Rideau Canal

Early on, the St Lawrence River wasn’t easy to navigate, so a canal system was built from Ottawa to Kingston. The Rideau river starts at Ottawa (it’s a tributary of the Ottawa River) and goes for a fair distance toward Kingston, and there are several lakes that were also used. The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is the oldest slack water canal system in North America still in use. It was originally built for the military but quickly started to be used by everyone. Today many people use it for recreational purposes. I visited the locks at Poonamalie, Smith’s Falls Detached (where there is also a Railway bridge that tilts, and the Rideau Canal Museum which was closed), Smith’s Falls Combined, Old Slys (where there is a genealogical museum that was eventually open), and Edmunds. There are also two road bridges that rotate out of the way of boats going down the canal.