Rideau Canal -  August 2007

We passed through the Rideau Canal Waterway last year during out Great Loop trip and absolutely loved the area. 

The canal winds its way through some beautiful country with several interesting little towns along the way. 

It is bounded by two large cities - Kingston located on Lake Ontario near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River is the southern terminus for the canal, and Ottawa, the capital city of Canada  located on the Ottawa River is the northernmost point of the canal.

Last year, we entered the canal at Ottawa and traveled south along the waterway towards Kingston.  This year, we entered the canal at Kingston and traveled north.  We  rushed a bit going through the canal last year (we had to scurry along in order to get to Chicago by Labor Day), but this year we were able to slow down and enjoy more of what the Rideau has to offer. 

This year was the 175th anniversary of the opening of the canal.  In addition, the canal and some of the surrounding parks were named a World Heritage Site this year, so we were looking forward to spending some more time up here exploring and joining in on the festivities along the way.  

The southern end of the waterway is the prettiest part since it was formed by connecting several existing lakes and rivers together to form the waterway. The water is clean and clear, and - if it wasn't for the fact that it was a little bit chilly for this California/Florida girl - perfect for swimming. 

We spent a day in Kingston - a nice town with a fantastic bakery (Pan Chancho) where we picked up a nice supply of gourmet bread as well as some pan au chocolate to fortify us for the trip north. Kingston has a lot more to offer than a great bakery, but we'd spent a few days here last year and we were anxious to start north on the canal.  

The picture to the right below shows some of the granite islands that dot this section of the waterway. 

It was not long before we arrived at the first of the 44 locks along the canal.  

We managed to time our arrival at the canal right at the beginning of August - which was right at the end of the Quebec province Construction Workers Holiday.  What is interesting about this holiday is that it is when ALL of Quebec takes their vacation - not just the construction workers.  For two weeks every year - the last week two weeks of July  - the province pretty much shuts down while everyone goes on holiday.  We met some French Canadians who told us that next year it would shift to being a week later - the last week of July and the first week of August.   

At any rate, some very nice folks on a houseboat invited us to raft up with them on the 'blue line' while we waited for our turn in the locks. The 'blue line' is a long section of dock or wall just before the lock that is painted blue.  They don't usually use radios at the locks, so instead of calling a lock ahead of time to get the status of request a lockage, you just tie up on the blue line when you get there.  That's your indication to the lockmaster that you are ready to go through on his next lockage.   

While I'm on the subject of locking - there's a right way to do it and a 'not so right' way.  The guy in the photo to the left is using a boat hook to hold his boat onto the cable on the side of the lock.  This is the 'not so right way.'  You are supposed to run a line from your boat around the cable and back onto the boat so that you can keep a secure hold onto the cable as the water comes into the lock.  There can be quite a bit of turbulence in a lock as you can also see from the photo.  Unfortunately, right after I took this picture, his boat hook came loose and his rather large boat (it's the big one in the lower right hand corner of the photo to the right) started to bounce around until he could get re-attached to the cable.  The lock-master had him run a line this time. Fortunately no boats were damaged, but it was a good lesson in what to do - and what not to do - in a lock. 

We saw the Kawartha Voyager again this year.  It's a 'Rideau-max' sized cruise ships that runs up and down the canal during the summers.  It's kind of neat because, in order to fit under the bridges, the top awning and the radar arch both fold down (as shown in the picture to the right that I took last year).  When they take it through a lock, the bow portion folks up to reduce the overall length. I always liked the idea of a collapsible boat - one that you can shrink when you need to fit into tight spots, but then enlarge when you have the space and really want the size.  Jeremy still has an idea about creating a boat with slide-outs - similar to an RV.  Hmmmm.....

Speaking of RV's, we were happy to be able to hook up with our friends Jeff and Dawn who just purchased this beauty last fall.  We met them on the Trent-Severn last summer when they were traveling on their boat 'Aquadesiac.'  They decided they wanted to try a bit of 'land cruising' for a change - so they bought this beautiful RV christened the 'Landesiac.'

