80% of the time when the wind was from the north, the tugs were pushing the logs into the log chute. When the wind was against us, we had to go get the logs with a boom and pull them to the dam. For this operation both tugs were used, the boom was long, longer than the with of the river! With one boat at each end, we were running down the river sometime one or two miles and capturing all the logs on the way Most of the time 2000 to 3000 cords (Cordes in french, not certain with this translation). This was called Rafting the logs.

When every thing was squeezed in front of the dam, one boat continued pulling on the boom, the other was pushing.

On weekends, we had to carry some people to their summer camps as the compagny was not supposed to "clog the river". Ah ah, but sometimes, the river was yellow with logs for 3 or 4 miles ..... depending on the guys at the dam 14 miles above (La Tranche).

The STMRD ended it's operations in 1998. The pictures are taken from the mountainside and are showing the "set-up" at "Beaumont generating station" as it was named by the Shawinigan Water and Power. We had about 3000 cords waiting to jump the dam at a rate of 1000 cords per hour with good wind condition! You need a couple of trucks to handle that today..... but the river is a lot cleaner!