The Rideau Canal, Ottawa to Kingston, Ontario

We are finding it hard to leave many of these wonderful places. We really enjoyed Ottawa but again it is time to move on.

The Rideau Canal is pronounced Re like repeat and dough like bread dough. Again we are always impressed with the natural beauty of Canada. We have found the people to be very happy and friendly. Everyone we encountered has been more than willing to help us with directions, restaurant recommendations or whatever else we needed.

The Rideau consists of many more of the heritage locks taking us from one level to the next and from lake to river, etc. They are almost all hand operated and were built in the 1800's. A new experience was the swing bridges at several of the locks that are also manually operated. I continue to be amazed with the engineering from that long ago. Parks Canada has these facilities in excellent condition and their staff continues to be extremely friendly and helpful.

Most of the locks are staffed by one lockmaster, who is a full time employee, and several summer helpers who are usually university students. We enjoyed talking to many of them and hearing their dreams and future plans. They all seemed to love their jobs. They liked to hear about our trip and sometimes our political views. Most of them have interesting views about the U S politics and fiscal policies. Our national debt was a huge concern of most of them.

How beautiful is this?

The pool between two locks in Merrickville, Ontario.

The building is the lockmasters' office.

This is the water flowing downstream from the hydro electric plant.
This stream is parallel to the locks.

The Canadian beauty is outstanding!

After locking through the last lock we wanted to stay overnight at Merrickville in the pond.

The lock attendants though it was full for the night.

The lockmaster walked over and made another boat move up to make room for us. How nice of him!

We later found out that the other boat wasn't using and paying for hydro and the lockmaster knew we wanted hydro, which is electricity in Canada. It was only ten dollars but I guess it made a difference.

They try really hard to accommodate everyone.

Here the boat is actually above the road level because of the dike alongside the road. We were  right next to the dam and had that lulling sound all night.


Below are some well preserved buildings in Merrickville

This house was originally a lockmasters house built in 1865.



This building is currently a bakery.

This was our first experience having a manual bridge opened for us after they opened the lock doors.

The girl in the center of the bridge is actually manually opening the bridge.

After inserting that crank handle in the middle of the bridge she walks in circles cranking the bridge open.

It looks like she is waiting for something but she really is walking in circles cranking the bridge open for us.

Here she is on the other side of the circle.



Here is the Canadian family again that we locked through with many times.
A very nice 45' wood boat.



I don't think this cow appreciates the beautiful scenery like we do.



This is the Westport, Ontario post office.
It is styled to resemble the Parliament building in Ottawa.




These boat houses remind me of Red Wing, MN.



The moon over Navigator in Westport.



Westport was a stop for a jet ski poker run.
Here they come to get their token from the people on the end of the dock.



There were around fifty jet skis in the poker run.



It was quite orderly. A few jet skis had go pro cameras on them.



This is the first lock that we are going down in the Rideau toward Lake Ontario.



Because we are now going downstream the aids to navigation change sides here.
Until this lock we were going up stream and red was on our right.
We need to constantly vigilant to stay on the correct side of the markers,
especially in Canada because the rocks outside the channel are unforgiving.



It was raining quite hard when we arrived at this lock and we waited to lock through
for the rain to subside.
The rain didn't dampen our spirits though.

There is another manual bridge to open here.

The rain stopped and it was quite a nice day.

We always have to go between the red and green markers.

Here we also had to make a sharp turn to starboard. Very narrow!

This was one of the most beautiful spots we traveled through.

This time we were traveling down in these step locks which made it much more scenic.

When you travel up, you are looking at the upper doors and when you are high enough

 to see behind, its time to move forward and out of the lock.

The netting above is under a railroad bridge. A long and fast train crossed while we were in the lock.

It was really noisy!

Until next time - Kingston, Ontario.

Ottawa and the Step Locks

The long awaited eight step locks in Ottawa were as exciting and fun as anticipated.

I should explain that the step locks are consecutive locks. When you exit one lock you are immediately entering the next lock until you reach the last lock. In this case there are eight lock doors, so we went through and up each time to reach the last, top, pool. Of course you can transit the locks in either direction and be going down in the locks rather than up in the locks as we did. Normally locks are single locks that transfer you up or down one level. There could be a succession of locks but there would probably be a short distance between the locks.

