This summer, The duty crosses the waters of the St. Lawrence River, this giant “almost ocean, almost Atlantic” that Charlebois sings, and its surroundings in order to feed a series. Today: Jean Cloutier, pilot on the St. Lawrence and passionate about its lighthouses.
In the collective imagination, Quebec is first perceived as a country of woodsmen, a country of loggers, axes in hand. But not for Jean Cloutier, who has a floating office on the St. Lawrence River, who has the tide to watch and who breathes the sea air to the fullest. For three centuries, he says, our part of the country survived thanks to the river, but it has since turned its back on this bluish aorta, on its maritime essence.
“It’s as if we had forgotten that we all arrived by sea. The river was our first highway, it was our livelihood,” says this cargo pilot who takes the helm of ocean liners and other giants. of the sea between Quebec and Les Escoumins.
And if this vital artery has been able to prosper, it is thanks to the lighthouses sprinkled along the river like so many suspension points to protect ships from its waters, among the most capricious in the world. But these key historical buildings are now left to their own shipwreck – and to oblivion, he laments.
“When people think of lighthouses, they see a white tower on a cape: a postcard image. But lighthouses are more than a building. It’s a profession and a whole section of our history that are in the process of sinking, ”underlines this pilot.
It is this intangible and invisible heritage that Jean Cloutier tries to rescue by collecting the stories of the last witnesses of an era when the lighthouse was as important as the church square. “Seventy percent of the towns and villages of Quebec border the river. Everything was built around the boat, he says. We are letting go of all that. »
In the last century, 179 lighthouses lined the river, not to mention dozens of lightships posted at strategic points, says the pilot. Only 47 remain standing, many of which have been replaced by mere skeletal steel pylons. More than one has passed away, in bad shape. Others have been razed or burned over the years following the mechanization of the lighthouses, carrying away in their plumes of smoke the history of generations of keepers. Then the arrival of sophisticated navigation instruments drove the final nail into the coffin of this already tottering heritage.
Memories and Lives
Jean Cloutier has become the living memory of this universe of spray and mist. Twenty years ago, after helping to restore one of the oldest lighthouses in Quebec, that of Île Verte, a whole section of the maritime past opened up to him.
“The first lighthouses were built in the early 1800s, because shipwrecks were so frequent in the St. Lawrence that it cost ships a fortune in insurance. Not to mention the ice, which already limited navigation for five months,” explains our pilot.
Lighthouses on Île Verte, Île Bicquette, Île Rouge: the first are lit on the south coast, where the meeting of the river with the currents from the Saguenay often envelops the St. Lawrence in a milky fog. Sailboats also sail in the South Channel, as the shallow waters allow them to anchor there in the event of a storm. It will take the arrival of steamboats for lighthouses to “open” the channel on the north coast, where the river reaches a depth of 600 meters in places. On islands off the coast and in Anticosti, dozens of watchmen kept watch, day and night.
A veritable dynasty of guardians then took off, explains the Bas-Saint-Laurent pilot, and a whole life revolves around these guardian angels of the sea.
Legends and rumors often equate these loners with madness, with an ascetic life exposed to the fury of the elements. However, Jean Cloutier recalls that many lived there a simple and healthy life with their family. “When we question them, for them, it was paradise. Even without water or electricity. In winter, they had to melt the snow. Most have fond memories of it. »
Teachers even lived with these families to teach the children. Dairies, forges, warehouses, powder kegs: a whole little world orbited around the first lighthouses. Cows and poultry were crossed by oar or on the ice to ensure the subsistence of isolated families.
Mist Concerts
“With the light of the headlights, shipwrecks have greatly diminished. But we had to wait for the guns and the screamers of fog to make the crossings on the river even more secure,” explains Jean Cloutier.
It’s hard to imagine that the sound of cannons has already buried the sound of steeples in the St. Lawrence estuary. In foggy weather, guards had to fire the cannons every half hour, he said. “In the logbooks of the Île Verte lighthouse, it was discovered that 2,500 pounds of powder — the equivalent of 5,000 shots — must have been used during a single season. That says it all! »
From these smells of sulfur emanate disastrous stories, including that of a guard who died with his arm torn off by a cannonball. That also of a guard and his family poisoned by rainwater contaminated with droppings at the Rocher-aux-Oiseaux lighthouse, in the Magdalen Islands. A veil of curse hangs over this rocky block of 500 meters, isolated 32 kilometers from the archipelago. A dozen people lost their lives or their minds there.
“Each lighthouse has its stories of drowned people, because it was often necessary to fish and hunt for food. Before 1900, the guards lived almost in total autonomy. Most died if they were very sick on the island, and their wives gave birth alone,” says Jean Cloutier. Fires lit at one end of the island signaled the presence of a sick person; at the other end, of a dead man.
Over time, this job essential to navigation has changed. The disappearance of oil lamps has concentrated most of the work around the maintenance of equipment, including the famous “screamers of mist” operated by compressed air. The cannonade gave way to the deaf bellowing of the sirens.
As in everything, politics then got involved. “Before, the guards were former navigators, specifies the pilot. Then, as it had become a coveted position, the guards often changed after the elections. Voting on the wrong side was guaranteed shipwreck.
During the war, the guards were entrusted with the surveillance of enemy ships, continues the pilot. When a U-boat German was spotted, we had to hurry to put out the fires, at the risk and peril of the other ships cruising around. After the war, several lighthouses that had hitherto been shiny as new coins were slowly lightened, and the guard posts were abolished.
Fire the headlights
After having razed dozens, the federal government adopted a law in 2010 to protect the last heritage lighthouses still standing, giving them to whoever wanted them. Supreme irony, Quebec is not the owner of any, except that of Pointe-des-Monts, on the North Shore, survivor in extremis in 1964 due to the outcry over its abandonment.
Today, even the tallest lighthouse in the country, that of Cap-des-Rosiers, in Gaspésie, is slowly cracking from its height of 34 meters. According to Jean Cloutier, the handful of lighthouses that still exist owe their salvation to the elbow grease and donations of a handful of enthusiasts like him.
The Quebec Ministry of Culture has just classified the Île Verte lighthouse, built in 1809, the second oldest in Canada, and the Pilier-de-Pierre lighthouse in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli as heritage assets. But others, like the Iles-du-Pot-à-l’Eau-de-Vie flagship house, are still waiting for a lifeline.
“Even heritage-listed lighthouses get little or no money to help with their conservation. The gaze of the lighthouses is no longer turned towards the open sea, but towards the land, to find visitors. It’s the only way to save them,” he said.
For skills wars, Quebec has long turned its back on the river, deplores Mr. Cloutier. Even the emblematic bridges that span it wither in general indifference, while we talk about the third link. “We don’t just have churches to save, but also what has allowed the development of an entire country. »
The pilot, on the other hand, stays on course and his eyes riveted on his steel blue cord.
In Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, a citizen project plans to transform the Pilier-de-Pierre lighthouse into a columbarium, to give it a second life and ensure eternal rest for a handful of mortals lulled by the waves. “I have already reserved my place! says Jean Cloutier.
On the St. Lawrence River, we can then say that there will remain at least one island where, day and night, souls watch over the grain, eternal guardians of light.