Daily ship reports from the Grondines signal station, 1916
Photo: POC16 – Fonds Amis du Moulin de Grondines, Centre d’archives régional de Portneuf.
Audio: Interview with Ovila Paquette, signal station watchman, January 1994. Centre d’archives régional de Portneuf.
Ovila Paquette: When it passed Grondines, you had to give its name, [inaudible words in background], and then give the name of the boat when it passed.
Interviewer: Okay, but you didn’t communicate with the boats?
O. P.: No… no, that was up to us. That’s why it was important to get to know the boats a little, before going on the job. You had an idea of what was coming.
I.: Hmm.
O. P.: Whether it was a lake barge or an ocean liner or [quessé] what or an oil tanker or… it was important.
I.: Okay.
O. P.: So… We had them from Quebec City, but on the other hand, when they passed through Grondines here, they weren’t in order. They’d pass each other on the way. So here we had to correct them, we had to take the…
I.: Really!
O. P.: … give the name of the real boat that was passing, not the one that was due to pass in half an hour.
I.: Hum hum, okay.
O. P.: It was important, because in Trois-Rivières, they changed pilots. And if we didn’t have the right name, with Trois-Rivières it wasn’t a good thing, because their pilots in Trois-Rivières had an hour to call it in. The pilot had one hour before he arrived. So they called the pilot for the boat in question. They don’t send just any pilot on just any boat. If you mix them up here, when you get to Trois-Rivières, there’s a problem.
I.: Okay.
O. P.: That’s it, you know.