipality at the end of the 19th century.

Furthermore, some of the leases signed between canal authorities and companies do seem to contain what would be termed "environmental clauses," especially in the case of sawmills and slaughtering houses. In the first case, these companies were forbidden to wash back sawdust into the canal. In this case, the clause was only inserted to prevent clogging the numerous water intakes downstream, not for environmental reasons. In the Montreal stockyards' leases, however, the environmental clause seemed to weigh more. The lease running from 1898 to 1928, for example, made specific reference to "the quality of water," whereas previous leases only mentioned that wastewater could return to the canal as long as it was "not contaminated." Yet no inspectors to enforce any legislation or to investigate any "accidental" spills were among the 125 or more employees attached to canal services at the turn of the 20th century.⁶⁰

Finally, even though in some cases there is no direct relationship, it should be noted that the municipalities and the wards bordering the canal had among the highest infant death rates in the world, one-third of the newborns dying before they reached the age of one. This area was also home of the highest rates of tuberculosis, second cause of deaths in the city of Montreal. In the case of tuberculosis, working conditions had a direct relationship. Ventilation in textile and flour mills, to name only these, was lacking, and dust entered the lungs. This public health question would improve during the 20th century as the government would legislate improved sanitation and general working conditions.⁶¹

Conclusion

The Lachine Canal linked waterway and industry because the combination of waterfalls, water supply, and water navigation at this site attracted industry. The Lachine Canal linked industrialists and navigation as industrialists either owned or invested in shipping companies. The availability of water and land, plus transport facilities (both shipping and rail), the abundance of manpower, and the financial facilities of the city attracted industrialists to the shores of the canal. Once established, Lachine industries often manufactured for one another. Since Montreal was the metropolis of Canada, they also profited by an abundant local and regional market for their products. There were three major industrial sectors around which the manufacturing companies of the Lachine complex revolved: iron and steel production, rolling stock, and carbochemistry. Even though these three major sectors are associated with heavy industry, from the outset both light and heavy industries cohabited.

One could even argue that the establishment of the Grand Trunk at Pointe St. Charles led to a certain spatial arrangement of production, at least in the terminal zone of the canal, as suppliers such as Caledonia Iron Works, Canadian Switch and Spring, and even the coal suppliers clustered on the periphery of the workshops and yards. Nevertheless, lack of space, the multiplication of railway sidings, and, in some cases, the need for water would lead to a reorganization of the landscape at the end of the 19th century and to a westerly expansion of the industrial corridor.⁶² Yet very little has been said about the link between industrialization and the urbanization of the southwest portion of the island of Montreal, another indicator of this rich history.

Could the Lachine Canal complex be compared with other industrial complexes in Canada or the United States? A comparison with other industrial complexes associated with canals is very limited as most of the canals in the United States were out of use by the end of the 19th century, while direct waterpower was still used by Lachine industries as late as the 1960s.⁶³ As for complexes associated with canals in Canada, it would seem fair to say that the only worthwhile comparison would be with the Welland Canal. Yet leases signed for the use of waterpower were limited; population numbers in the canal communities were low, St. Catharines being the most developed in 1911 with a population of 12,500, approximately 1/37th the size of Montreal. As in the case of Montreal, the Welland communities profited by the establishment of railways, but by the end of the 19th century, these same railways were diverting production to bigger urban areas such as Hamilton or Toronto.⁶⁴ Finally the Lachine complex could be compared to other urban industrial complexes, which was done for Canada prior to submitting the Lachine to the Canadian Historic Sites and Monuments Board. It will come as no surprise that the Lachine complex, even though only half of its components were considered, was still the most important prewar industrial complex still standing in Canada.⁶⁵ This conclusion was based on a study of 267 different industrial complexes located in 60 cities throughout Canada and explains why the Lachine Canal is considered a Canadian National Historic Site.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the three anonymous referees who kindly consented to read and commented on a preliminary version of this paper and also Terry Reynolds for his patience, for his editing of the text, and for polishing the English.

