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Summer saw penstock erection nearing completion. The penstocks are the large diameter steel pipes shown angling down from the top of the Main Dam in this picture.
In the Powerhouse, work on the steel superstructure continued and the permanent bridge cranes were installed

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Gantry Crane placing sluice gates
1948
Des Joachims, Ottawa River, Ontario/Quebec, Canada

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In July'49 the gantry crane and special closure gates were erected on the Main Dam permitting the closure of the temporary sluiceways to begin. The crane can be seen on the top of dam in the centre of the image. The tops of the steel gates can be seen above the surface of the water in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th sluiceways from the left. Once the closure gates are in place, concrete is poured behind them to conform with the solid section of the dam already in place. On 26th August McConnell Lake Dam spilled the first Upper Ottawa River water into McConnell Lake. From the east end of the lake, water flowed through a new channel and on into the lower river on the north side of Des Joachims village.
Main Dam closure was completed on the 15th September 1949.

Audio Text - Morris Barr
The Gantry Crane - we used it on the Ontario side for to put in the Sluce Gates and they'd pour concrete behind it and we'd take the gates out and move them over and put them in again, in betwean the piers. They'd just pour so much in each one and keep raising the water like. Then when we finished on the Ontario side, we tore it all down and moved it over to McConnell Lake and done the same thing over there.

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The tailrace area viewed looking upstream towards the dam from the "Swisha" bridge
1950
Des Joachims, Ottawa River, Ontario/Quebec, Canada

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Once the Main Dam was closed, the tailrace outlet to the Ottawa River was blocked with a cofferdam. Pools of water remaining in the path of the tailrace were pumped out and the work of removing some 1.5 million cubic yards of rock began. The image shows the tailrace channel nearing completion. This photograph was taken from the Des Joachims bridge looking upstream in April 1950.

Audio Text - Henry Chasse
Hydro built to the coner, see, where it makes a curve. Hydro built from the Dam
to that - or excavated from the Dam to that and Harco Construction from the river below
the bridge to - they met on the curve. Harco Construction camps were right at the
bridge. You probably have been there, the cement slabs are still there. They had a big
outfit too - a big outfit!

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1950
As the New Year 1950 was rung in, the race for the finish of the project was on!
Once the Powerhouse structure was erected for units 1 and 2, the building was closed in and the turbines and generators installed. This process of building steel, then cladding, then turbine, then generator continued to grow the Powerhouse along the base of the dam until all eight units were in place.
The 230KV Switchyard, providing the link from the generators in the Powerhouse to the Ontario Hydro Transmission Grid, was pushed to completion in the spring of the year.
In concert with the myriad of activities in the Powerhouse and Switchyard, completion of the Main Dam Headworks and final closure at the McConnell Lake Control Dam was accomplished.
All of the project activities over the preceding 4 years contributed to the delivery of first power to the grid in the summer of 1950. The Project was completed in the winter of 1950.

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In concert with the myriad of activities in the Powerhouse and Switchyard, completion of the Main Dam Headworks and final closure at the McConnell Lake Control Dam was accomplished.
All of the project activities over the preceding 4 years contributed to the delivery of first power to the grid in the summer of 1950. The Project was completed in the winter of 1950.

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Des Joachims before After
1949
Des Joachims, Ottawa River, Ontario/Quebec, Canada

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These composite photos taken from a common location provide an interesting Before and After comparison. The wild energy of the rapids above is in the process of being captured by the emerging power plant below.

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Rolphton Hydro Colony and Dam
1950
Des Joachims, Ottawa River, Ontario/Quebec, Canada

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An aerial view of the Des Joachims development, showing the completed plant. The main dam, spanning the Ottawa River for a distance of 2, 400 feet, rises to a maximum height of 190 feet above sound rock. Construction camp #1 and other construction related equipment have yet to be removed from the site.

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McConnel Lake Control Dam
1950
Des Joachims, Ottawa River, Ontario/Quebec, Canada

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An aerial view McConnell Lake Control Dam, where final closure of the Ottawa River will be made. Situated in Quebec, 31/2 miles from the Main Dam, the 1600 foot long structure spans the deep basin lying between the western end of McConnell Lake and the main stream of the Ottawa River.

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Construction Epilogue

And so it came to pass in the warm days of 1950, that the Rapides des Joachims began to deliver up their energy to the people of Ontario.
Much has already been written and more will surely be written on the engineering aspects of this great Development.

But let us always remember the men and women whose hands, whose arts and crafts, and whose lives forged and created this engineering monument of steel and concrete. Together they make up the team that built Des Joachims, and it is their work that will bring better living to the people of Ontario.