The Rideau Canal
Darryl August 24th, 2008
The Rideau Canal is a winding water thread, connecting a series of lakes and rivers between Ottawa and Lake Ontario. Every lock on the canal is a photo opportunity. While staying at Sand Lake after our son’s wedding, we took several driving trips to see several.
The most striking was the Lock at Jones Falls, just a few miles from our location. Parking on a high cliff above the lockworks, we walked across the top of a 60 foot high convex dam constructed around 1831 and still holding back a 40 foot head of water, despite being built entirely without mortar. Built like a huge Roman arch lying on its side, the structure was pressed tight by the water pressure from the lake behind ity.
The water compartments of the lock system were flooded and released through large swinging gates on either end, opened and closed manually by a crew of three National Park officers.
The story of the Rideau Canal system goes back to when the British in Canada were at odds with the new country of the United States. Between 1826 and 1832,the course was chopped, blasted, and pickaxed through the untracked wilderness of eastern Ontario. Its construction gave gave birth to the city of Bytown, named after Lieutenant Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers, the supervising engineer of the system. Bytown is now Ottawa, and the Capital of Canada.
At the southern end, the system enters lake Ontario at Kingston, just before Thousand Islands.
We watched while boats entered the locks, tied off, and waited for the flooding to lift them the 14 feet to the next level.
All in all, the Rideau Canal system is an engineering marvel, with a total of forty-five locks in twenty-three lock stations along its 125 miles. It is the oldest continuously operating canal in North America, and since 2007, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Our plan is to live on the Canal this upcoming summer, most definitely traversing its length at least once, and perhaps getting our houseboat onto some of the other canal systems of Eastern Canada.
For more information about the Rideau Canal, have a look at its website, at http://www.rideau-info.com/.