The Rideau Canal.

A few words about the Rideau before we continue our journey. Although similar to the Trent-Severn, they are both run by Parks Canada, there is no commercial traffic (just an occasional tour boat) and every lock is a park site. There are some major differences. The Trent was started in the mid 1800s and not completed until 1920 while the Rideau was started in 1826 and completed in 1832. The Trent has been updated and modernized while the Rideau has been carefully maintained as it was originally built, all the lock gates and valves are hand operated cranks and chains to drive the mechanisms. At the time the Rideau was built there was no concrete, the locks are all limestone blocks hand carved and fitted.

After we got back to the boat we headed out to start the Rideau, much of the early section is narrow channels through otherwise shallow water. There are lots of buoys. After about five miles we headed into a narrow canal between granite walls. This is part of the Canadian Shield and had to be blasted and hand excavated by the canal builders. The signs on the side of wall are “10kph/hr and no wake”. It leads to the first set of locks at Kingston Mills. This is a flight of three locks followed 100 yards later by a fourth.

They were just finishing a group of six boats going the other way when we got there. Two on each wall and two smaller boats rafted off in the middle. When they exited one was a very interesting boat from NY. My impression is of an old Erie Canal boat, but that is just an impression I know nothing about the boat.

We locked through and tied to the floating dock above for the night. Notice in the pictures the limestone block construction. The lock has a railroad bridge high above the middle chamber of the flight and a swing bridge above the fourth chamber. There was a lot of train traffic early, most of it passenger from Montreal to Toronto and on to Windsor. By bed time it had slowed down and we heard only one freight train during the night. It was a lovely park setting, there were a lot of fisherman in the evening but they all left by dark. We were the only boat there.

Another great day.