The nickname for the most part has always been a slightly sarcastic way of referring to the river. That's because for most of the year, the Middle Maitland is not that mighty. During particularly dry summers, it can flow to a trickle and in some places only flow intermittently. I'm originally from a village called Frankford on the Trent River in Eastern Ontario. The Trent is a big river. Boats go up and down it through canals in summer. There are power dams along it. Cars have left adjacent highways and plunged into its depths. Children have drowned while playing near it in spring. When I moved to Listowel when I was 11 years old, my family tended to quietly laugh at what the locals called "the river."
However, there have been several times during the 150 years of settlement in the area around Listowel that the Middle Maitland was indeed mighty. The area east of Lake Huron gets a lot of snow in the winter, and it's also flat country. When the snow melts and spring rains come, all of that water ends up going into narrow, shallow streams like the Middle Maitland River. This can cause a lot of flooding. The potential for bad flooding in Listowel got even worse during the early days of the town. This was long before municipal planning codes and environmental conservation laws existed. With no rules and regulations to stop them, those who built the downtown business area decided to build over the river, not around it. They covered the river with a concrete conduit and built shops and offices over it. A drive through Listowel on Main Street can easily leave someone unfamiliar with the town not even realizing there's a river running through the centre of it.
Not only were there no planning and conservation laws in the late 1800's, there were no rules on how to properly build a tunnel for a small river to run through either. Building to accommodate spring floods or even regular stream flows was not taken into consideration. As a result, whenever the spring thaw of water and ice came on the Middle Maitland, major flooding occurred because the tunnel was too small. By the 1950's, local authorities and the Ontario government wanted something done about this problem. It was annually destroying and disrupting part of the town. Businesses were losing money and merchandise and homes were being inundated. The Ontario Department of Planning and Development commissioned a report on the conservation needs of the Middle Maitland Watershed. The Middle Maitland Valley Conservation Report was published in 1954. It recommended major improvements to the watershed in order to reduce or even eliminate flooding in spring, prevent reduced or stagnant flow in summer, and to improve soil and forest conservation. I happened to find the report unexpectedly today while I was in the basement of the library at Carleton University in Ottawa. It was on she shelf below the old Ontario Hydro annual reports I was there to look at. Included in the report are recommendations for complete reconstruction of the tunnel under the town. Anyone who lived in Listowel through the 1980's and 1990's will remember this. The first project from the report however was the concrete wall that keeps the river in a deep trench between Inkerman and Elizabeth Streets along Cenotaph Park, the clock tower, and the Veteran's Walkway. There is actually a plaque on that wall from the late 1950's saying it was a project of the Middle Maitland Conservation Authority. That organization is now part of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority which looks after the entire watershed of all branches of the Maitland River. The creation of the authority resulted from the findings and recommendations in the 1954 report.
The report contains numerous photos of past floods in Listowel and they are included in this post. I apologize that some of them are not the best quality, but keep in mind they are photos of photos. I took them with my mobile phone camera. One more significant flood did occur in 1974, just a few years before the major tunnel reconstruction project started. I worked at the Capitol Theatre downtown when I was in high school. I noticed a faint line across the screen one day and asked someone what it was from. "Oh that was the high water mark of the flood in 1974," was the answer I got. I'm not sure if the screen has been replaced in the 15 years since I worked there.
The 1954 Middle Maitland Valley Conservation Report also included a recommendation that a large flood control dam and reservoir be constructed northeast of town so that spring floodwaters could be released downstream slowly and not cause damaging floods. The result would have been a huge dam and a lake similar to what is found nearby at Conestogo Lake near Drayton or Wildwood Lake near St. Marys. If it had been constructed, the project would have had a major impact on the property owners in the eastern part of Wallace Township. I am not sure what stopped the plans, but it is evident that it was probably not totally necessary in the first place. The plans for the dam and reservoir are also included for viewing here.
There are also recommendations in the report for reforestation in order to conserve soil, wildlife, and reduce the blowing snow hazards that plague the mostly open and flat countryside in winter. Unfortunately, most of these were never implemented. Huron County developed its share of reforestation sites, but Perth never did. Tree windbreaks surrounding fields keep the high quality topsoil from blowing away or being taken away with runoff water. They also reduce blowing snow and whiteout conditions that lead to car accidents, closed roads, closed businesses, and school snow days in the winter. The comparatively small price of planting trees 60 years ago could have greatly reduced the economic impact of bad winter weather in the decades since.
Enjoy a look at these photos, maps, and charts! Those who remember Listowel in the 1950's will certainly remember some of the images. Included is a rare look inside the tunnel from the early 1950's. Also note the changes in street names! Click on the photos to see a larger version.
Ontario Department of Planning and Development. Middle Maitland Valley Conservation Report. Toronto, 1954.
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