Notes

^1. For an overview of Montreal as a manufacturing center, see Robert Lewis, Manufacturing Montreal: The Making of an Industrial Landscape, 1850 to 1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2000). Lewis's study deals with the development of the three major manufacturing areas of Montreal; his approach to the development of industrial complexes relies mostly upon the availability of land, although the question is more complex than solely the question of availability of land. See also Lyne Bernier-Morel, Yvon Desloges, Claude Piché, and Gisèle Piedalue, "Le canal de Lachine et ses usines: témoins de l'industrialisation canadienne," report submitted to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Ottawa, 1996, 125 pp.

^2. As W. Kilbourn said as early as 1960, "if industrial history has a birthplace, then modern Canadian industrial history was born on the shores of Lachine canal in 1846." See W. Kilbourn, The Elements Combined. A History of the Steel Company of Canada (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Co, 1960), 9. See also Gerald Joseph Jacob Tulchinsky, The River Barons: Montreal Businessmen and the Growth of Industry and Transportation, 1837–1853 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1977), 230.

^3. For an overview of the canal's history and functions, see Yvon Desloges and Alain Gelly, The Lachine Canal: Riding the Waves of Industrial and Urban Development, 1860–1950 (Sillery, Québec: Septentrion, 2002), originally published in French as Le canal de Lachine, du tumulte des flots à l'essor industriel et urbain, 1860–1950.

^4. On the St. Lawrence, see Jean-Claude Lasserre, Le Saint-Laurent, grande porte de l'Amérique (LaSalle, Québec: Hurtubise HMH, Cahiers du Québec, collection géographie, 1980), especially chapters VI and VII.

^5. Jacques Mathieu, "Dollier de Casson, François," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1969).

^6. The most prominent author on English canals is Charles Hadfield. Among his publications, one could point to British Canals, An Illustrated History, 8th ed. (Vancouver: David & Charles, 1992); "Canals: Inland Waterways of the British Isles" in A History of Technology, vol. 4, ed. Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall, and Trevor I. Williams (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 563–73; and The Canal Age (London, David Charles, 1981).

^7. On American canals see Ronald E. Shaw, Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790–1860 (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1990). See also Ronald E. Shaw, Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792–1854 (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1966); and Carol Sherif, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817–1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996).

^8. Gerald Joseph Jacob Tulchinsky, "The Construction of the First Lachine Canal, 1815–1826," (master's thesis, McGill University, 1960), 64.

^9. Isabelle Contant, "Évolution du trafic du canal de Lachine de 1825 à 1873" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1983), 35–38.

^10. John Willis, "The Process of Hydraulic Industrialization on the Lachine Canal, 1840–1880: Origins, Rise, and Fall" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1987), 1:173–85.

^11. Larry McNally, "Water Power on the Lachine Canal 1846–1900" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1982), 94–96.

^12. Larry McNally, "The Relationship between Transportation and Water-Power on the Lachine Canal in the Nineteenth Century" in Critical Issues in the History of Canadian Science, Technology and Medecine/Problèmes cruciaux de l'histoire de la science, de la technologie et de la médecine au Canada, ed Richard A. Jarrell and Arnold E. Roos (Thornhill and Ottawa: HSTC Publications, 1981), 76–88.

^13. Hadfield, British Canals, 251–59 (see n. 6), and Shaw, Canals for a Nation, 235 (see n. 7).

^14. John P. Heisler, The Canals of Canada (Ottawa: Dept. of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History, no. 8, 1973), 120–29.

^15. The difference in height is due to variations between spring and fall levels of the river.

^16. McNally, "Water Power," 36–42, 103 (see n. 11), and Willis, "The Process," 456 (see n. 10).

^17. J.-C. Robert, Atlas historique de Montréal (Montréal: Art global, 1994), 86–117. See also J.-C. Robert, "Montréal 1821–1871, aspects de l'urbanisation" (doctoral diss., École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, 1977), 280.

^18. The numbers for this table come from Alain Gelly, L'importance du Montréal industriel dans l'ensemble canadien, (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1999), 74–75; Lewis, Manufacturing Montreal, 41, 144 (see n. 1); and Paul-André Linteau, Histoire de Montréal depuis la Confédération (Montreal: Boreal, 1992), 314.

