Cruising the Rideau Canal

The Rideau Canal is North America’s oldest continuously operating canal.  This 125 mile long chain of rivers, lakes, cut canals and locks was built between 1826-1832 as a military defense route to connect Ottawa with Lake Ontario.  Although the canal has never been used for military purposes, it is now used primarily by recreational boaters to move from Ottawa to Kingston on Lake Ontario.  It is managed well by the Canadian Park Services Dept.

We arrived at the first lock in Ottawa and ascended eight locks in rapid sequence to rise from the Ottawa river to downtown Ottawa.  We had to wait for a couple of hours halfway through this lock series for a thunderstorm to pass over us.    All 49 locks on the Rideau are still operated manually by turning hand cranks to open and close the lock gates as well as control the flow of water in and out of the locks.  The lock interiors are made of massive limestone mortared blocks.  Many of the locks are staffed by college-aged park employees who are extremely helpful and friendly while assisting boaters like us moving in and out of the lock gates.

We just missed the last set of four locks heading into Kingston, ON by a few minutes.  We are now secured to a place on a wall above the lock awaiting the first opening tomorrow morning.  From here we will cruise south to Kingston and head west on Lake Ontario to pick up the Trent-Severn canal system which will ultimately take us into the north Georgian Bay of Lake Huron.  We are now enjoying warm sunny days and comfortably cool evenings.  We are not missing the Florida heat and humidity!