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The British Corps of Royal Engineers, under the command of Colonel John By, began construction of the Rideau Canal in 1826. After the war of 1812, another armed conflict with the Americans was feared and the canal was intended to be a part of a Montreal to Kingston supply route safe from the American guns along the St. Laurence. |
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The Rideau Canal was completed 1832 and was opened on May 24th of that year. |
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Colonel By build his house on a hill to the east of the canal. The hill, known then as Colonel's Hill, became known as Major's Hill after By's successor Major Daniel Bolton, moved into the house. |
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Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer who disappeared on an Arctic expedition in 1845, laid the first stone of the Rideau Canal in 1827. |
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Govenor in Chief Dalhousie laid the cornerstone in 1845. This huge cornerstone lies on the east side of the canal below water level. |
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Where the Pretoria Bridge now stands, a ferry once transported Ottawa's citizens across the canal for a fee of 10 cents. |
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Over 2600 tree stumps are reported to have been cut and removed from Dows Lake. If you look carefully when the water in the lake is at its lowest level, a cedar stump can be seen in the distance. Many more, still bearing the ax marks of Colonel By's men, remain at the bottom of the lake. |
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It is thought that as many as 2000 men worked on the canal and possibly more than 500 canal workers may have died from malaria contracted while building it. During the summer of 1828, work on the canal had to be suspended for a number of weeks because of the disease. |
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Dows Great Swamp, infested with mosquitoes and black flies, imposed particularly miserable conditions on the canal workers. John McTaggart discovered that surveying work could not be accomplished until the swamp had frozen. The men had to wade through water and mud, occasionally even crawling on hands and knees under brush. |
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Once the canal was build, steamboats carried both passengers and freight, once even transporting a steam locomotive on its way to the opening of a new rail line. |
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The embankment on which Colonel By Drive now passes was build by Philemon Wright, while the embankment on which Queen Elizabeth Drive now runs was build by Jean St. Louis. |
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When the water in the lake has been drained to skating level in the fall, the remains of a causeway that once traversed the lake can be seen. |