^19. John Young would have three associates: Jacob Dewitt, a hardware wholesaler associated also with banking and member of Parliament; Ira Gould, an American born miller; and John Ostell, a deputy surveyor who had been associated with the Sulpician fathers, owners of the Island of Montreal and whose farm was in the vicinity.

^20. G. J. Tulchinsky and Brian J. Young, "John Young" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa < www.biographi.ca >.

^21. The opening of Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence in 1859, which nearly ran through the Great Trunk Shops in Point St. Charles, made this possible.

^22. David B. Hanna, "L'importance des infrastructures de transport," in Montréal métropole, 1880–1930, ed. Isabelle Gournay and France Vanlaethem (Montreal: CCA/Boréal, 1998), 49–61. Also published in English under the title Montreal Metropolis, 1880–1930.

^23. This table is taken from Felicity L. Leung, David McConnell, and Jean-Claude Parent, Manufacturing Locations in Canada: Identification and Evaluation of the Most Important Manufacturing Complexes (Ottawa: Environment Canada, Parks Services, 1990), 38.

^24. Bernier-Morel et al, "Le Canal de Lachine," 10–12 (see n. 1).

^25. Paper is still produced at St. Gabriel today. An explanation for this phenomenon lies in the production and distribution of new sources of energy, i.e., electricity, and particularly the distribution policy of the Montreal Light, Heat and Power company. See Desloges and Gelly, The Lachine Canal, 210 (n. 3). See also Alain Gelly's paper in this volume.

^26. Prior to 1900 the Canadian government defined an industrial plant as a manufactory that had five employees or more. This criterion later changed, eliminating a good number of what had previously been termed industrial plants. Gelly, "L'importance," 2: 24–31; appendix D, table 17: 548 (see n. 18).

^27. Yet nothing has been said about Montreal as a financial center and notably about the Bank of Montreal, which partly financed the construction of the canal but, most importantly, was behind a good number of industrial ventures.

^28. A compilation of all the industries that had established themselves along the canal in the middle of the 19th century exists. See, for instance, Bernier-Morel et al., "Le canal de Lachine," 4–7 (n. 1), and also Alain Gelly, "De l'eau et de la fumée: forces motrices au canal de Lachine 1846–1940" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 2001), 33–111; and Gelly, "L'importance," 243 (n. 18). A complete list of Lachine industries for the period 1846–1945 has yet to be compiled. The extant collection of all signed Lachine leases includes more than 2,600 documents. How many single occurrences can be extracted from these leases is still a matter for investigation. So far 600 industries have been fully identified; others keep surfacing, so the final count will probably be around 800 or so.

^29. Bernier-Morel et al., "Le canal de Lachine," 22–35 (see n. 1).

^30. Hydraulic energy was associated with St. Gabriel installations until the 1920s. A few companies were still depending on direct waterpower at Côte St. Paul in the 1960s when their facilities were expropriated by the city of Montreal. McNally, "Water Power," 48–55 (see n. 11).

^31. Gelly, "L'importance," 195–239 (see n. 18).

^32. Gelly, "De l'eau," 308–69 (see n. 28).

^33. Contant, "Évolution du traffic" (see n. 9) and Normand Lafrenière, "Évolution du trafic sur le canal de Lachine et les canaux du St-Laurent de 1870 à 1920" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1985). These two reports indicate trends rather than yearly numbers as the statistics were gathered for 5-year intervals. A compilation of navigation statistics, including bulk freight, converted into standard measurements (short tons) was also drawn up for the 1840–1960 period from the yearly canal statistics published by the Canadian government's Department of Railways and Canals.

^34. Andrew Merrilees, The Railway Rolling Stock Industry in Canada: A History of 110 Years of Canadian Railway Car Building (Toronto: Andrew Merrilees Ltd. and Merrilees Equipment Ltd., 1963), unpaged; see chapters "Canada Car and Foundry," "Canadian Car and Foundry," and "Simplex Railways."

^35. Steve Dunwell, Vision in Steel 1882/1982: One Hundred Years of Growth, Dominion Bridge to AMCA International (Montreal: AMCA International, 1982).

