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| Canoe camping at Brewer's
Locks |
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The above is a journal
entry from Kingston Mills, the last night of our
first Rideau cruise. While other waters call for
big boats with large sails or motors, the Rideau
is a canoer's or kayaker's paradise - because of
the low bridges through Ottawa, sailboaters have
to lower their masts and, to protect the fragile
banks, there are strict speed limits imposed
throughout the entire 125 mile length. |
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| Although people refer
to the system as the "Rideau Canal," it
is more properly the "Rideau Waterway,"
with locks and canals connecting rivers and lakes
from Ottawa to Kingston Mills. While most
cruisers begin at either one end or the other,
the canoeist or kayaker has the luxury of
choosing from literally dozens of likely spots
and, with lots of little towns along the way,
this is one near-wilderness trip that doesn't
require carrying a full vacation's worth of food. |
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| Canoe Tripping along the
Rideau |
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| The Lockmaster at work with
historic, hand operated lock equipment |
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The Rideau system is at
once a living legend, a history lesson, a bird
watcher's delight, and an invitation to slow
down, relax, and enjoy. It wasn't intended to
serve that purpose. In 1826, Colonel John By was sent
from England to oversee the construction of a
shallow-draft gunboat canal. After the War of
1812, the British realized that their supply
lines along the St. Lawrence River were
vulnerable.
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| An alternative route
was considered a necessity. In 1824, Samuel
Clowes, who was hired to do a feasibility study
on a canal route from Kingston to the Ottawa
River, estimated the cost, including locks and
canal cuts, at about 169,000 British pounds. When
Colonel By was sent out to manage the project, he
saw that the notion of a military canal was short
sighted. He recommended that a commercial
steamboat canal be built. By the time the canal
was built to By's specifications in 1832 (at the
cost of By's health and at enormous cost of
life), delays caused by bureaucratic |
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| A tribute to Colonel By's
engineering skills, the original locks
and the original dams are still in use . |
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wrangling had
contributed to a cost over-run of 608,146 British pounds.
By was recalled to England and publicly censured. He was
partly exonerated but died in 1839, broken in spirit. Meanwhile, the canal he had fought for
quickly proved its worth. A subsequent Canada-U.S. war
never happened. Steam replaced sail. Durham boats, barges
and steamships carried cargo and passengers up the canal,
often running the rapids of the St. Lawrence to go back
downstream, until 1935, when the Great Depression
destroyed the Canadian economy. The canal, which had no
economic viability, was nearly dismantled as part of a
make-work project.
The system was finally declared
an historic site and turned over to Parks Canada in 1972.
The Rideau is now a pleasure route, run as a recreational
monument to Colonel By and the men who died while
attempting to build a canal through granite, malaria bogs
and thickly treed wilderness more than 160 years ago.
Twelve miles of man-made canals,
five miles of which wander through Ottawa, connect a
loose chain of lakes and rivers. The system includes 23
lock stations with 47 locks which lift boats 273 feet
from the Ottawa River to the summit at Newboro and down
164 feet to Lake Ontario. A side branch up the Tay River
to Perth has two locks with a combined 25 foot lift.
Anywhere is a good place to
begin. The problem is - when to end? There is never
enough time to do the Rideau justice. There is always one
more cove begging for a swim suit, one more little town
waiting to be explored, one more line of fire flies to
follow, one more hiking trail to discover.
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