Quebec to Digby

Saturday 28 Sep

Over the next two days we will be covering quite a few kilometres. We will have a stop over in Grand Falls, but at this time of the year they are more Trickle Falls. During the summer season there are two zip lines for the adventurous visitors. There was not much to do and not much to see today, but a good stop for us.

Work on the dam began on August 10, 1926, with three phases of construction, leading to the hiring of 1,000 men to work at the dam, supply tunnel and the power plant itself. The dam has 11 barriers, two 6m and nine 14.5m. The gates are flush with the ground, so that when the barriers are opened, there is a full discharge. As you can see from the image above, they are doing some maintenance work on one of the barriers.

They also dug a tunnel, about 805 m long and passes to a depth of 60 m below the town centre. It is located on a curvature in the river, so the tunnel cuts directly through the curvature. There is a sudden rise tank at the lower end of the tunnel and the differential type with bulkheads inside to lessen the effect of sudden rises of water. Without the water load, the tank is filled to 1/3 of its capacity, but with a full load the water it just reaches the upper part of the bell, and with the full load rejection, the tank would almost fill.

This all leads to a complex power generation system. A large auxiliary generator drives the motor-generator which excites the main generator. It was believed that this somewhat complicated excitation system was necessary to control the transmission line from Grand Falls to Dalhousie, one of the longest on the continent when it was built. After being turned on, it was discovered that this system was not needed, so the last unit was installed with a much simpler system.

The generators produce an efficiency voltage of 6,900 volts. Two of them supply the 69,000-volt line, and the other two the 138,000-volt line.

Sunday 29 Sep

On from Grand Falls to Saint John where we will board the ferry to cross the Bay of Fundy to Digby in Nova Scotia. It is a beautiful ride and the high way is excellent. We enjoy the many many trees that are now all changing colour as it is the beginning of autumn. We’ve also seen many signs to warn us about moose, Arno was very excited, as on all his trips to Canada he still has not seen a moose. He will have to wait a bit longer as they did not show today.

We arrived as planned around 4 PM at our B&B just outside Digby, we will be having a dinner in town and start planning for the days ahead. This part of Eastern Canada was our destination and we will spent more time in this area to explore.