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Over a week, I paddled 202 km and took more than three dozen rides up the watery elevators of Ontario’s historical canal from Kingston to Ottawa.
I’m camping for the night on the east side of the Newboro lock. I’ve set up my tent in a shady spot and am consuming my miserable version of dinner — Lipton’s chicken noodle soup, a tin of sardines, a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter — while sneaking furtive glances at the trio camping on the other side of the lock.
Like me, they arrived here by sea kayak. But they seem to be traveling in a more luxurious style than I am. They’re basking in the sun and reading books, and sitting in folding camping chairs, as opposed to the Parks Canada picnic table I’m using. After a while, I go over to chat with them. After all, paddlers like us seem to be rare in these parts. I approach the man first, and instantly we’re comparing notes on lightweight tents, our surroundings, and the history of the area.
Joe Morales and his partner, Anna Deraco, who hail from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, are travelling with Anna’s daughter, Nicole McCartney. Friends of theirs who have a cottage on Opinicon Lake, just south of us, have invited them to this part of rural eastern Ontario. The visitors borrowed their friends’ kayaks to enjoy a leisurely three-day out-and-back trip along a portion of the canal.
“We never knew this place existed,” says Joe. “It’s beautiful. We all love the outdoors,” — Anna and Nicole have hiked half of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Harper’s Ferry — “but we just don’t have this sort of thing where we live.”
The “thing” Joe is referring to is the Rideau Canal, an historic waterway that links Canada’s capital, Ottawa, with Kingston, 202 kilometres away to the south and west. Its 24 lockstations and 47 locks are collectively designated in Canada as a National Historic Site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built in the 1830s for military purposes, the canal later became a commercial artery, a role that lasted until railways became the preferred way to transport goods over long distances. (See The Rideau Canal: A Brief History, below.) Today, as it’s been since the late 19th century, the canal is a popular summer destination for recreational boaters from Ontario, Quebec, and the eastern United States, and an aquatic playground for the thousands of cottagers and year-round residents whose properties line part of its shores.
In my almost 40 years of living in Kingston, I’ve largely taken the Rideau Canal for granted. Sure, I’ve made several day trips — by car — to several of its locks. However, although I’ve done plenty of long-distance canoeing and kayaking, I’ve never paddled the full length of this treasure located almost literally at my doorstep.
So, in early July, I decide to see what I’ve been missing. My vehicle of choice is a 17-foot sea kayak that I paddled from Kingston to Prince Edward Island in 2018.
I begin my upstream trip on July 7. It’s 10 a.m. and it’s already 29℃, and the weather is forecast to stay blazingly hot for my entire week-long trip to the other end of the canal. To protect myself from the sun, I wear thin nylon yoga pants (light and quick-drying), a long-sleeved synthetic shirt with a hood, a brimmed hat, sunglasses, and plenty of sunscreen. I can either fry my skin with ultraviolet rays or sweat profusely. I choose the latter.
I’m launching from a boat ramp on the shore of Kingston’s Inner Harbour at the mouth of the Great Cataraqui River, the canal’s southern terminus at Lake Ontario. Looking east across the river, I can see the low stone ramparts of Fort Henry, built in 1832 and 1837, to protect the canal from hostile Americans. It’s also a part of the canal’s UNESCO designation.
As I set out, I’m in an urban area and cars, trucks, houses, and apartment buildings are never far off. Within 20 minutes, I pass under a modern concrete bridge that connects central and east Kingston. Still, although the city is all around me, I’m already starting to see the sort of wildlife that will be my near-constant companion in the coming days: swans, Canada Geese, Mallards, Great Blue Herons, Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, and turtles sunning themselves on logs. Gulls and terns swoop and screech overhead. I keep my eyes peeled for other species as I try to find a paddling pace I can maintain for eight hours or more. It takes a while: it’s day one of my trip, and I’m a bit rusty.
