Remember This? Rode the rapids on a log, but didn't get rich

The following is from the Sault Ste. Marie Museum's collection:

During an interview in 1931, Frank Daigle (then 77 years old) lived in Gros Cap.

According to Mr. Daigle there were only a few log houses here in 1877.

He and Joe Lafford each married a daughter of Chief Cegeosh of Whitefish Island, a chief of the old Sault tribe.

At the time, Mr. Daigle says the rapids were full of whitefish: “I have seen them there by the thousands, it was easy to spear them or take them out with a scoop net.”

Mr. Daigle was hired by F. H. Clergue as a walking boss in the woods and part of his job was to see that all the logs were brought down river to the paper mill.

One time the logs piled up at the railway bridge and created a large jam.

No one else would go out, so Mr. Daigle took his peevey and went out on the jamb, located the keylog and dislodged it.

Once cleared the logs tore down the rapids with great force. Mr. Daigle had no time to jump to safety — it was a case of ride the logs or be thrown in amongst them and die on the rocks.

As he recalls — ”I had two logs and I rode them right through the rapids right in the foremost line of the jam. The river drivers thought I was gone, but I came through safely and can say that I am the only man who rode the St. Marys rapids on a log.”

Because of his intermarriage with the chief’s daughter he was able to secure grants of land from the Indians of the area.

“Land was cheap then,” he recalls. “If I had watched out for myself I could be a rich man today. At one time I owned all of the land where the present paper mill stands, I bought it from the Indians, I paid a barrel of pork, some sugar, a little flour, in cash it would have been about $10. I sold it to Mr. W.H. Plummer for $500 and he sold it to Mr. Clergue to $14,000. I would have been rich if I had hung to it longer.” 

Mr. Daigle also bought 160 acres on Davieux Point, the present site of Algoma Steel . He bought this also for merchandise and sold it for a very small sum.

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