History of the Rideau Canal

Wilma Kenny | Sep 01, 2021

Hunter McGill, President of Friends of the Rideau spoke to an outdoor gathering of the Dog and Cranberry Lakes Association on Sunday, about the building of the Rideau canal. Over 50 people sat scattered around a wide green space below the Upper Brewer’s Locks

McGill began with some general information: at 189 years, the Rideau Canal is the oldest continuously operating canal in North America. It’s a National Historical Site and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A substantial portion of the Rideau runs along the southeastern part of South Frontenac, between the Seeley’s Bay area and Mount Chesney.

Intended as part of a route between the great lakes and Montreal that could not be blockaded by the United States, the canal was a British military project, connecting the Rideau River to the Cataraqui River, often following aboriginal travel routes.

It had been under discussion for two decades, but once begun under the direction of Colonel By, the actual construction was accomplished in the four years between 1827 and the fall of 1831.

Working conditions were grim. An estimated thousand men died during those four years of construction: malaria and typhoid were rampant, tools were crude: picks, shovels, horses, oxen, and black powder for blasting. (Dynamite was not yet in use.) Most of the workers were Irish or French Canadian; the French cleared the land, and the Irish did the digging: the stonemasons came from Scotland.

All the clusters of locks were built more or less simultaneously by individual private contractors, with one exception: the height of land at Newboro, which defeated two contractors. That section was eventually completed by the Royal Engineers; dams were used to raise the water level on both sides of a five-mile wide granite ridge, to minimize the amount of blasting needed.

Overall, the Rideau is a ‘slack water’ canal, accomplished by connecting flooded lands with channels dug at least five feet deep: dams were cheaper to build than locks. Cranberry Lake before it was flooded was a small lake in a huge boggy area, one of the major sources of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Right from the beginning, Col. By insisted the British budget of 160,000 British Pounds was far too low: the eventual cost was 822,000. By was recalled to Britain to account for this large cost overrun, and although eventually exonerated, he never got the recognition he deserved for his accomplishment.

McGill regretted that due to repeated cut-backs, the National Parks Commission has had to withdraw all interpretive staff and programs from the Rideau’s lock sites, leaving only enough staff to maintain and operate the locks themselves.

In contrast, the C-D Lakes Association were excellent, well-organized hosts, providing a good loudspeaker system, draws for lake-associated mugs, hats, shirts, etc, and free chocolate-coated ice cream bars.