Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Chaudière River

Chaudière river, an important tributary of the St. Lawrence river , rises in lake Megantic, and discharges into the St. Lawrence almost opposite Quebec. The country through which it flows is fertile, and its banks are well wooded; but its bed is rocky, and gives rise to frequent rapids. Four miles from its mouth are the famous Chaudière falls, which have a height of 130 feet. The length of the river is 115 miles. Along its banks runs the Quebec Central Railway; and it was the route by which the American force under Benedict Arnold made its way north to Quebec in 1775. The word chaudière signifies "a pot or kettle, full of boiling water"; but Sir George Simpson, in his journey round the world, says that the name "is derived, not from any supposed resemblance to the boiling of a kettle, but from the shape into which the perpetual eddy of the torrent moulds the stones. In the Chaudière falls on the Ottawa, for instance, there is a countless number of these water-worn cauldrons."

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., pp. 40-41.