Connecting Canada

Canada: The Story of Us

Episode 4 of The Story of Us:  We become more connected (1824 - 1890) through canals, steamships, bridges, and telegraph cables and progressive ideas.

Theme(s): overcoming challenges, connectivity, and becoming more progressive

1.       Connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic (1824-1829)

In the early 1800s, there's a major obstacle in the way of trade between Upper and Lower Canada (and to Europe beyond): Niagara Falls. Goods transported by ship have to bypass the falls via a portage road.

Niagara entrepreneur William Merritt convinces the government to get behind his plan to build a canal, a great engineering feat that will open up trade along the Great Lakes like never before. In spite of massive obstacles and great danger, Merritt's canal plan succeeds, connecting the Great Lakes trade routes with the Atlantic.  Good could be imported and exported from the interior of Canada through the Great Lakes and the Atlantic.  The rail networks would further stich the nation from ‘sea to sea.’

a)      Solving the problem of the Welland Canal: 40 km man -made river is dug to connect Lake Ontario to the Chippawa River and to the Niagara River or the North East corner of Lake Erie.

b)      Irish labour is exploited or used.  Refugees of the Irish Potato Famine depart Ireland and live in shanty towns outside of St. Catharines.  The canals are dug by pix axe and rock is moved by wheelbarrels.  Immigrants, such as 22 year old John Colter and family, move to Niagara.  He earns $0.63/ day under dangerous working conditions. In 1824, the workers hit a 3 km stretch that had walls 20 meters high.  Engineers from the Erie Canal, which connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River and Manhattan were also employed.   The sandy composition of the terrain eventually led to a landslide that buried numerous workers.  The project is halted.  Engineer, Alfred Beret, decides to create a dam at the Grand River which drains just west of the project into Lake Erie.  He diverts the flow of some of the Grand River Workers like Colter settle in Port Robinson.   Communities like St. Catharines, Thorold,  and Welland boom.  The St. Lawrence Corridor opens up and commerce exists more between the West and the East.

2.       Shrinking the world with steam power (1839-1840): Mail, goods, and people can be transported across water at a greater speed and level of reliability.

a)      Having successfully run a steam-powered ferry service across Halifax Harbour, a steamship service from Quebec to Halifax and a mail ship between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, Nova Scotia businessman Samuel Cunard starts to dream bigger. He wants to run a transatlantic steamship service between Europe and North America.

b)      Cunard takes a contract to deliver the Royal British mail reliably using a fleet of steamships.  He raises capital or investments from other men.  It was a new technology and the fear of building a coal fire on a ship to create steam scared some investors off.

c)       He gambles heavily on the new, untested business, but eventually succeeds in making the world a smaller place. He establishes one of the world's largest marine passenger companies; it still carries his name today. Cunard's steam ships shrink the world. He proposes 3 steam ship crossings and gains approval from Admiral Perry.  He offered guaranteed Atlantic crossings every 14 days.  Scottish shipyards produce his first ship and at 63 m long and 10 m wide. It is designed for speed and has space for nearly 200 passengers.  He agrees to pay 500 British pounds for every 4 hours of delay.  The Britannia sets sails for her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Halifax at a speed of 10 knots/hours. The ships makes it in 12 days and 10 hours and within a year 3 new ships are added to the fleet.  There is now faster access to European products, trends, and ideas.  Immgrants pour into North America for hope of a better life.  Halifax, an ice free port, booms furthermore in shipping. 

d)      The Grank Trunk Railway builds a railway from Sarnia to Montreal.  However, to connect Montreal to the mainland required an incredibly strong bridge across the St. Lawrence.

3.       The Victoria Bridge connect Montreal to the railway (1854-1859)

a)      Canadian ingenuity reacts to one of the greatest engineering challenges of the age: how to build a railway bridge across the St. Lawrence, connecting Montreal to the country's rapidly growing rail network?

b)      Workers build a series of water-tight cassons or boat shaped structures that allow workers to dig deep into the riverbed and build limestone foundations for the future bridge foundations.

c)       The Victoria Bridge is completed 18 months ahead of schedule. It permanently changes how goods are shipped across the country, giving Canada 900 kilometers of unbroken railway.

d)      The dangerous business of building the Victoria Bridge.  Benjamin Chaffy invented a derick to lower the 10 tonne stones.  He is a Brockville person who is self taught yet is inventive an creative enough to design the 3 kilometer wide bridge that stretches across the St. Lawrence River. Eventually the wooden casson breaches or breakes.  Over 26 workers die, by 1859 and 5 years of work, the footings are complete, 25 iron pieces must span 3 km with oversized rivets.   The 19^th century is the age of child labour and unorganized labour.  Workers strive for better working conditons which culiminate in the Winnpeg Strike.

4.       The underwater telegraph cable: a miracle of the age (1852-1866)

Inventor and electrician Frederick Gisborne imagines Canada and the world connected by cables — cables that would allow for almost instantaneous communication. Through perseverance and strong business acumen, Gisborne successfully installs the first underwater telegraph cable in North America, between PEI and New Brunswick in 1852.

He goes on to become the chief engineer of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company. Due in part to his efforts, the dream of a transatlantic telegraph line is realized in 1866.

5.       Fighting sexism in print (1890s)

In an age when women are still denied the vote, trailblazing journalist Kathleen Blake Coleman of the Toronto Mail battles sexism to fight for equality on the pages of Canada's largest newspaper. She is the first woman in the country to become newspaper section editor, editing the weekly "Woman's Kingdom" section. She also bucks against her editors' insistence that women are only interested in housekeeping and fashion and becomes a crusading columnist writing about social issues. "Kit of the Mail" eventually has her columns syndicated in newspapers across the country and her work becomes a light in the life of thousands of Canadians.