Railways and Canals Minister J.D. Reid wanted the York Construction Company to have the contract for section 1, ostensibly because of "the special knowledge, experience, organization and facilities possessed by the York Construction Company,"(PAC, RG 43, B2(a), vol. 180, Order-in-Council, 19 December 1918.) but more probably because the company's secretary, Strachan Johnston, had just been hired to argue the government's side in The King v. John M. Kilbourn, a case dealing with the crucial question of ownership of the water in the Trent canal.(The dominion government won this case. The judge ruled that surplus water in the Trent canal belonged to the dominion government, thus discouraging Adam Beck from proceeding with the province's claim to the water.) Johnston was also retained, in view of his "experience in connection with water power matters in Ontario"(PAC, Borden Papers, vol. 180, 99018, J.D. Reid to C.J. Doherty, 20 March 1916.) (gained while acting as council and later president of the Electric Power Company), to defend the dominion government in the event that the long-standing threat by the Ontario government to challenge dominion ownership of the Trent waters before the Exchequer Court were ever carried out. Also, Johnston was a friend of Reid's.
York Construction was asked to submit a tender but refused to submit one based on schedule rates, because of "the uncertain conditions respecting labour and materials."(PAC, RG 43, B2(a), vol.180, Order-in-Council, 19 December 1918.) The company did, however, express willingness to sign a contract under the fail-safe wartime condition of "cost plus 8%, the term 'cost' to comprise a fair and reasonable rental for the plant employed on the work."(Ibid.) The government accepted the condition and in January 1919 let a contract, without tender, worth well over a million dollars, using the extraordinary power of the War Measures Act which was still force.
The contract included construction of a dam a White's Falls, excavation of the mile-long canal around Big and Little chutes, and construction of two locks, each with a lift of 29 feet, and of regulating dams at each end of the canal. Actually, the canal did not require much excavation as one might think, because situated on the line of the canal were two large marshy areas, separated by a ridge of rock which, when cut through, would connect the marshes and create a natural channel. Three retaining walls had to be built on the river side of the marshes where the ground was low. These retaining walls were to consist of concrete core walls several hundred feet long, against which rock - excavated from the "centre cut," the strip of excavation between the marshes, and from the lock pits - would be piled to provide greater strength. Significantly, the contract did not include a lock at Honey Harbour, that idea apparently having been abandoned after Frank Cochrane retired in 1917.
The company moved quickly after signing the contract. On 6 January, 1919, company engineer W.B. Russell and construction superintendent W.H. Monroe examined the canal site, as a consequence of which they decided to build a construction camp in a deep bay on the south side of the river just above Little Chute, roughly at the centre point of the canal right of way and only a few hundred yards' walk to the site of the proposed lock pits. Materials, delivery of which started on 15 January, were unloaded at Buckskin station and hauled by team to the camp site. By the end of January the contractor had 40 labourers, 5 carpenters, and 6 teams unloading box cars, hauling material, clearing brush, and erecting the camp.
The contractors built the largest and finest camp of any of those used anywhere on the Trent canal construction. It was also the last. Cost was no obstacle; indeed, cost worked to the contractors' advantage, every dollar spent generating a profit for them of 8 per cent. Eventually 25 buildings were erected, including a kitchen, dining-room, bath-house, blacksmith's shop, office, saw mill, machine shop, store-house, root cellar, stables, ice-house, and boat-house, five large dormitories, and a dynamite house situated in a valley about a half-mile form the main camp. The buildings were single-boarded, covered with rubberoid, lined with heavy building paper, and heated with wood stoves. Each of the sleeping camps accommodated about 50 men. A 1,500-gallon tank provided running water, and a telephone line connected the camp with the outside world through the North River Telephone Exchange at Lovering. By the end of the first summer some 230 men were employed on the construction, most of them housed at the camp.