^36. Kilbourn, Elements Combined, 63–78 (see n. 2). A glance through the Stelco archives makes researchers envious as the company has kept its archives from the beginning of production in 1846. Stelco at one time possessed four different complexes along the canal shores; only one is still producing today.

^37. McNally, "Water Power," 70 (see n. 11). One might wonder where the primary materials came from and rightfully so. In the 19th century, pig iron came mostly from Great Britain, but by the beginning of the 20th century, iron ore extracted from Lower Quebec's North Shore was smelted either in the province or in Nova Scotia and then shipped to Montreal. Not only was iron ore shipped through the canal, but Nova Scotian steel companies were also present in the canal's landscape.

^38. C. J. S. Warrington, A History of Chemistry in Canada (Toronto: Pitman & Sons, 1949), 338.

^39. Dominion Bridge Papers, vol. 29. National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), MG28, III, 100, Ottawa, Canada.

^40. The Canada Steamship Lines archives are held partly in Queen's University and partly in The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston. They cover The Société de Navigation du Richelieu as well as Canada Steamship Lines or the Montreal Transportation Company. Queen's University Archives, Canada Steamship Lines, Coll. 1004, Book 182, Meetings of Directors. The whole ledger deals with buying equipment and produce all along the shipping line from Toronto to Québec. In the Meeting of Directors transcripts for 27 February 1889, for instance, one finds a contract with the James Robertson Co. for white lead. Robertson had its plant on reach no. 2.

^41. Leung et al., Manufacturing Locations, 57 (see n. 23). All the meatpacking companies in this area were eventually linked by merger or purchase and became known as Canada Packers.

^42. Insurance plans give good data about the whole complex. Leases confirm these data.

^43. Montreal: The Metropolis of Canada: The Rise, Progress, and Development of Its Industries, Commerce, Transportation, Facilities, Resources, Banking, and Real Estate Values (Montreal: The Gazette Printing Co., 1907), 229.

^44. Canada Packers Limited, The Story of Our Products (Kingston: The Jackson Press, 1943), 219–22.

^45. George R. Stevens, Ogilvie in Canada, Pioneer Millers, 1801–1951 (Montreal: Ogilvie Flour Mills Co. 1952). An example of a buyout by Ogilvie's can be found in Deed of Sale by the Montreal Warehousing Co. to Ogilvie Flour Mills Co. Ltd., 2 September 1913, RG43, Railways and Canals Department, Series D.I.1, vol. 2555, file 32, NAC, Ottawa, Canada .

^46. Simmons was first known as the Alaska Feather and Down Co. Other possible customers included Caledonian Iron Works, Allis-Chalmers Bullock, Jenkins Bros., Canada Car and Foundry, Canada Axe, and Harvest Tools, to name but just a few. These were all companies established along the canal. Administrative reports of the Montreal Light, Heat and Power Co., F9/103–500/file 12345, 2 October 1917, Hydro-Québec Archives, Montreal, Quebec.

^47. Alain Gelly, "Production et fabrication industrielles; cinq productions associées au canal de Lachine" (MS, Québec, Parks Canada, 1998), 2: 456–60.

^48. Dominion Textile owned three plants along the Lachine Canal: The Colonial Bleaching Co., The Mount Royal Spinning Co., and Merchants Manufacturing, which became the second largest textile manufacture in Canada. Alan Bruce McCullough, The Primary Textile Industry in Canada: History and Heritage (Ottawa: Canadian Parks Service, National Historic Sites, 1992), 177, and Archemi, "Inventaire et évaluation des ressources culturelles du canal de Lachine," 3 vols. (MS, Montréal, Parks Canada, 1995); look under the different company names.

^49. Dominion Textile Annual Reports, part 1, 1905–1949, file 5–4, National Archives of Canada, MG28, Ottawa, Canada. Northern Electric was situated on a street down from the canal, but it pumped its water from one of the reaches.

^50. Industrial Canada 38, no. 6 (October 1937); Canada Packers, The Story, 219–22 (see n. 44).

^51. Gelly, "L'importance," vol. 2, appen. D, table 18: 549 (see n. 18).

^52. The names of these navigation companies derive from our compilation of more than 2,600 Lachine Canal leases signed between 1850 and 1950.

