What Canada remembers about 1967
The year 1967 is not generally remembered in Canada for a major flood in the east. It is remembered as the Centennial: the hundredth anniversary of Confederation on 1 July, celebrated with local projects, a national mood of optimism and, above all, Expo 67 in Montreal, which ran from April to October. The same year brought the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Stanley Cup, and General de Gaulle’s Quebec libre speech in Montreal in July.
If there were local spring floods in some eastern river valleys in 1967, as there are in most years when snow melts quickly, they have not become part of the national memory, and this article does not claim otherwise. A title that describes a “devastating disaster” in eastern Canada in 1967 does not match the standard accounts of the year, so what follows is a short guide to the floods that are documented, with the dates they belong to.
Why floods are a regular part of Canadian history
Much of eastern Canada is crossed by large rivers: the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, the Saint John, the Richelieu and many smaller ones. The main flood risks are spring snowmelt, ice jams, and heavy rain from storms, including the remains of hurricanes. Most settlements grew up beside water, so many of them sit on flood plains.
The result is that floods have recurred, and the worst events have often led to changes in how land is used and how warnings are given. The cases below are among the best documented.
Hurricane Hazel, October 1954
The most famous flood in Ontario’s history followed the passage of Hurricane Hazel on 15 and 16 October 1954. After heavy rain had already soaked the ground, the storm’s remains dropped more rain on the Toronto area, and rivers such as the Humber and the Don rose very quickly. Bridges and houses were swept away, and the death toll was recorded as 81, a figure that is widely quoted. In the Humber valley, a street called Raymore Drive suffered some of the worst losses, with houses destroyed and many residents killed.
The disaster is important mainly for what it changed. In the years that followed, the Toronto region set up conservation authorities with powers to plan for flooding, and large areas of flood-prone valley land were bought and kept as parkland rather than built on. This approach, in which the valley floor is left open instead of being defended by engineering works alone, has influenced flood planning elsewhere in Canada.
The Red River floods
The Red River in Manitoba is not in eastern Canada, but it is the country’s best known flood river and gives context for the others. A major flood in the spring of 1950 forced the evacuation of a large part of Winnipeg’s population, and led to the construction of the Red River Floodway, which was completed in 1968 and diverts water around the city. A still larger event in 1997 was later called the flood of the century. Because the Floodway was built for the city, its history is a reminder that major flood works typically follow a disaster rather than anticipate it.
The Saguenay flood, July 1996
In eastern Canada, the best known modern flood is the Saguenay flood of July 1996 in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. After several days of exceptionally heavy rain, rivers overflowed and some dikes and other structures gave way, and the water destroyed roads, bridges and homes, particularly around Chicoutimi and La Baie. Ten people were reported killed. More than ten thousand residents were forced out of their homes, and the damage was among the costliest recorded in Canada up to that time.
The event led to a review of dam safety and of how flood risks in Quebec were assessed.
Recent spring floods
In more recent years, spring flooding along the Ottawa River and in parts of Quebec and New Brunswick has been widely reported, notably in 2017 and 2019. In those years, high water remained for weeks, and many homes were affected, with military help provided in some communities. These events have contributed to a renewed debate about building in flood plains, about insurance, and about how much to expect from a changing climate. The causes of any one flood are complicated, and it would be a mistake to attribute a single event to any one factor.
Disasters in 1967 and how they differ
Disasters that are associated with 1967 in the news elsewhere are mostly not floods: the Apollo 1 fire in January, the Torrey Canyon oil spill off Cornwall in March, and the urban unrest in American cities in the summer. The environment was starting to attract public attention in this period, with groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund founded in the United States in 1967, but the concerns of the time were more often about pollution and pesticides than about flooding.
A reader researching daily life in Canada in 1967 will find the Centennial, the Expo 67 pavilions on the Île Sainte-Hélène and Île Notre-Dame, and the national political debates of the period far better documented than any flood. For floods, the reliable starting points are the dates above: 1950 for Winnipeg, 1954 for Hazel, and 1996 for the Saguenay.