Down the current of Quebec's rivers In the early 1800s, in Quebec, mainly in the
Outaouais,
Mauricie and
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean regions, attempts to transport wood by water began. In Batiscanie, the parish of Saint-Stanislas has a large reservoir of labour for work in rivers and forests. The village area of Saint-Stanislas is said to have had 422 inhabitants as early as 1851 and 593 twenty years later. Beginning in 1852, Price Brothers and Company exploited the forest of the Batiscan Valley. Several sawmills were built on the
Batiscan and
des Envies rivers. The presence of
sawmilling facilities and the development of
logging throughout the
Saint-Maurice River basin allowed Saint-Stanislas to establish itself as the main basin for labour and
forestry subcontracting until about 1870, before being overtaken by that of
Saint-Tite, located further north, in the
Laurentian mountains. The timber was transported by floating, down the current of the rivers, which required the work of cages and log drivers (Cajeux - Draveurs). The first types of trees cut were — Pin blanc L. —
Pinus strobus. — White pine (eastern white pine)., shipped to
Great Britain. • The cageux, this Ulysses of the
St. Lawrence River, and tributarys
St-Maurice,
Batiscan,
Saguenay,
Jacques-Cartier,
Sainte-Anne (Les Chenaux) as exemples, was responsible for assembling the rafts and piloting the huge wooden train made of squared pine — also called a cage — to a port of embarkation. • The log driver, a daring tightrope walker of the rivers, was responsible for controlling the free floating of cut tree trunks that were thrown into a watercourse in order to reach a sawmill or a pulp and paper mill. The settlers who had already established themselves took advantage of the proximity of the construction sites to sell their agricultural production and at the same time provided a workforce for whom working in the forest represented an additional income.'' ==Geography==