Canada - Ottawa River and Ottawa - July 2006
Leaving Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, we traveled up the Ottawa river toward the capital city of Ottawa.
About 25 miles along (or about 3 hours, at out speed) we came across the Carillon Lock and Dam, one of the highest locks in North America. A single locking operation raises or lowers boats 20 meters (about 66 feet). It takes around 20 minutes and some 25 million liters of water to fill the lock. As a comparison, most of the locks we have been through were in the 5 to 10 foot range. The dam at Carillon is also the largest power generating station on the Ottawa River and the second largest hydro-power plant in Canada - generating over 650,000 kW of energy.
The lock is on the right hand side of this picture - the dam and hydro-electric plant is to the left.
Approaching the lock is like coming up to a giant cave. When we got there, they were loading boats in for a lift. Since there were already many boats waiting to lock up, we had to wait until they had been loaded into the lock, and then tie up to the 'blue line' and wait our turn for the next time. It takes about 1.5 hours for them to complete a cycle of loading boats, raising them, unloading, loading boats to come down, lowering them and unloading them at the bottom. Since we had a bit of a wait, Jeremy hiked to the top of the dam and snapped this picture of Tardis tied to the blue line behind 9 other boats.
This is a picture of Jeremy 'biting his nails' about the lock. It's by far the highest lock that we would use during out trip. The good news was that there is a long floating dock that you tie to once inside the lock - so we didn't have to deal with using really long lines from the top in order to control the position of our boat. I snapped the second picture below as we were entering the lock.
There were many boats of all sizes with two-legged as well as four-legged crew locking through with us.
This is a picture of us tied to the dock inside the lock. Easy! What were we worried about??
Le Chateau Montebello, located along the Ottawa river is the largest log cabin structure in the world.
The Ottawa river widens into the Lac de Duex Montagnes (Lake of Two Mountains). We spent one night at anchor in a lovely cove called the Baie de Atocus along the way.
Many small villages are located along the shores of the Ottawa river, including this one shown below.
We met the folks on the boat 'Air +' in Sainte-Anne -de-Bellevue. We saw them as they scooted past us on the Ottawa river, and caught up with them again in Ottawa.
Floatplanes are pretty popular in the rivers and lakes in Canada. We saw this one docked outside of a house along the Ottawa river.
One of the first things you see as you approach Ottawa are the Rideau Falls. The entrance to the canal is a bit farther along and takes you right through the heart of the city. The word 'Rideau' means curtain in French. The French explorer Champlain named the area Rideau when he saw the falls.
The entrance to the Rideau Canal in Ottawa is marked by the famous 'Flight of 8' locks. The locks raised our boat a total of 79 feet and took us over 3 hours to complete.
The view from the canal as you are being raised into the city center is spectacular. The old buildings of Parliament are on one side and the glass enclosed top of the National Gallery is on the other.
There were many boats waiting to lock up - so the lock was quite full when we went in. We were positioned in the front, which can be quite exciting in a rising lock - since the water enters through sluice tunnels located at the front of the lock. The sluice tunnels are opened to allow water to flow from the higher level down into the lower level - thereby raising the water level in the lower level lock. This picture shows some of the turbulence that we had in one of the locks.
We saw this waterfall over the coming from the lock above us as we passed from one lock into the next on the flight.
We got a better view of the houses of Parliament as we came 'up in the world' on the locks.
At the top of the 'flight of 8' locks, we were able to tie to a public seawall in the center of town. We were happy to be there and a bit tired. Did I mention it took us over three hours to complete the 8 locks? After getting the boat settled and ourselves cleaned up, we headed to a wonderful sidewalk cafe restaurant across the canal for dinner.
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and the Parliament building was a short walk from the canal where we had our boat moored. The main building includes the tall clock tower in the center. Behind this building is a circular building housing the library. The library structure is very gothic. Jeremy said it was like gluing the Note Dame in Paris to the Parliament building in London.
This is a close-up of the clock tower.
Additional Parliament buildings are on either side of the main building.
Every day at 10AM, there is a 'Changing of the Guard' ceremony in front of the Parliament building.
This is me with one of the guardsmen after the ceremony. He was allowed to talk to us, but we couldn't get him to smile for the camera! He not part of the ceremony, but was off to the side standing guard in front of the Parliament.
This was a grouping of women suffraget statues on the grounds of the Parliament building. The one woman is holding up a copy of the daily Journal with the headlines that read 'Women are Persons..' in both English and French. Across from them are two older women applauding and toasting them with a cup of tea. Women were granted the right to vote in Canada in 1921. It was 1920 in the US. In 1918, the United Kingdom granted women over 30 who owned property and all men over the age of 21 the right to vote. It was not until 1928 that women achieved full equality regarding suffrage in the UK.
There is a statue of Lt. John By, the British Royal Engineer who designed and oversaw the building of the Rideau canal on a hill overlooking the 'Flight of 8' locks.
This was a giant spider we found lurking in front of the National Gallery.
We walked down to the Rideau river and the falls we passed as we came into Ottawa on the river.
There is a statue of Terry Fox in front of the main Canada information center across from the Parliament. Terry set out to run across Canada in order to raise money and awareness for cancer research. On April 20, 1980 he started his 'Marathon of Hope' when he dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic waters off St. Johns, Newfoundland. He reached Thunder Bay, Ontario on September 1 and 5373 kilometers later when he had to quit the run due to the return of his cancer. He passed away 10 months later, but remains a national hero.
Ottawa has many lovely parks and gardens scattered throughout the city.
The view from Parliament hill overlooking the Ottawa River and Point Alexander Bridge.
This is a statue of Champlain located at the top of the point overlooking the Ottawa river.
The city of Gatineau is located across the Ottawa River from the city of Ottawa. We walked over to Gatineau across the Point Alexander bridge to see the Museum of Civilization. The Museum of Civilization includes some wonderful exhibits of history of Canada. There were also some 're-enactors' scattered throughout the museum who were happy to engage you in conversation about life at their time. The Point Alexander bridge is great to walk across as it not only has a wide walkway for pedestrians but also a two-way bike path.
This is a picture of Ottawa looking back from the bridge. The 'flight of 8' locks are on the left and Parliament is on the right.
Updated July 19, 2006