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13. Shanty Snow Plow
Every fall farmers along the Ontario side of the Ottawa River would go to Fort Coulonge, to the Lumber Companies offices to get a contract to deliver feed and supplies to the lumber camps along the Coulonge and Black Rivers.
As soon as the Ottawa River had frozen over, men worked at building ice bridges to cross from LaPasse to Fort Coulonge. A typical supply portage trip would mean leaving Monday morning and returning on the weekend, depending on the location of the camp where the supplies were to be delivered. Besides transporting the supplies for the lumber camp, the farmers needed to transport supplies for their 5-8 day journey also.
On one of these supply trips in the late 1930's, Andrew E Gervais of LaPasse found this old snow plow at one of the logging camps. He purchased what was left of it and rebuilt it.
It is understood that the original architect of the shanty plow, was a Fort Coulonge blacksmith named Donald Paquette. The shanty plow was designed to be pulled by a team of horses; the plow sat on a set of four runners, and was used to groom the logging roads, keeping the log camps open for the supply runners.
