Special Edition! Happy Canada Day.

In celebration of Canada Day and the completion of our trip from Ottawa to Kingston, this special edition highlights the wonder of the Rideau Canal. We think it's special; but so do others. Not only is the Canal a National Historic Site of Canada, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named it a World Heritage Site. And, its surroundings look so much like our part of Maine!

The Canal opened in 1832, pretty darned close to two centuries ago, and is the only 19th century canal that still operates along its original route with most of its original structures intact. With its construction overseen by Colonel John By, a British military

engineer, the Brits built the Canal so that they could supply the British military in upper Canada and Kingston from Montreal without intervention from the United States.

Little used for that purpose, it quickly became the major immigration artery into Upper Canada and then a major commercial route. With its commercial use declining at the end of the 1800s due to the steam engine and the age of rail, palace steamers and fishing lodges foretold a century and a half of tourism that dominates the Canal's use to this day.

In some ways, the word "canal" is a misnomer. While the waterway does, in fact, look and feel like a canal at the up and downstream approaches to each lock, for most of its length, lakes and naturally appearing streams comprise its path. Most of these have water levels that benefit from dams and some appear to have had some dredging as well. That's a good thing because we've seen water depths on our sonar as low as 3.7 feet in places. We draw 3'9" and really haven't had a significant issue except for holding our breath a bit too long a few times. Boats drawing more than 5' may be allowed to use the Canal but must sign a waiver.

Most of the locks on the Canal remain as built in the early 1830s. When a boat enters a

lock, the Parks Canada lock crew cranks the lock doors closed--usually with two crewmembers manually cranking the winch that closes each door--four crew cranking all told. When the doors are firmly closed, the crew then manually cranks opens sluices in the gates and walls to fill or empty the lock by gravity. As the lock fills or empties, they open the sluices wider in a strategy designed to keep currents in the lock from pushing

boats around too violently. Finally, when the water level is exactly equal to the water level outside, the crew cranks open the exit doors. And, a surprising number of locks operate in conjunction with a swing bridge, most of which are also manually operated. On a busy day, the lock keepers get a great upper body workout!

Before entering a lock, we ready the fenders and two lines. If we'll be going up, we like an "M" pattern for the fenders--low, high, low, high, low. Going down, we prefer a "W"--high, low, high, low, high. In both cases, we have the low bumpers actually dragging in the water (critical when the high water in the lock leaves only six inches of wall exposed) and the high bumpers just below the rail. Then, we enter the lock slowly, sidle to one side, slow, stop, and wrap a line around a lock cable both fore and aft. In some locks,

there's very little motion and its quite easy to hold the line. In others, you really need a wrap around a cleat and some strength to make the boat behave in the current and wind. And always, we're watching the fenders and the side of the lock to prevent scratches to the hull. Going down, I sometimes jump out to hold the boat off the wall until the water level drops far enough for the upper bumpers to fit between the boat and the wall.

The Canal from Ottawa to Kingston Mills is 121.3 miles long and includes 45 locks. Most of the locks also function as parks. They have toilet facilities, water, picnic tables, campsites, green space, and docks or walls for boats which can overnight or just stop for a break. They attract both locals and national and international tourists. Most of the latter have never seen a lock operate and there have been any number of times when we have felt like the monkeys in the zoo!