Reflection On Rapide Blanc

First of all I have to say that your book White Rapids did a respectable job of capturing the circumstance of SWPC and Rapide Blanc with its graphic images. The building in Montreal where I presented my plan for Rapide Blanc took me back to that significant night where all was gloomy with a healthy mixture of skeptics and optimists filling the boardroom. Blanchet’s “passion for architecture” that was discussed in Illustrators at work – interview with Pascal Blanchet was evident throughout. I felt the depiction of myself was filled with a little too much greed but it did make me chuckle. The imageries of the retro vehicles and appliances brought me back to another time. I was keen of the maps, which were vital evidence to the situation of Rapide Blanc and SWPC.
The map of the developed and proposed power sites on the St.
Maurice River gives readers a good sense of the progress of the company and the visions I had moving forward. The map of new and existing roads provided people with an idea of the degree of isolation we were dealing with. The drawing of Rapide Blanc as a whole brought everything together with the river, power plant, and the town’s facilities, businesses and residential areas. What I found to be the most important map was the one including Montreal as many people aren’t familiar with the area until it is put into context with an urban space.
Another aspect that was beneficial to the book was the timeline and snippets of history provided with each year that was highlighted. Without a timeline I would even be lost trying to recall the reasons behind the decisions that were made. The newspaper article titled “Closure of the Town of Rapide Blanc” was interesting and one of the areas of the book that started to go a bit more in-depth which was
nice.
Personally I am fascinated by books that go into great detail on company towns, The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy and The company Town: Architecture and Society in the Early Industrial Age being of particular interest. These books cover an immense amount of subjects/towns, most of which I find to be quite informative. I wouldn’t recommend your book to someone who is studying SWPP or the progress of company towns in-depth. But I would certainly urge someone who is interested in this region and its history to pick it up, mainly because of the authenticity that Pascal adds to the book.
Even though Pascal wasn’t born by the time the town shut down I still got the feeling that he had great conversations with the former residents of the town throughout the creation of this book. Being from Trois-Rivières, just down the road from Rapide Blanc, certainly seemed to give Blanchet some inspiration and background knowledge that came together well. Without trying to sound too egotistical, I must say that I feel my importance in the history of international electric utility investments is often overlooked . I enjoyed this book because it shun light on the importance of SWPC and my involvement in the company.
Thank you,

John Edward Aldred