The southern half of the route I’ll be following in the coming days is really a series of lakes linked by short channels. Each lake lies at a different elevation. As I paddle north, I will ascend to the next (“higher”) lake by going through one or more locks — ingenious and ancient inventions that harness the forces of gravity and water pressure to convey boats from one water level to another. Essentially, they are hydraulic elevators, which, along with the channels, are man-made additions to the waterway designed to circumvent waterfalls and rapids, which are dangerous or impassable for boats. Once I cross the watershed at Upper Rideau Lake and am heading downstream on the Rideau River, its series of locks will gradually lower me a total of almost 84 metres until the canal’s terminus at the Ottawa River.
Two hours after setting out, I’ve made it to the first lockstation, Kingston Mills. This one is only a 10-minute drive from Kingston, and I come here often to climb the granite cliffs on the west side of the river channel, not far from the first of its four locks. However, instead of “locking through,” I opt to portage around all four of them in one go, which I figure will be faster.
When you’re travelling in a canoe, portaging means flipping the canoe onto your shoulders and carrying it overland from one waterbody to another. But you can’t easily do that with a sea kayak, so my equipment includes a small folding aluminum trolley with two removable wheels. During the day, I lash the lightweight frame behind my kayak cockpit and stash the wheels inside the boat, behind the foot pedals that allow me to control the kayak’s rudder.
Casting my eyes around the shore, I locate a small, low-lying dock meant for canoes and kayaks at the start of the portage trail. In a perfect world, there would be a boat ramp at the start of the portage trail, where I could simply float the boat over the ramp in water a couple of feet deep, slide and secure the trolley under the boat, then pull everything up the ramp onto land. But that’s not the case here.
Instead, I must maneuver myself out of the kayak and onto the dock, then prepare to gently lift the boat onto the dock. I have to be careful: it’s loaded with all my food and gear, and any manhandling might crack the hull, so I remove my camping gear from the bulkhead compartments to lighten the boat. I will carry the stuff across the portage once the kayak is on the other side. Then I have to do an inelegant dance with the boat: I yank the empty boat up onto my bent knees and awkwardly position and strap the trolley roughly mid-kayak below the cockpit, transforming the boat into a sort of wagon.
Then it’s showtime. I grab a small handle near the bow and slowly trundle my kayak along the gravel path that runs beside the east side of the locks and leads to Colonel By Lake, named after Lt.-Col. John By, the brilliant British military engineer who supervised the canal’s construction from 1826 to 1832.
Getting all my stuff across the portage takes about 20 minutes. The Kingston Mills lockmaster, Jesse Staines, tells me that locking through all four locks would have taken about an hour, so I figure my effort was worth it.
The three-hour trip to the next lockstation, Lower Brewers Mills, takes me north through Colonel By Lake and through a narrow channel to the River Styx, so named not because of any link to the underworld but because of the tree stumps that are supposed to lurk in the shallows along the northeastern shore. (The lake was originally dubbed “River Sticks”.) Though I don’t see them, the submerged stumps are the remnants of the forest the canal-builders cut down and flooded to create a navigable channel, a historical tidbit I learn from a book by Ken Watson, who has written extensively about the canal and is probably its greatest living authority. Watson’s Paddling Guide to the Rideau Canal is a wonderful resource I downloaded from the internet for free — a great bargain, considering the gold mine of useful information it contains.
In my almost 40 years of living in Kingston, I’ve largely taken the Rideau Canal for granted. Sure, I’ve made several day trips — by car — to several of its locks. However, although I’ve done plenty of long-distance canoeing and kayaking, I’ve never paddled the full length of this treasure located almost literally at my doorstep.
Assisted by a strong tailwind that whips up whitecaps on the river’s surface, I cruise past the low-lying and paradoxically named Green Island, which stands out because of its colonization by generations of cormorants, whose acidic poop has destroyed all its vegetation and stained the entire island a dazzling white. I arrive at Lower Brewers at 3:30 p.m., and decide to forgo a portage and instead experience what it’s like to lock through.