^53. Gerald Joseph Jacob Tulchinsky, "Une entreprise maritime canadienne-française. La compagnie du Richelieu, 1845–1854," Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 26, no. 4 (March 1973): 559–83; Stephen Salmon, "'This Unsatisfactory Condition': The Formation and Financing of Canada Steamship Lines, 1910–1915," International Journal of Maritime History 12, no. 1 (June 2000): 145–76; and Stephen Salmon "'A Prosperous Season': Investment in Canadian Great Lakes Shipping, 1900–1914," in A Fully Accredited Ocean: Essays on the Great Lakes, ed Victoria Brehm (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1998), 107–54. As a matter of fact, the canal was not immediately closed to navigation when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959 due to a 10-year firm contract between George Hall Transportation and LaSalle Gas and Coke. Thus only the Montreal end of the canal was closed to boats; they still entered the canal via Lachine. This explains why the canal only shut down to navigation in 1969, leaving only the canal's industrial corridor function intact.

^54. Allan Levine, "Ogilvie, William Watson," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1990); also accessible online at <www.biographi.ca>.

^55. Stephen Salmon, "Competition and Monopoly: The Structure of the St. Lawrence River Forwarding Trade, 1860–1895," paper presented at International Commission for Maritime History, August 1995, Montreal; Stephen Salmon, "'The Strongest Canadian Company': The Montreal Transportation Company, 1868–1921," paper presented at Canadian Business History Conference, March 1999, Montreal; and Rick Neilson, "The Montreal Transportation Company," Fresh Water 4 (1989): 21–24.

^56. Ernest A. Epp, "'Cooperation among Capitalists': The Canadian Merger Movement 1909–1913" (doctoral diss., Johns Hopkins Univ., 1973), 175–98, 204–44, 297–372, 374–428, 481–530, 581–638.

^57. Tulchinsky, River Barons, 209–11 (see n. 2).

^58. List of Steamers built by A. Cantin, Shepherd Collection, vol. 3, MG29, A55, NAC, Ottawa, Canada.

^59. NAC, MG 26 G, vol. 330, 88538–88543, quoted in Salmon, "A Prosperous Season," 118 (see n. 53).

^60. See Desloges and Gelly, The Lachine Canal, 195, 206 (n. 3).

^61. ibid., 170–71 and 199.

^62. For instance, the Dominion Iron and Tube would pump up to 3 billion gallons of water yearly and thus could not establish its premises on the shorter reaches of the canal. It had to go to LaSalle, which was situated on the longest reach of the canal and where land was available.

^63. One could always argue that Lowell, Massachusetts, still used direct waterpower in the 20th century, but Lowell was not really situated on the shores of a navigation canal. Moreover, Lowell was a textile-manufacturing center, whereas the Lachine canal complex was much more diversified in terms of production.

^64. In order to learn more about the Welland Canal industrial complex, two authors should be consulted: Robert R. Taylor, "Merritton, Ontario: The Rise and Decline of an Industrial Corridor, ca. 1845–1939," in Scientia Canadensis 16, nos. 1–2 (1990): 90–130 and John N. Jackson, The Welland Canals and Their Communities: Engineering, Industrial, and Urban Transformation (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1997).

^65. Leung et al., Manufacturing Locations (see n. 23). These authors have clearly shown that no other Canadian industrial complex prior to 1945 surpassed the Lachine Canal. This study of Canadian manufacturing complexes had to find a way of comparing industrial complexes in cities across Canada. The methodology used focused on city limits, even though the Lachine was divided in half by the then-existing city limits. Thus the study only considered the Lachine industrial corridor from the Montreal harbor to Côte St. Paul, a distance representing approximately half the length of the canal. It must also be kept in mind that these authors were looking for physical evidences of remaining industrial plants; it was not possible for them to appreciate what subsequent research has come up with, that is, more than 2,600 leases, representing at least 600 different companies that represent all the 17 production sectors of the Standard Industrial Classification of Statistics in Canada. Nevertheless, when they identified the remnants of the industrial corridor, they came up with plants representing 12 industrial production sectors. See also Bernier-Morel et al., "Le canal de Lachine," 4–7 (see n. 1).

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