The labourers were mainly European immigrants, employed through he Robert Verity Employment Agency of Toronto; the contractor paid the agency a fee of one dollar per head. Verity recruited the workers in Europe, brought them to Toronto, and shipped them out on the first train to Severn Falls. The bewildered recruits, many fresh form the battlefield, former friends and former foes, marched in bunches of 50 or 60 along the six-mile stretch of blackfly-infested bush trail between the station and the construction camp and within hours of having left Toronto found themselves clearing brush, hauling rock, or wheeling concrete, most of them not even knowing where they were.
Labourers were paid 35 cents per hour, later raised to 40 cents, carpenters received 55 to 60 cents, and teams with drivers earned 70 cents. Workers paid $1 per day for room and board, and $1.40 per day was deducted from each teamster for the maintenance of his team. The working day was 10 hours long. Despite the good wages, immigrants could not take the hard work or stand the isolation. At least one worker went insane. Others quit in bunches of 30 or 40 an found their way back to Severn Falls and eventually to Toronto. During the year and a half that the construction camp was used, Verity shipped 419 labourers to Big Chute, but so great was the turnover that the work was often badly handicapped and at times almost completely tied up. So much for the government's post-war employment plan.
Gravel for the concrete was hauled all the way from Beausoleil Island on Georgian Bay with a tug and three scows, each holding about 62 cubic yards. Boulders and rock ledges had to be blown out of the Little Chute to ensure a six-foot navigation channel for the tug and scows to reach the camp. The concrete was mixed on the shore and wheeled in barrows by a continuous line of labourers, moving past the mixing machines and up a plank runway several hundred yards to the site of the core walls, where the concrete was dumped from platforms into the constantly rising wooden forms. The main core wall, curving for 500 feet between two rock hills, was built about 30 feet high at midpoint, with an almost equal height below ground level, extending down to bedrock. The wall was 15 feet wide at its base, tapering to about 2 feet at the summit. A tunnel was built through the wall at ground level to permit the marsh to drain into the river until the canal was ready for flooding. A six inch pipe was built into the wall from the tunnel to the surface, through which concrete was later to be poured to fill the drainage tunnel. The other two smaller core walls are similarly constructed, but being located on higher ground are much lower than the main wall. Thousands of cubic yards of concrete went into the core walls' construction.
In the fall of 1920 the funds appropriated earlier ran out and the government was force to close down the work. By then the political situation in Ottawa had changed. Borden had resigned in July 1920 because of illhealth; he was replaced as prime minister by Arthur Meighen, the politically naïve former justice minister. Reid was kept on as minister of railways and canals. The Union government, formed by Borden in 1917 on a platform of conscription, was beginning to fall apart, causing division in the government ranks. Mackenzie King had replaced Wilfrid Laurier as leader of the Liberal party in 1919 and was anxious to confirm his leadership at the polls. He was calling for an election. Money was scarce because of the post-war depression, and once again the Trent canal had low priority on everyone's list.
J.D. Reid had promised Parliament that the work on section 1 would continue only after the calling of public tenders; consequently on 8 January 1921 the contract with York Construction was formally terminated. Altogether $441,760.24 had been spent, but the only thing of tangible value produced was the concrete dam built at White's Falls to control water levels in Six-Mile Lake. At the Big Chute the core walls had been finished, about half the rock had been removed from the centre cut, and part of the pit for the Little Chute lock had been excavated. This was a good start, but it represented less than half the contract.
All the equipment, including the valves and hardware for the locks, was put in storage, and tons of food were locked up in the warehouse, pending the early return of the workers. But the workers did not come back. Whether the Conservatives were serious about calling tenders and finishing Big Chute contract is questionable, despite the promises made during the 1921 election campaign. Plenty of opposition to further expenditure on the Trent canal had been voiced on both sides of the House of Commons in 1920, the most vehement coming from western MPS, who resented federal tax money being spent on what was by then clearly an Ontario tourist facility. Contracts had been let for enlarging the Welland Canal, and the westerners wanted that work given top priority, so that perennial problem of moving prairie grain could be solved once and for all. Moreover, urgency to complete the Severn River locks was removed because the two marine railways had proved adequate for transferring all but the largest pleasure craft. Whatever the Conservatives' true intentions, they did not have to reveal them because Meighen lost the election.