Messing with history: Could Quebec City's new third link wake up ghosts of Battle of the Plains of Abraham?

Montreal Gazette

07-07-2025

Quebec News
By
QUEBEC — With all the local talk of traffic congestion and the need to build bridges and tunnels, Quebec City residents might have overlooked one little fact: They already have a tunnel running under their feet.
One of the lesser known historical features of the provincial capital, the 1.6-kilometre train tunnel runs on a north-south axis underground through the city with its northern entrance just west of the St-Sauveur neighbourhood and the southern portal near the St. Lawrence River just east of Gilmour Hill and the Quebec City yacht club.
The southern portal is located in the areas known as l'Anse-au-Foulon, which in the old days was called Wolfe's Cove. That's because it was at this strategic point on the St. Lawrence River that British General James Wolfe gained his foothold over the French-held city by having his troops, under the cover of night, scale the steep cliff to the Plains of Abraham.
The rest is history with the British defeating the French in a short battle on Sept. 13, 1759. Both generals, Wolfe for the British and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm for the French, died in the battle that was a turning point in the history of North America.
But on June 12, when Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault announced a new corridor for a possible third link between Quebec City and Lévis that could potentially run right through the area, the historical aspects of the potential route were not mentioned.
Nor was the fact Guilbault's new 2.8-kilometre bridge from the south shore could make landfall in the same area. That is where the bridge would become a tunnel, either 1.75 km or 3.6 km depending on the route, bored out of Cap Diamant that protected the French from invaders for years.
'It shows Mme. Guilbault has no knowledge or respect whatsoever for history,' said Louis Vallée, president of the Fédération Histoire Québec and the Société d'histoire de Sillery. The borough of Sillery could be radically affected by the project the Coalition Avenir Québec government has been promising since 2018.
'It can't happen,' Vallée said. 'It would scrap an entire heritage area. It would be catastrophic.'
A quick tour by bicycle of the L'Anse-au-Foulon area reveals an area lush with greenery (including poison ivy) and recreational facilities such as bike paths. That is mixed in with historic and military lore, all well-documented by information panels installed by the National Battlefields Commission, which owns the site.
The tunnel entrance itself is partially hidden by Champlain Blvd., which runs along the river. It can be found by following the rail line from the water side, which leads to the arched entrance of the tunnel liberally covered in graffiti.
On its own, the tunnel, known to every rebellious teen in Sillery as a place to sneak off to, is historic.
The Canadian Pacific Railway built the tunnel to transport trans-Atlantic passengers disembarking in Quebec City at L'Anse-au-Foulin port to its rail lines to the north and on to Montreal and the rest of Canada.
At the time, the masts of the ships were too tall to clear Montreal's new Jacques-Cartier Bridge located downstream, so ships had to drop their passengers in Quebec City. The official opening of the tunnel took place June 1, 1931, to coincide with the arrival of the Empress of Britain.
The Empress of Britain and her sister ship the Empress of Ireland were then the fastest ships making the transatlantic run to Canadian ports. According to the March-April 2008 edition of Canadian Rail, 100,000 people witnessed the arrival of the Empress of Britain.
Building the tunnel was a substantial job involving 600 workers and the removal of about 61,000 cubic metres of rock and other material. Work was done from both ends and advanced by about five metres a day. The entire project was completed in 11 months.
The tunnel is about 100 metres underground, running under the Plains of Abraham, then north under what is now Belvèdere Ave. to emerge in the St-Malo industrial park.
Much has been written about the tunnel and the location. In the July 1931 edition of The Canadian Magazine under the headline 'Where Wolfe landed an Empress docks,' author C.H.J. Snider wrote the building of the tunnel allowed authorities to gather until-then-unknown information about the rock under the Plains.
'More was learned of the country's foundations than was guessed about them during the whole pre-conquest regime,' he wrote.
Canadian Rail notes the workers found limestone and shale in the construction phase. While the limestone posed few problems, 'the shale had to be supported with timbers until the concrete lining (which exists to this day) could be fitted. Inevitably, accidents occurred in the Wolfe's Cove project.'
Ironically, on the day of Guilbault's announcement, officials at the Ministère des Transports et da la Mobilité durable (MTDM) mentioned previous studies and the 'presence of a railroad tunnel' permits the ministry to conclude the rock would be 'safe' to bore.
Which raises the question, could the railroad tunnel somehow be transformed into the tunnel Guilbault wants that would be available to car, truck and public-transit vehicles?
The question to Guilbault's staff went unanswered, as did questions about whether the ministry considered the effect the project would have on the heritage of the area.
So the Gazette consulted an expert.
'The entry point of a tunnel has not been studied in detail,' said Bruno Massicotte, a professor in Polytechnique Montréal's civil, geological and mining engineering department who was also in charge of the first 2016 study of a tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis.
'My personal impression is the current tunnel would be too small and too low. The envisioned tunnel would have to be halfway up the cliff.'
He added, however, building a tunnel in this area is 'feasible,' because current technology would work in that rock.
There is a Montreal example of a tunnel being repurposed for modern needs. As of April, testing has begun for REM trains using the old tunnel running under Mount Royal that will connect the Du Ruisseau and Central Station stops once the next phase of the project is rolled out.
That tunnel was built in 1912 and converting it was something of an engineering and logistical challenge.
There is one other potential obstacle to whatever Quebec decides about the tunnel: It and the tracks are privately owned and still in use.
In the late 1990s, the tracks, tunnel and infrastructure at L'Anse-au-Foulon were purchased by Quebec-Gatineau Railway, a subsidiary of the U.S. giant, Genesee & Wyoming.
In an email, Quebec-Gatineau Railway spokesperson Tom Ciuba said the tunnel is still in use anywhere from one to three times a week depending on freight traffic.
'As far as we are aware, there have been no talks about converting or widening the tunnel,' Ciuba said. 'Any impacts to our business on a possible widening or conversion of the tunnel would depend on the construction.'
The citizens of Sillery and their historical society president Vallée, however, are already up in arms. Not only would a bridge block their view of the river, the traffic generated by thousands of cars would create air and noise pollution affecting their quality of life.
And they wonder what kind of underground excavation work through posh and historic Sillery would be required for a tunnel.
Quebec just spent millions on upgrading the riverside attractions along Champlain Blvd. to make the site near the coves more citizen-friendly. The third phase of the project includes a beach and infinity pool that gives bathers the impression they are swimming in the St. Lawrence River.
'The area would wind up as lifeless as the area under the Jacques-Cartier Bridge,' Vallée said. 'They would be busting up a major recreational tourist area.'
Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand, who says the Quebec government has cut the city out of the planning process, has expressed skepticism, calling on Quebec to answer 10 key questions he has on the project.
But would the bridge and tunnel improve the lives of motoriststs who currently have only two options to cross the river, the historic Quebec Bridge and the newer Pierre Laporte Bridge?
One new study, written by Université Laval researchers and published June 12 after Guilbault announced the chosen corridor, concluded the total economy in time for motorists with her route would be two minutes, 18 seconds.
Guilbault has promised more project details, this time costed, in the fall, but opposition parties are already calling her scheme another soon-to-be-broken Coalition Avenir Québec government electoral promise.
She argues, however, the corridor she has selected represents the best of several options.
'Yes, there will be challenges, as there would have been for all the corridors,' Guilbault said in June.