When I arrive, the lock’s gate, flanked on either side by two rounded stone walls, is shut: a southbound boat is in the lock, waiting to be lowered. I sit in my kayak, floating about 10 metres from the gate, as a canalman standing atop it starts cranking on a sort of black-painted iron steering wheel to open holes (sluices) at the base of the lock gates and release the water in the lock. The escaping water, bubbling and frothing, creates a small temporary rapid, so I scoot off to one side to exit the current until the flood subsides. The lock doors slowly open, and a white pleasure boat motors out. The pilot smiles and waves as he chugs past.
The canalman motions me to enter the lock, and I paddle in. In seconds, I’m at the bottom of a tall chamber that resembles a swimming pool with sides made of giant stone blocks. It’s like entering the mouth of some giant beast.
Then I get my first taste of a routine I will repeat 43 times over the next week. To secure myself, I hold on with my right hand to one of several algae-coated rubber-wrapped steel cables hanging down the side of the lock chamber. The canal operators — officially named canalman and canalwomen — open the sluices in the gates ahead of me, and water bubbles into the lock. Inch by inch, I and my gently bobbing kayak rise about three metres, until the water level in the lock is the same as the level on the other side of the lock gate ahead of me. Once that equilibrium is established — generally about ten minutes later, though it can be longer for deeper, more voluminous locks — the canal operators crank hard on the handles of a steel drum mounted beside the gate. Wrapped around the drum is a chain attached to one of the two foot-thick Douglas Fir lock gates. I hear metallic clicks as the chains tighten to slowly open the gates, revealing my next stretch of paddling. I release the cable and paddle through the gap.
During the week, I meander north and east, initially through enchanting Canadian Shield scenery: jagged shorelines lined with pines, cedars, and maples. While I’m paddling, I pass slabs of smooth granite sloping into the water, quiet coves crowded with lilypads and blooming waterlilies, and marshes with cattails dancing in the breeze and echoing with shrill calls of Red-winged Blackbirds. I cherish my moments on the quieter sections of the canal, typically in the narrower channels that connect one lake to the next. There, I’m protected from wind and can paddle leisurely, close to shore, where I can see nature up close. North of the Narrows Lock near Rideau Ferry, I leave the Shield and enter flatter, less-rocky territory along the Rideau River. When I decide to stop for the day, usually at one of the lockstations, I unload my gear, set up my tent, and make dinner and hot chocolate using my little camping stove. Then I amuse myself until bedtime by exploring the lockstation, jumping into the water to wash off the day’s sweat, chatting with other boaters, or reading.
One afternoon on Big Rideau Lake, I take shelter from a flash thunderstorm at a campsite beside a secluded clear-watered bay. I discover the spot by chance just as the raindrops begin to fall. It’s lousy with mosquitoes but almost comically beautiful, a verdant shady oasis teeming with ferns and moss-covered rocks, a fairy wonderland straight out of Lord of the Rings. The storm passes quickly, but though there are still several hours of daylight left, I decide to stay for the night. Stumbling across magical places like this is why I love to paddle.
But it’s high season on the Rideau Canal, so, while nature is always the backdrop, I’m never too distant from people and signs of civilization: in many sections, I’m constantly passing homes, cottages, and docks, and bouncing in the wakes of everything from luxurious pleasure cruisers and rented houseboats to smaller speedboats, pontoon boats, and fishing boats outfitted with purring outboards and high-tech sonar fish-finders. Like them, I’m following the red and green plastic buoys that mark the main channel and make route-finding on the canal a breeze. It’s impossible to even pretend I’m in the wilderness.
The canalman motions me to enter the lock, and I paddle in. In seconds, I’m at the bottom of a tall chamber that resembles a swimming pool with sides made of giant stone blocks. It’s like entering the mouth of some giant beast.
All this is why, to me, the lockstations are the most interesting features of this trip. Each one is a bit different, designed to meet the unique topographical features of its location, and most still use the original 19th-century hand-operated technology to open and close the gates. Kingston Mills, Newboro, Narrows, and Merrickville are also home to historic military blockhouses; instead of windows, the raised square-shaped fortifications have slits through which the British soldiers stationed there could aim their guns in case of attack. (None ever came.) At Chaffey’s Lock, the old two-story lockmaster’s house has been converted into a modest (and, on the day I’m there, mostly unvisited) museum.