We met up in the town of Smith's Falls - which has a great little marina attached to an RV park right on the canal. It's also the home of the Canadian Hershey chocolate factory - which we, of course, paid a visit to.  That's Jeff giving Jeremy 'horns' to Dawn outside of their RV and to Jeremy at the entrance to the chocolate shop in the photo below. Clearly he's been hanging out with Jeremy too long.

Smith's Falls has a wonderful museum on the Rideau Canal - so we were able to 'get a bit of culture' in as well.  Jeremy was also able to practice his 'Capt. Bligh at the Helm' skills in the museum.

The museum has a wonderful quilt of the waterway on display. One day I'd love to do a quilt similar to this of our Great Loop trip we made last year.  Guess I'll add it to my list...

Since Jeff and Dawn had their truck with them (they towed it behind the RV), we headed out on a road trip to the town of Perth. 

Perth is a lovely little town about midway along the Rideau. It may be most famous for being the home of the largest cheese ever made. Called the Mammoth Cheese, it was made for the 1893 World Expo. It took 207,200 pounds of milk, or one day's milk from 10,000 cows. It was six feet high and 28 feet in circumference. When the cheese was fully packed, its shipping weight was 26,000 pounds  or 13 tons.

Dr. J. A. Ruddick, a member of the staff of the Commissioner of Dairying and Agriculture in 1893, supervised the work of collecting the curd from the various factories and pressing it into the Mammoth Cheese. He wrote:

"The arrival of the cheese at the Exposition caused some surprise and astonishment on the part of officials. It excited other emotions when it crashed through the floor of the building while it was being moved from the car to the space prepared for it. The language of the officials who came around the next morning was rather lurid, to say the least.

"Although due to the stupidity of the men in charge of the moving, the crashing of the floor was the very thing which opened the flood gates of publicity, and publicity for the Canadian cheese industry was the only reason for the cheese being there. It was more talked about and more written up in the newspapers than any other single exhibit at the Fair. Accounts of it appeared with illustrations even in European papers. I have a large scrap book filled with newspaper clippings, illustrations, cartoons, etc. all referring to the cheese."

It has now been relegated to an overgrown field. When we asked about it at the tourist office, they laughed and told us how to find it. Then they wished us luck. We, being intrepid explorers were not to be deterred. This is a picture of Dawn hacking her way through the weeds to get a picture of the Mammoth Cheese. 

Jeremy made his way through the weeds to 'climb the beast.'  Oh yeah, he's trying to give it horns, his favorite past time - but the big cheese proved to be a bit too big for him...
 

Leaving the Mammoth Cheese, we wandered back into town and found an antique museum. I really enjoyed thumbing through a book of quilt blocks labeled 'Grandmother's Quilt Blocks - Handcraft Project 1958.'

The museum also had an antique birch bark canoe. According to legend, there was a time when there were no birch trees on the earth. An old Indian Chief, sensing his time had come, called his people together and asked that he be buried in a robe of White Ermine. The black tip on the tail on the Ermine was to be left on the pelt. His instructions were followed and from the spot where he was buried, grew the first birch tree.  The black and white of the birch tree is indicative of the Ermine, and if you peel away the white bark of a mature birch tree, the inner bark is the color of an Indian's skin.

The birch tree was indispensable to early Indians. In addition to its use for canoes, the birch bark was used as the covering over shelters, the basis for food containers and utensils, papyrus, as well as providing fodder for fires. 

Smiths Falls has a wonderful train museum. 

Dental car - used to provide dental service throughout rural Canada. 

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We were fortunate to meet up with some other boating friends who we'd met last year when we were doing out Great Loop trip. The picture to the left is of Erica on the back of their PDQ 34 Trawlercat 'Tumbleweed.' She's cheering on a group that was doing a kayak trip through the Rideau as a means of raising money for a local charity. The picture to the right is of 'Heart Tug' - a new American Tug 34 owned by Randy and Audrey. 

