Exploring the Pre-Canal Waterway by Ken W. Watson.
A new book about the Rideau Canal which reveals the secret world that lies below the waters of the Rideau Canal – the drowned landscape of the original Rideau Route.
The Rideau Canal Waterway that we see today is a flooded environment, created by the building of canal dams, in 1826-31, to form a slackwater navigation system. In the pre-canal era, the Rideau Route spanned three watersheds, those of the Rideau River, the Gananoque River and the Cataraqui River. It was a wild place of lakes, marshes, canyons, rivers and sinuous creeks, the latter two often interrupted by rapids and waterfalls.
Watson takes the reader on a 1783 canoe trip along the Rideau Route, from present day Ottawa to Kingston, revealing the rapids, waterfalls, marshes and lakes that existed prior to any European settlement along the route.
For more information and to purchase this book, please visit Ken Watson's Rideau Canal Waterway website. |