To me, the most awe-inspiring lock is at Jones Falls, which drowned out a 1.6-kilometre series of rapids between Sand Lake and Whitefish Lake. To fulfil Colonel By’s vision of a transportation route, this rugged section of river was engineered into four locks, a turning basin where the barges and steamboats of yore could change direction to enter the next lock, and a massive, 18-metre-high dam. At the time, the hand-built Great Stone Arch Dam was the Hoover Dam of its day, the highest in North America and the third-largest in the world. I never fail to marvel at the grit of the contractor hired to build it, John Redpath, and his masonry crews: They cut its sandstone blocks in a quarry six miles away and hauled them to the work site in horse-drawn wagons over a road they’d hacked through the forest.
In terms of sheer engineering, perhaps the most impressive part of the canal runs through Ottawa: north of the Hog’s Back lock, the canal diverges from the Rideau River proper to follow an entirely manmade 8.5 km canal that cleaves the heart of the city and culminates in a continuous (or “in-flight”) eight-lock, 24-metre drop to the Ottawa River. As I descend through the locks, the stately Chateau Laurier hotel — a designated national historic site — looms on my right, and as I get closer to the river, the gothic magnificence of Canada’s Library of Parliament comes into view at the top of a steep embankment to my left. Across the river in Gatineau, Quebec, is the Canadian Museum of History. It’s a spectacular and satisfying way to end the trip.
For boaters, the lockstations outside of Ottawa are a cheap and safe place to camp (at least they are in 2025, as Parks Canada has lowered its usual camping and lockage fees, which are calculated based on the length of your boat). Lockstation staff sometimes ask me to pay a paltry $4 fee to camp, but most of the time they let me stay for free. Though lockstations aren’t the most private of places — pleasure boats often crowd the docks at night — they’re generally off the beaten path and quiet. The boaters keep to themselves, nobody bothers you, the washrooms are open around the clock, and you always have access to fresh drinking water.
You can meet people, if you like, though, and are willing to strike up a conversation. Your first contacts are typically the canal operators and lockmasters who open and close the lock gates, maintain the lockstation grounds and buildings, and provide travelers with information about the lock and nearby attractions. Many are summer students, but some are year-round employees. At Davis Lock, I meet Ryan Patterson, the lockmaster whose maternal great-grandfather Alfred was the last lockmaster to live on site, and he told me a fun fact: Most of the lockmasters in the southern half of the canal, from Kingston Mills to the Narrows Lock, are not only work colleagues but longtime friends who grew up together, attending the same elementary and high schools. They keep in touch via a group chat, and socialize and play hockey together.
Other than Joe Morales from Pennsylvania, the only other kayaker I meet on this trip is Laure Sabatier, newly laid off from a communications job, four months pregnant, and six weeks away from her wedding day. She’s paddling her rented boat from Kingston to Ottawa and wants to make it all the way to her home in Montreal “before life makes it too complicated for me to do something like this.” We first meet at Upper Brewers Mills and end up paddling together for a couple of days. I use the word “together” loosely: she moves more slowly than me, so during the day we paddle side by side for a bit, go our separate ways, then meet up again somewhere on the water or at a lockstation. At Brewers Mills, we eat a camp dinner together and, the next day, grab an ice cream at Chaffey’s Locks and check out the Stone Arch Dam at Jones Falls. Laure looks forward to being hailed on her arrival in downtown Montreal as a conquering hero by a horde of welcoming friends. “It is all about my ego,” she says cheerfully. “I want to be the centre of attention.” (Unfortunately, as I later learn, Laure ran out of time and had to be picked up in Ottawa by her fiancé.)
Would I paddle the Rideau Canal again? Probably not end-to-end, but definitely parts of it, particularly the smaller lakes and cozy channels. I wouldn’t travel in summer, when all the motorboats and jet skis are out. I’d wait until after Labour Day, or October, when the locks are closed for the season, the powerboat traffic dies down, and the leaves begin to change and transform the forests into blazing mosaics of reds, oranges, and yellows. That time isn’t far off. When it comes, I’ll be ready. My kayak is waiting in the backyard.
