Blizzards in Canada.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 260, 14 February 1889, Page 4

Blizzards in Canada.

While the winter has been a remarkably open one in the East and among the Sockies, the Canadians have Buffered more severely from cold than usual. On the 17th of December the worst blizzard ever experienced at Montreal began, and it continued for two days without intermission. The storm began in the Lower St Lawrence Valley with a heavy fall of rain and sleet. It soon turned to snow, and the wind rose till it had a velocity of sixty miles an hour, the temperature in the meantime going away below zero. Throughout the Dominion the storm was severely felt. Telegraph wires were prostrated, trains stalled, and the railroads made so impassable that it was days before the usual travel was restored. In Montreal the wind tore down trees, unroofed houses, overturned sleighs, knocked down chimneys, and made travel impossible. The first rain froze in the streets, and the ice was soon covered by snow, making a treacherous carpet, on which scores of people fell, breaking and dislocating their limbs. In Quebec the situation was worse. The ferry boats could not reach their moorings, but were run ashore when the ice would permit. Even the police were taken off the streets, and for a long time it was absolutely impossible to get into the city or out. The rural population suffered severely. Their barns and fodder were blown away, their cattle frozen, and in many instances they lost their lives. It is believed that nearly fifty people were frozen to death {during this, storm alone, and the damage throughout the Dominion will not fall short of dollars. The situation was so grave that at one time the Government was asked to send aid. On the Canadian Pacific Boad, in Manitoba, and in the mountains a similar state of affairs has prevailed. The usual blockades are reported, which it has taken some time to break.