Narrows

Before the arrival of the Royal Engineers, Rideau Lake stretched unbroken for 35 km between Newboro and the entrance to the Rideau River, 29 km to the north. This lock, with its 1 metre lift, existed because raising the lake's water level with a new causeway saved excavation through hard rock in the long artificial channel leading to Newboro and sped construction there, helping save many workers from the malarial fever that raged before rising water covered the swamps behind the new dams. Its importance was shown by a blockhouse, one of four along the route, whose loopholes covered the lake and surrounding hills against anyone who might try in troubled times to immobilize traffic by destroying the works. Between 1826 and 1832, an old Indian canoe route along the Rideau and Cataraqui Rivers was transformed by order of the British government into the Rideau Canal, a waterway intended to give the British army a safe supply route to inland garrisons while avoiding the more direct but exposed St. Lawrence route that only the disorganization of American forces had kept from being cut during the War of 1812. The 202 km waterway was made navigable by 47 locks in 22 stations with associated dams and weirs, designed and superintended by the Royal Engineers under Lieutenant Colonel John By and built by local contractors. Although defended by blockhouses, the Rideau's role was always peaceful, carrying settlers and supplies into the interior until the middle of the 19th century, when larger locks opened on the St. Lawrence, and after the likelihood of war between Britain and the United States faded, the British Board of Ordnance transferred the system to the colonial government of Canada in 1856. Local commercial traffic remained important until the arrival of the automobile and better roads around World War I, after which recreational boating steadily grew and made the system, well into its second century, busier than ever.

Ontario · Canada