'Cruising is often comprised of days of doing boat maintenance in exotic locations' - so the saying goes. I don't know if Smith's Falls counts as an exotic location, but we had our share of boat maintenance here. The bow thruster decided to stop working as we were leaving the lock coming into town.  This, of course, would happen half way through a canal with 44 locks and in Canada where we would have to have parts shipped in. This is a picture of Jeremy hanging upside down working on the bow thruster....  Those blue and green bags represent some of my fabric stash that we had to remove so he could get at the thruster to work on it.

Merrickville is a lovely artist community located just a few miles north of Smiths Falls on the Rideau.  It's a great place to stop and have a wander around. I love this Celtic design in the front walkway of a house in town. Another idea for a quilt design perhaps????

I was out walking one morning when I met Claudette Hart, known locally as "The Gourd Lady of Merrickville," out working in her studio. She makes the most beautiful creations out of gourds. 

http://www.merrickvilleartists.com/resumes/claudette.htm 

Burritts Rapids is another small town farther along the Rideau. We found this neat little log cabin along the way. We also found this 'guy' riding a bike in someone's garden. 

This is the dock around the corner from the  Burritts Rapids lock.  I went swimming here one day - not exactly on purpose.  I was helping to push another boat off of the dock on a particularly windy day. Jeremy was on our boat doing something, but I went over and offered to help.  It was really windy, so I pushed hard to get it away from the dock - only to realize that I had somehow managed to get myself out too far over the water. I yelled at the skipper as I was going in and to tell my husband I'm in the water.  This was followed by a big splash. When I came up, he had found Jeremy and he was out on the back of our boat putting down our swim ladder for me and trying hard not to laugh.  No harm done - at least the water didn't go crunch when I fell in!!

On our way north towards Ottawa, we cam across the S. S. Pumper.  This is the boat that Col By traveled on through the Rideau when it opened in 1832. I found the Ode to the Bytown Pumper on the web.  

Coming into Ottawa on the Rideau, one of the first things you notice is this beautiful golden-domed church.  The photo to the right is of some 'new friends' Jeremy made along the waterfront. I particularly like the guy in the back in the suit. He doesn't seem to approve of any of the others...

We opted to stay in Dows Lake marina during our stay in Ottawa.  Last year we tied to the wall in downtown, just above the 'Flight of Eight' locks. They have been having some problems with kids messing around with the boats there - things like untying them at night - so we opted instead to stay in a marina.  It was nice - and a relatively short bike-ride into the city.  The picture below is of a sunset on evening over Dows Lake. 

Ottawa is one of our favorite cities to visit. It is arguably the political, cultural, and financial heart of Canada. We particularly love the juxtaposition of the old buildings next to the new - such as the Parliament building pictured below reflected in the modern 'glass-walled' office building across the street. 

I found these original 'Cabbage Patch Kids' in a garden in the city.  We visited a museum near the Flight of Eight locks and Jeremy tried on a navy cap.  Kinda cute, Eh???

This is a picture of the Ottawa skyline as taken from the bridge that crosses the Ottawa River to Hull.  The large building to the right is Parliament. The 'Flight of Eight' locks forms a nautical stairway into the center of the city. 

Coming across the bridge towards Ottawa, the statue of Champlain is visible from the top of  Nepean Point. Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), shown in the picture to the left, was the 17th-century explorer, geographer and map-maker who founded the city of Quebec in 1608 and in 1613 explored the Ottawa River. This statue was erected to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his second ascent up the Ottawa River. It is said to be erected at the very location where he would have made his solar observation during his voyage in 1615.

Coming into the city past the Flight of Eight, you walk past the statue of Lieutenant-Colonel John By, shown in the picture to the right. He was an Engish military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and, in the process, founding the town of Bytown which would become the city of Ottawa. 

Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa. 

Leaving Ottawa - down the 'Flight of Eight' out onto the Ottawa River and on to Montreal.....

  Updated April 6, 2008

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