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As the flood waters rose along the Ottawa River 91 years ago, the Ottawa Evening Citizen ran an odd little story about a Fort Coulonge man catching a pickerel in his living room.

At least he said he caught one. You can never tell with fish stories. But the real point is that no one seemed particularly bothered by the fact that “a certain Mr. Morrison” had water in his home.

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And the blurry digital image of that 1928 newspaper holds all kinds of insights into the different ways people related to the river back then. They took some thing in stride that would shake people badly today, and they worried about things that we do not.

Here’s a look at May of 1928 as the water at Britannia reached 60.35 metres, only 30 centimetres below this week’s level:

Headline: “Floods Cannot Affect Ottawa Water Supply.” Well, that’s what the city engineer was telling people. The point being that people were seriously worried that the water could become contaminated if power failed at the Lemieux Island filtration plant. Remember, this city had an early history of cholera.