Tributes
Willie Pilon: A Walking History Lesson
The Low Down to Hull and Back News, May 28, 1987
Riverboat captains who spend forty-eight years on the Gatineau River are bound to have some pretty interesting tales to tell, and Willie Pilon of Martindale is no exception.
At the age of eighty-two Willie is a very sharp gent who has a memory that puts us young fellows to shame. And when he didn't remember a detail his young wife, Albertine, who is only eighty-one, could come up with the answer, quick as a wink.
The only thing I did not do was to ask her to name all of their 41 grandchildren, and the 14 great grandchildren. Although Albertine did note that they were a little short of granddaughters, with only 11 of the 41 being girls.
Willie is pretty proud of the fact that he has 30 grandsons. But they did raise an even dozen children: six boys and six girls. Since Willie came from a family of 12 himself, he did not consider this to be unusual.
But getting back to Captain Willie, he was born in Grenville, Quebec, just across the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury. His father was also a riverboat captain who drew logs from Hull down to the mills at Hawkesbury, so you might say that Willie came by his profession at his father's knee. In fact, young Willie was the first mate on his father's boat at the age of 17, where he gained enough experience in four years to be able to take over a tug of his own, way up above the Mercier Dam. After a very short time he was transferred to Paugan, which was in its final stages of completion in 1927. This also happened to be the same year he married Albertine.
His brand new 65-foot tugboat, the Pickanock, was just being unloaded from flat cars at Low when he arrived with his bride to take command of this biggest of river tugs, in April 1928. But before it was launched and the waters flooded the land behind the dam, Willie walked with a surveyor along the shore for some eight miles. On his walk he noted where there were high points of land that would serve as anchor points for later towing operations, or that would cause problems in navigation. He also named various locations which would be used by the boatmen to indicate their position on the river.
For example, the first buoy was placed at "Jack Lowell's," which just happened to be the name of the farmer who owned the land adjacent. The "Dry Point" was at Ramsay's house. The "S" was at Paugan chute, and at the Big Island there was the "Dualway," which was a channel that the rivermen dredged out to let them take a shortcut around the island. These names are still in use by the rivermen of this day.
Willie tells a couple of interesting tales about bets that were made on getting the sacs, or booms, around the big island without touching it. Willie said, "we only had about ten feet to spare." Now, if you don't think that took some skill, just remember that Willie was towing 22,000 cords of wood strung out about a quarter of a mile behind his boat!
Incidentally, the tow started some eight miles up river at the Manitou and had to be pulled the distance to Paugan because there was insufficient current for them to float free. At the dam the logs were then again set free to wind their way down river to the next booming point at Cascades.
Willie said that they usually averaged about one mile per hour. That is, if they didn't get caught up on a mud bank, or some other obstacle under the water. According to the Captain, there were lots of these in the early years of navigation on the Gatineau River above the Paugan Dam. But this did not prevent them from towing 24 hours a day, especially when there was a lot of logs coming through. He recalls the days when there would be jams up to seven or eight miles long. "The faster we would tow them down the more logs there would be. Seems they just kept them coming!"
There is another tale that Willie tells that has a direct connection with a previous story that was written about his neighbour, Reno Ramsay, in 1985. Reno told me about his great grandfather's homestead being expropriated in the late 1920s to make way for the flooding of the river above the Paugan Dam. The house eventually broke away from its foundations and floated down the river. It was caught up on some snags and people came out by boat and removed parts of the house, right down to the clapboards. Reno even remembered that a house over on the east side of the river had some of this siding on it to this day. Well, Willie provided the sequel to this story.
It seems that when the house was dismantled, the floor floated free and was causing navigation problems, so Willie used it as a raft to collect float wood. When it was full, he had it tied up at the Paugan dock. His first mate, Tommy Young, offered him two cords of hardwood for the floor boards, which Willie gladly accepted. He does not know what Tommy used the wood for, but at least we know a little more of the saga of the old Ramsay homestead.
Working long hours wasn't much of a problem for Willie's big boat, as it had a crew of five, sleeping quarters, and also a small kitchen. Although, the "towman," who acted as cook, picked up their food from the CIP Camp at Paugan, they were always able to keep it hot.
In all his 48 years on the river, Willie only had a boat sink on him once. Apparently his boat was stuck on a mud bank because a river guide made a mistake. He decided to wait for the river to rise before attempting to free the boat. However, it was a weekend and it also had rained for several days, so the boat was left until Monday. He did not realize that the boat had so much rainwater in the bilge, and when they got free all the water rushed to the stern of the boat where a hatch cover came off and let more water into the boat. Seeing that he was in trouble, he gunned the boat in an attempt to get it up on the shore, but it slid back on him and went to the bottom in about ten feet of water. It didn't take long, though, to attach a couple of other tug boats to it and pump her out without damage, except perhaps a little to Willie's pride!
He remembers some of the big storms on the river, and rescuing campers from the Big Island on the odd occasion. And being in windstorms that blew his lifeboat clear off the top of the cabin.
The season for working the river lasted only from April to October, so Willie would work in the bush during the rest of the year. He ended up having his own company that would cut, haul and saw logs into lumber. When Willie retired from the CIP he opened a chainsaw store in Martindale, and sold and serviced the Pioneer line for a number of years.
An avid fisherman, Willie loves to get up to a lake he owns and troll for trout. But, when he can't get away, all he has to do is cast a line in the stream that flows at his back door, to catch the odd chubb for bait - or are they really chubb?