IN LOVE WITH THE RIDEAU CANAL
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I fell in love with the Rideau Canal with my face pressed to the glass of a taxi. Ottawa was experiencing an unexpected April heat wave, with temperatures soaring into the thirties; my flight from Calgary had been delayed by snow. So it was love at first sight.
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The citizens of Ottawa were celebrating the weather by biking, jogging or walking on the bike path that follows the Canal. As my taxi plodded along on my way to a job interview, I promised myself that if I got the job I would buy myself a new a bicycle and join them.
Then earlier this year UNESCO declared the Rideau Canal a World Heritage Site, putting it in the esteemed company of Ankor Wat, The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Giza. To us Canadians it might seem like a confusing choice. But The Rideau is the oldest functioning canal in North America.
The locks are still cranked by old-fashioned muscle power, much as they were when the Canal first opened in 1832. Stopping in the midst of your bike ride to watch the simple process is part of a charm that isn’t available anywhere else in the world. And odds are you will pause at least once, since the path frequently requires riders to walk their bikes across the top of the lock gates to continue on the other side.
It’s strange to look at the boats peacefully plying their way upriver and to think of the Rideau Canal as a military asset, but that’s what it originally was. Following the American Revolution our neighbours to the south considered the conquest of Canada and the spreading of democracy their moral duty (my how little things change). During the War of 1812, our masters in London discovered they needed a secure supply line between Montreal and the bustling city of Kingston.
So in 1826 Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers was assigned the task of making the lakes and rivers of the Ottawa, Rideau and Cataraqui Rivers into a navigable waterway. Colonel By set up camp at the confluence of the Rideau and Ottawa rivers and, in the spirit of the times, named it Bytown. Some bright spark later changed the name to Ottawa; so in a very real way, the Canal is responsible for our national capital.
The canal was one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century, another reason bolstering its designation as a world heritage site. Over 200 km long, it required the construction of 24 dams and 46 locks through what was then virgin wilderness. When it finally opened in 1832 it was overdue and over-budget (my how little things change). London was so incensed at the cost that By was recalled to London, faced a parliamentary inquiry and died four years later a disappointed man.
These days we think of malaria as a purely tropical disease, but it wasn’t always so; many of the men who laboured on the Rideau Canal died from malaria or cholera in Ontario’s mosquito’s infected swamps. The exact number of deaths will likely never be known. Tragically, many of these laborers were French-Canadian or Irish immigrants and so little-valued at the time that their names often went unrecorded. Simple Celtic crosses at either end of the Canal, one in Kingston and one in Ottawa, mark their deaths.
And it is on their backs that people like me have their fun, not just on bikes but on skates also. In winter, an 8 km section of the Rideau Canal becomes the famous Rideau skateway: the equivalent of 90 Olympic hockey rinks, it is officially the world's largest skating rink. I imagine skating to work would make an Ottawa winter almost bearable.
And sometimes it feels like it takes things like the skateway and canal to make Ottawa bearable. Ottawa’s detractors (which are legion) call it “the city that fun forgot”. It is an appropriate designation. The city’s lackluster celebrations along the “Sens Mile” proved as much during their ill-fated run at the cup. I recall dashing out of my hotel on the eve of the final game a mere hour and a half before game time to get a good seat at a pub in the heart of the Sens Mile, and finding the bar virtually empty. I wandered the Sens Mile for nearly an hour wondering where the party was, before things began to heat up.
The Rideau Canal is the pride and joy of Ottawa, as integral to its citizens’ sanity as are Calgary’s chinooks or Edmonton’s river valley. It keeps them sane in the long winters and provides an outlet on days when a longer excursion into the Gatineau Hills isn’t possible.
And me? I got the job. Last month I had an official meeting with a guy from Scotland … while pedaling down the Rideau’s bike path.