If these locks were built today they would probably have been built with only one tall lock instead of the eight smaller ones. I'm glad the technology didn't allow that back then, when they were built. It was awesome!

We traveled with two other boats in the first group going up the locks in the morning. We didn't know them. They were ahead of us in the queue waiting to lock through. We were surprised to see the public access to the locks. This would not have happened in the US. At one point a lock attendant had to request a person to move back to allow us to proceed. An advantage of the public access was being able to interact with the people. Most were really interested to know how we got there from Florida. At one point Jan had a family moving up the locks with her as she conducted a lecture on the great loop for them. Also, we were surprised how quickly we completed locking through. The lock attendants are very friendly and efficient with their hand cranks from the eighteen hundreds.

We were fortunate to dock near Average Looper on the upper canal wall. Our mooring pass allowed us to stay at no additional cost except $10.00 per day for electricity. In Canada they call electricity hydro because so much of their power is generated by hydro power plants. Most Americans think they mean water instead of electricity when they say hydro.

Our stay on the wall and Ottawa was very enjoyable. We again took a city bus tour and saw the sights of the city. Still a foreign city, Ottawa definitely doesn't have the same European feel that Montreal did.

As usual we could have stayed longer but must keep moving on.

The sunrise leaving Hull Marina for the step locks.

Really Exciting!

Entering the first lock.

Jan is putting a line around the cable to keep us in place during the lockage.

After she had the line secured I would quickly secure another line in the stern

before stopping the engines.

These pictures are taken by Mark and Jane from Average Looper. Thank you!



Navigator secure in the first lock waiting for two other boats to enter.

Here we are together ready to begin the long awaited experience.

The last boat entering with us.

After all the boats are secured in the lock they begin closing the doors with these hand cranks.

There are cranks on both sides of the locks.

I noticed they all had their free hand on the middle of the crank shaft.

My guess is so they didn't get their hand in the gears.

The other set of cranks are to open and close the water gates to raise 

or lower the water level in the lock.



Here you can see us in the lock with another group of boats right behind us.

Here we have moved into the next lock waiting for the last boat to move also. You can see by the water line how much we move up in each lockage.

When the lock is full it spills over into the next lower lock to fill it for another lockage.

Great Loop Seminar 101 by Jan.

Here's Jan with the tourists.

It isn't easy to tell who is more interested in talking.

You wouldn't ever have this opportunity to be so close to the boats 

and interact with each other in the U S.

They even allow people to walk across the gates when they are closed.

Several people carried bicycles across the gates.

We are about to exit the last lock and into the upper pool.

Here we are are getting prepared to dock along the canal wall

next to Average Looper.

The step locks from the upper bridge in the evening after they are closed for the day.

The Fairmont Chateau Hotel is right next to the step locks.

Built in 1912 with 429 rooms to promote tourism by the railroad.

The picture was taken on the tour bus's open top deck.

It was a newer version of a London bus.

This is outside of the Prime Ministers residence.

The Bobbies aren't allowed to move.

Changing of the Guard at Parliament.

They march for quite a distance all the while playing their instruments.

Sometimes they play bagpipes. Must be another unit.

Again, the access in Canada is unbelievable for tourists.

We wouldn't get this close in the U S.

A policeman showed everyone where the guard would pass 

and encouraged all of us to move right up to the line.

Their ceremony needed some explanation and lasted quite some time..

This government building is across the street from the Fairmont hotel.

A beautiful building that we walked past to go down to the canal and Navigator.

On the bus tour we saw this hydroelectric dam.

They have them all over. 

The water powers the turbines and is simply returned to the river to be used over and over again.

Pretty efficient in my opinion.

We were told that they now generate more power with nuclear energy than hydro.

Much of their power is sold to the U S.

The inside of Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica in Ottawa.

The Rideau Canal is next.

It's pronounced Redough like re in repeat and dough like bread dough.

Until next time---

Montreal to Ottawa via the St. Lawrence Canal and the Ottawa River.

It was time to bid a sad farewell to Montreal. We would have loved to stayed longer. 

