Shooting the Rapids

Shooting the Rapids. . , Between 1850 and 1950, passenger steamboats thrilled generations of holiday makers with a trip down the St. Lawrence River from Prescott to Montreal. Below Prescott was a series of rapids and the passage became known as "shooting the rapids". In 1840, it was demonstrated by Captain Hilliard in the steamboat Ontario, built in Prescott, that a passenger ship could safely navigate the series of rapids between Prescott and Montreal., By the mid-Victorian period, the growing middle-classes were looking for travel and adventures. Given its strategic location at the head of the rapids, Prescott was the jumping off point for a thrilling ride down the St. Lawrence. Larger vessels brought tourists from the upper Great Lakes and transferred them at Prescott to the smaller steamboats that could navigate the treacherous rapids. From the spring ice break-up until late fall, boats ran regularly down to Montreal., The Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company had a large fleet of steamboats in Quebec and Ontario. Larger boats operating between Toronto and Prescott included the S.S. Toronto and S.S. Kingston. Passengers transferred to the smaller S.S. Prescott, which ran the rapids down to Montreal. In 1913, the R and O Navigation Co. was merged with several other shipping lines to form Canada Steamship Lines. Their vessels Rapids King, Rapids Queen and Rapids Prince set off regularly all summer from Prescott., Steamship travel was not without its risks and mishaps. Ironically one such accident happened on the smooth stretch of the St. Lawrence between Kingston and Prescott. In 1889, the S.S. Rothesay, built in 1867 in New Brunswick, collided with a tugboat and sank west of Prescott. No passengers were lost and today the ship lies in 10 metres of water, a popular site for scuba divers. The S.S. Louis Renaud came to grief in the Lachine Rapids near Montreal on May 12, 1873., The steamboat service was suspended for a period during World War II but resumed shortly thereafter. However, it was in 1949 that an incident occurred which was to spell the end for many of the lake and river cruiserships, The S.S. Noronic was a large steamer, built in 1913 and operated by the Canada Steamship Lines. It could carry 600 passengers and 200 crew and made a once yearly trip down to Prescott via Toronto. It caught fire at the dock in Toronto in the early hours of September 17, 1949 while hundreds of passengers were asleep in their berths. The huge loss of life led to an inquiry and resulted in new fire safety regulations and building codes for ships. The older steamers could not be profitably adapted to the new code. This spelled the end of an era., In the next decade the St. Lawrence Seaway was constructed eliminating most of the picturesque rapids between Prescott and Montreal. New summer cruise ships appeared, but not of the same size or quantity as before. However it is still possible to take a cruise from Kingston via Prescott to Montreal and see the sights along the beautiful St. Lawrence River., [Illustration captions, clockwise from left, read] , . S.S. Prescott , . [S.S.] Rothesay , . S.S. Louis Renaud , . S.S. Noronic , . S.S. Rapids King , . S.S. Toronto