Looking for more self-powered ways to explore Canada? Read about P.E.I.’s Island Walk.
The Rideau Canal: A Brief History
The Rideau Canal was built between 1826 and 1832 for military and commercial purposes. Prior to its construction, supplies for British soldiers and other goods were shipped across the Atlantic from Europe to the British colony of Upper Canada (now Ontario), and arrived first in Montreal. There, crews loaded them onto smaller boats for the trip up the mighty St. Lawrence River to Kingston (home of a naval shipyard and military garrison at the eastern end of Lake Ontario). Once arrived, other crews unloaded the goods for local use or transferred them to sailing vessels that would carry the goods on Lake Ontario to points further west such as York (now Toronto).
This route was perfectly serviceable, except for the then-uncomfortable fact that America lay on the south side of the St. Lawrence. During the American Revolution, thousands of people in the American colonies whose sympathies lay with the British were either forced from their homes by rebel forces, or chose to flee. Assisted by the British, these so-called United Empire Loyalists were the first Europeans to establish permanent settlements on the north side of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario — and their number one worry was the prospect of an American invasion, especially during and after the War of 1812. Their fears were justified: in several spots between Montreal and Kingston, the St. Lawrence was less than a mile wide. Marauders could (and did) easily cross the river, and tiny local militias struggled to defend themselves. This vulnerability was underscored during the War of 1812, when American forces made several (unsuccessful) skirmishes across the border.
What the British needed was a less militarily risky passage that was safer for moving goods and military personnel. In 1826, the British assigned the job to Lt.-Col. John By, a retired Royal Engineer who had, among other professional accomplishments, overseen the construction of fortifications in Quebec City and the locks along the St. Lawrence River.
The first part of the alternate route they mapped out was an obvious choice: The Ottawa River, which flowed west from Montreal, had only a few rapids, which could be bypassed by locks. But the waterways that linked the Ottawa River with Kingston (and Lake Ontario) were a different story. The rapids and waterfalls on the north-flowing Rideau River, the Whitefish River, the south-flowing Cataraqui River, and several large and small lakes between them made the large-scale steam transport of goods impossible. The answer was to build a “slackwater” canal — one that relied on a network of dams to flood out rapids and shallow areas, instead of laboriously digging and blasting out navigable passages around them — and locks that would allow steamboats and troops to easily and safely travel upstream and downstream.
The work on the Rideau Canal started in the north, on the Ottawa River, near where the Rideau River empties into it via a sheet-like waterfall (“rideau” is French for “curtain”). By built a work camp on the site that was soon dubbed Bytown. The camp would flourish into a town, be renamed Ottawa, and become the colonial capital.
Building the canal took five years. About three quarters of the canal path followed canoe routes between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence rivers that Indigenous peoples had used for millennia. French-Canadian, Scottish, and Irish workers employed by contractors chosen by By dug, plowed, blasted, and chopped their way through the landscape, felling huge forest tracts, quarrying thousands of tons of local sandstone and limestone for the locks and dams, and flooding rivers and wetlands to create channels deep enough to permit steamboat travel. Roughly a thousand workers died during the project, not so much from accidents but from malaria. They are commemorated today with various plaques and memorial crosses along the canal route.
Instead of being celebrated at home for his massive accomplishment, the Rideau Canal’s mastermind, Lt.-Col. By, was instead raked over the coals by a British government committee that accused him of unauthorized overspending and misappropriation of public funds (a charge later shown to be false). The canal exceeded its initial budget by a wide margin, but By himself had red-flagged the original estimates — drawn up by others — even before construction began. As the work went ahead, he faithfully recorded all costs and reported them to his superiors, as instructed. No matter. Essentially, domestic political machinations proved his undoing. He never had a chance to defend himself and his work before Parliament. His reputation was ruined and he died three years later, in 1836.
He was eventually cleared of all charges, and he is remembered — especially here in Canada — as a brilliant engineer, having overseen the construction of more than 50 dams and 47 locks in just five summer building seasons. In 2007, the Rideau Canal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