The Lachine Canal is a "back" way to the Ottawa River however, we couldn't clear under the bridges. Therefore, we needed to take the St. Lawrence Seaway route which is where the big boys travel. To get to the seaway we needed to again transit the swift current of the St. Lawrence River, this time with the current, not against it.

Once we entered the seaway the current subsided and wasn't any longer a concern. There were several pleasure boats waiting when we arrived at St. Lambert, the first lock.  We all needed to pay $35.00 to transit each of these locks which was not included in our New York or Canadian passes. After about an hour and a half and a ship locking through it was our turn. There locks are huge compared to the small heritage locks in Canada that we we became accustomed to. The second lock was St. Catherine and we didn't have to wait there. They attempt to coordinate the lockages.

After leaving the seaway we soon departed the St. Lawrence River for the Ottawa River. We spent a restless night on the wall in St.Anne de Bellevue. There were several loud young people partying right in the park until four AM, right next to our boats. The town was interesting but without a good nights sleep we traveled on.

The Carillon Lock, our first lock on the Ottawa River, was unusual because the rear door was a guillotine and the lock was again large. We rafted up to four boats wide in this lock. Our initial plan was to stay overnight on the lock wall just above the lock but we changed our mind when we saw how unprotected it was. Our next stop was the free town dock at Hawkesbury. We were turned away by the mayor because the dock was needed for a poker run scheduled the next day. It was getting late and we traveled another five miles to a very nice anchorage and stayed the night.

Traveling toward Ottawa we encountered the boats from the poker run. WOW are some of them fast! And others are faster. There were times when two boats would pass us very fast one on each side of our boat. I'm glad we are as large as we are and that we were traveling at only eight knots. Closer to Ottawa we passed Chateau Montebello where one of our boats wanted to stay but the marina was full.

After another long day we arrived in the marina at Hull, Quebec. We were excited to finally see Ottawa and the step locks right by their Parliament. Jan and I walked across the bridge to Ottawa and saw Average Looper after they transited the step locks. They were docked on the canal wall just above the locks. On our walk back we saw some young ladies with ice cream cones. Of course we enjoyed cones ourselves after they directed us to the Sugar Store. While walking back to the marina we noticed a large crowd of people gathered to watch a street performer at 9:30 at night. So many people were out at the restaurants enjoying the summer evening. Wow, Ottawa is going to be fun!

Accuracy wasn't included with this message until it was time to go through.

We were rafted to another boat behind the lock wall with several other boats 

and couldn't see what was happening in the lock.

Entering St. Lambert Lock.

There were enough boats waiting to lock through that we had to raft together inside the lock.

We probably raised thirty feet in this lock.

Our friends Larry and Jan on Panacea with Chloe.

We traveled through several locks with this 45' wood Canadian boat.

They were a family with two boys that were on a month long vacation.

The older of the boys was an extremely capable deck hand.

The doors closing for the St. Catherine Lock.

This gate lowers while locking. It must be to protect the doors from the big ships.

They had to raise this bridge even for the pleasure boats.

Up up and away.

Leaving St. Catherine Lock in the light rain.

Arriving at the Carillon Lock.

Entering the Carillon Lock with the guillotine door.

You just have to trust it won't fall while you are under it.

We again had the floating dock inside the lock. Easy!

Quite an elaborate stairway. Without the floating dock there wouldn't be a need for it.

We are going up and out above the stairway.

The last boats entering under the guillotine gate.

The guillotine closing.

Almost closed.

Now its closed so we can begin going up.

We have raised about half way to the top.

Almost over the top sill.

Finally at the top almost ready to open the doors.

This was one of the pit stops for the poker run boats.

So fast and close Jan had trouble getting the whole boat in the picture.

Not all of them were on steroids! Still very fast though.

They say it isn't a race!

They all collected their card here and turned around.

We found it very entertaining to watch them.

They probably didn't appreciate my huge wake.

Montebello, supposedly the largest log structure.

It is surprising how full they are because they charge New York and Chicago prices.

The step locks in Ottawa. My major bucket list item for this trip.

Canadian Parliament.

We are actually here. How EXCITING!!!!

Sunrise from the marina in Hull, Quebec looking at Ottawa and Ontario.

Today is the day we will transit the Ottawa step locks.

The next post will be the step locks and Ottawa.