The flood of 1886 hit Montreal especially hard

Some sought to profit from the calamity, while others partied on rafts

From the archives: This is a condensed version of a column first published on April 21, 2002.

The St. Lawrence was on the rampage. Unimaginably huge masses of spring ice had drifted inexorably downstream and jammed in the narrow, shallow waters of St. Mary’s Current, where the Jacques-Cartier Bridge now crosses to the South Shore. The river had nowhere to go. With astonishing speed, it backed up and swelled over its banks, even over the revetment wall protecting the Old Port. The city seemed at its mercy.

Montreal had suffered floods from its very beginnings. In December 1642, Paul de Maisonneuve’s fragile, infant settlement was almost destroyed by one, the waters receding at the last possible moment in what de Maisonneuve was convinced was a miracle. But no flood over the years could match what befell the city in April 1886.

For a time, Montrealers had thought they’d be all right. The signs pointed to certain flooding that spring, but the city’s inundation committee had ordered special dikes along the shoreline, pumps had been tested and retested, and channels connecting them had been reinforced with galvanized-iron sheeting. It would not be enough.

The crisis came on the weekend of April 17 and 18, with the low-lying sections of Point St. Charles and Griffintown especially hard hit. Cellars, then the ground floors, of the densely packed housing began to fill up. So did the privies — indoor plumbing was unheard of in the area — and the threat of disease was palpable. People in upper flats gave shelter to their less fortunate neighbours downstairs but often could not feed them. Cooking stoves were snuffed out; larders were drenched, but so were neighbourhood shops, so nothing could be replaced. Animals were at risk, too: not just the innumerable horses that drew wagons and carriages but the dairy cows, chickens and other creatures that people frequently kept in the backyard.

The huge Grand Trunk yards were under several feet of water in places and had to be shut down. Other employers followed suit. The gas works were put out of action, cutting off light to much of the city.

In places, the water rose more than six feet above street level. So extensive was the flooding that soon a vast armada of canoes, rowboats and even makeshift rafts, often thrown together from the drifting remains of wooden sidewalks, could be seen everywhere.

Some turned calamity to profit, becoming instant ferrymen and charging exorbitantly to convey people over especially daunting stretches.

Yet the flood provided other, more lighthearted opportunities. “Last night, the inhabitants of Griffintown had a good time of it,” The Gazette said in our Tuesday edition. “Surprise parties were formed, and jaunting about in rafts were noticed numbers of young girls who were singing and playing concertinas. The utmost good humour prevailed, and all seemed to enjoy the situation.”

Then there was the odd vignette reported by two policemen on their rounds in, of course, a boat.

Through a house’s open window, they spied a table floating around the dining room. “The table was covered by a cloth,” we reported, “and on it was a cruet, a lighted coal oil lamp, the remains of a breakfast, a cat and two rats. The rats were quietly eating the fragments and keeping close together, fearing an attack from the cat, but the latter was apparently wise enough to know that in the event of a struggle, the lamp would be upset.” There was no mention of those who had presumably fled the table in such haste.

The siege, lasting almost a week, caused property damage in the millions, but there were surprisingly few casualties.

In the pages of The Gazette there were mentioned some injuries suffered by people stumbling in the flood waters, but only a handful of deaths.