Description of Historic Place
Rideau Canal National Historic Site of Canada is a 200 km man-made waterway running through a corridor of communities from Ottawa River to Lake Ontario. It was built in the mid 19th century. The designation includes lands alongside the canal which are administered by Parks Canada.
Heritage Value
Rideau Canal was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1925. It is designated because:
• built between 1826 and 1832, it is the best preserved canal from the great canal-building era in North America that is still fully operational: its historic structures and environment speak to its ingenious design, construction, and military purpose, as well as to its social and economic functions;
• it exemplifies cutting edge canal design due to Lieutenant-Colonel John By’s innovative “slackwater” approach, which created a navigable route from natural waterways and lakes on a scale previously unseen in North America, and because it was one of the first canals in the world engineered specifically for steam-powered vessels;
• its construction through more than 200 kilometers of bush, swamps, and lakes was a monumental feat. Each year, as many as 5,000-6,000 workmen assembled at over two-dozen worksites. The great majority of the labourers were Irish and French Canadian toiling under the supervision of contractors and the Royal Engineers. Working primarily with hand tools and in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, these labourers and skilled craftsmen, such as Scottish stonemasons, endured disease and injury, with large numbers dying during the canal’s construction;
• in the aftermath of the War of 1812, when relations with the United States were tense, it was built to serve as a military canal and represented a fundamental component of Britain’s defences in the interior of North America, safeguarding the supply lines between Montréal and Lake Ontario by providing an alternative and more defensible route to that along the St. Lawrence River;
• it contributed significantly to the social and economic development of Upper Canada / Ontario prior to 1850, when it was a key artery for the movement of goods and people in and out of the colony. After that time, it continued to be of local commercial importance until the 1930s; since then it has served as a popular recreational route.
The heritage value of the Rideau Canal lies in the health and wholeness of its cultural landscape, as a witness of the early 19th-century forms, materials and technologies of the waterway, and as a dynamic reflection of the longstanding human and ecological inter-relationships between the canal and its corridor. The Rideau Canal was built for the British government by Lieutenant-Colonel John By as a defensive work in 1826-1837. Canada assumed responsibility for its management in 1855, and the waterway served as a commercial transportation route through most of the 19th and 20th centuries. Parks Canada acquired the canal to sustain its recreational operation in 1972.
Sources: HSMBC Minutes, June 1924, 1967, November 1987; Commemorative Integrity Statement, 1987.
Character-Defining Elements
Aspects of this site which contribute to its heritage values include:
- the completeness of the cultural landscape as a longstanding system of transportation facilities including the waterway, locks, blockhouses, dams, weirs and lockstations with lockmasters’ houses, associated shore lands and communities, extensive wetlands and lakes,
- the canal bed and its subdivision into lockstations,
- the original built resources, in particular, the form, craftsmanship, materials and locations of its early blockhouses, lockmasters’ houses, and lockstation buildings canal walls, locks, dams and weirs,
- defensive siting, materials and functional design of blockhouses, lockmasters’ houses and lockstation landscapes, and remnants such as the guardhouses at Jones Falls and Morton’s Dam,
- archaeological remnants of construction including the ruin of the engineers’ building, the remains of the lime kilns, the Sapper’s Bridge and blacksmith shop at the Ottawa Locks, the construction camp at Newboro,
- remnants of engineering design including the canal route, walls, locks, weirs, bridges such as the remains of Ottawa’s Sapper’s Bridge and submerged bridge at the Jones’ Falls dam, and dams (especially the stone arch dams at Long Island and Jones Falls, and the underwater site of the original dam at Merrickville), and the operational technologies including the manual operation of all locks except Newboro, Black Rapids and Smiths Falls Combined Locks,
- the wetlands and lakes created by the canal construction,
- on-going operation of the canal and all evidence of its continuous seasonal operation since 1832 (particularly the integral role of its engineering works in the sustained operation of the navigation system as witnessed by facilities at all locks except Locks 29, 30 & 31 at Smiths Falls Combined, the surviving historic layout and configuration of lockstations including their patterns of open space and circulation),
- the continuity of historic, ecological and visual associations with shore lands and communities along the route, particularly pathways, view sheds from the canal locks and channel to the central core of Ottawa between the Mackenzie King Bridge and the Ottawa River, view sheds between the canal, the fortifications, the harbour in the landscape of Kingston harbour, views from the canal shore lands and communities between Becketts Landing and Kilmarnock lockstation, along Newboro channel, at Chaffeys Locks, and at the lockstations at Davis Locks, Jones Falls, Upper and Lower Brewers and Kingston Mills.
