A two hundred-kilometre drive north from Quebec City takes one to the Saguenay River and the cities of Chicoutimi and La Baie, now merged into one city called Saguenay. The Saguenay River is a rift valley in the mountains, a fjord that flows into the St. Lawrence River. At La Baie the tides cause the river to rise and fall by as much as five metres. A little further upstream at Chicoutimi there is no discernible tidal effect.

This region is home to the largest aluminum smelting industry in Canada, due to readily available hydroelectric power. Bauxite ore is shipped up the Saguenay to La Baie and then refined and smelted into huge bars of aluminum. It is probably the largest source of aluminum in North America. Aluminum costs $500 per tonne in the USA, due to tariffs on Canadian aluminum. In Europe and Japan aluminum is $300/tonne.

The Kenogami reservoir, south-west of Chicoutimi is the major hydroelectric generating station in the region. Heavy rain began falling in that semi-mountainous terrain in mid July of 1996 and continued for several days, saturated the ground and filled the lakes, reservoirs and rivers to capacity. Then in one day, July 19, an additional 275mm (eleven inches) fell. For the two following days a two-metre wall of water washed over several kilometres of the steep riverbank of the Saguenay river. As much water flowed in those two days as goes over Niagara Falls in two months. Ten lives were lost, 488 homes were washed away, another 1230 were damaged. Many businesses and other structures were damaged or destroyed. Fourteen thousand people were evacuated to the homes of relatives or to temporary shelters.

People across Canada were moved with compassion and wanted to help. Pallets of bottled water and food were donated, and containers of used clothing. Trucking companies delivered them free of charge. I was in La Baie for a few days and saw the results. People here are not poor. There are good paying jobs in the aluminum smelters, forest products plants and the Canadian Forces air base. Bottled water and food items were welcome and quickly distributed. But, Oh, the clothing!

People had gathered up their worn out clothes and sent them to La Baie. A theatre was used as a triage centre and the sorting operation provided a diversion from the devastation outside. I doubt if any of the clothing was ever used in the area, except perhaps as rags. The crowning moment came when some ladies called my attention to a dozen brand-new high-heeled ladies shoes they had found in a container — all for the left foot! Their mates never did show up. The local people didn’t appear to be offended by this strange generosity, but they had many a good laugh. Some kind hearted folks even sent Bibles — English Bibles. This is a French-speaking area, the only English I heard was from one teenage girl helping with the sorting who would translate for English-speaking volunteers.

There was one amazing sign of hope in the midst of all the devastation. A little white house in Chicoutimi stood firm as the raging torrent swirled all around it. Photos of this little white house standing firm and secure in the flood appeared in news media across Canada and around the world. Everything around the little white house was washed away, including the soil around the basement walls, but the house was anchored to the rock. It became a symbol of hope for the surrounding community.

The house was built in 1890, with a log foundation and basement. It served as a comfortable family home for many years and even survived a similar, but much less severe, flood in July 1947. The man who then owned the house decided to make the home more secure for his young family. He replaced the log basement with one built of concrete and anchored it into the rock. At the time of the 1996 flood it was still owned by the widow of the man who had built so well. Today it houses a museum of the flood.

Are you anchored to the rock, able to stand firm in the storms of life and not be swept away?