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So I thought I’d paddle the Rideau Canal. OK, not the entire 200 kilometres from Ottawa to Kingston. The boss nixed that idea pretty quickly. Something about not being able to free me from my cubicle for the summer.
No matter. On to Plan B: A day trip along a leg of the historic waterway in this, its inaugural year as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The idea seemed palatable to the boss. But then, panic set in: Which leg should I paddle?
My first thought was to stay close to home. After all, the inner-city portion, from Mooney’s Bay to the headlocks of the Ottawa River, is practically my front yard.
Technically, I live by the canal’s right bank, the posher rive gauche being the preserve of the monied in the Glebe or Golden Triangle. But a view is a view, even if you have to lean out from the edge of the balcony and squint hard between the trees.
Living canalside has its obvious perks. Chief among them is that I walk, bike or skate the route almost daily. Hell, I even skied part of it this cursed winter.
But not once have I floated my way down, which is, of course, how John By intended the canal to be travelled.
The difference is that back in 1826, when Colonel By embarked on the most daring engineering feat of his day, he had in mind an inland waterway that would provide safe passage for soldiers defending the realm against Yankee marauders.
Me? With the dubious goal of breaking free from the office, I take the route less travelled—excuse enough to end up in a vintage cedar-strip canoe, three-quarters of the way down the Rideau corridor, closer to Kingston than Ottawa. Assured the boss this was vital research.
Here’s the thing about living next to a world heritage treasure: You get soft. You take it for granted. You live in your downtown bubble and forget that the canal stretches far beyond the city limits.
You never question how the twin problems of decay and prosperity, so obvious along the urban parts I see daily, are playing out farther west.
From the downtown landlubber’s viewpoint, the canal is a playground for the toffs in their power boats and an all-purpose leisure way for the rest of us. It has also morphed into a focal point for high-end real estate.
These days, the banks within Ottawa’s core have a resort feel, as if the people here are on perpetual holiday. Tourists mingle with fitness buffs. The homeless make room for lonely hearts and romantics. The occasional rogue tokes up peaceably, oblivious to law or penalty.
On particularly pungent days, you can work up the killer munchies making your way along the canal—and not necessarily from a 5-K run.
No wonder the place felt like home the first time I glimpsed it. To a newcomer from the left coast, the canal, all shimmery on a late-summer night, recalled the urban wildlife and landscape of False Creek. It made a homesick Vancouverite think she could learn to love a land-locked city—or at least a city of locks.
But beneath the slackwater calm, all is not well. Even as $20 million in federal funding has been earmarked to repair the canal’s aging bridges and crumbling concrete walls, there are competing visions, up and down the corridor, of the waterway’s future.
Within Ottawa, there is blue-sky talk about an urban waterfront, a model of café-and-boardwalk chic inspired by False Creek. In the suburban and rural townships, concerns about water quality have prompted calls for a pesticide ban near the shoreline.
The story at the mouth of Morton Bay, just south of the Jones Falls locks, is about grassroots stewardship.
I am here courtesy of Simon Lunn, a volunteer for the Rideau Waterway Land Trust, which is fighting to protect at least some of the canal’s natural landscape and limit the impact of prosperous sprawl.
“People don’t necessarily trust the government to preserve some of this land,” says Mr. Lunn, lean and fit at 59, as he guides his cedar-strip beauty along the slackwaters of the bay.
Two years ago, the trust raised more than $200,000 to buy 275 acres of wetland meadow and bedrock ridge, which includes a dramatic bluff known as Rock Dunder.
The reclaimed land, formerly a Scouts Canada camp, is now a public hiking trail for enthusiasts in the know.
Yet around the edges of the property, restive signs of development are visible. A growing number of cottages—a misnomer for luxury waterfront homes—are encroaching on the landscape, putting year-round pressure on the Rideau watershed. Algae blooms, caused by excessive runoff from septic systems, lawn fertilizers and animal wastes, are contaminating the water supply.
As we paddle the length of the bay, Mr. Lunn points out a new waterfront home—more suburban mansion than rustic retreat—taking shape.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it,” says Mr. Lunn who, in helping to maintain the Rock Dunder trail, is a regular to these parts.
He is by no means a hard-core tree hugger. A career naturalist for Parks Canada, Mr. Lunn spent 14 years on the canal as an ecosystem scientist before retiring four years ago. Hang on.
A naturalist for a man-made waterway? Mr. Lunn chuckles at the irony.
“The fact is, the canal is preserved for its historic structures and for the operation of the canal, not necessarily for the preservation of nature,” he says. “So you have to keep a more open mind.”
Then again, the canal has always tread a fine line between mother
nature and the natural artifice conceived by its founding father. It is part of the waterway’s profligate past.
As Mr. Lunn is quick to point out, Colonel By may not have moved mountains, but he certainly moved enough water to permanently alter the natural environment. Indeed, before By had the audacity to build dams and divert entire lakes to make his canal a reality, Morton Bay, the very body of water we were paddling, was but a shallow swamp.
The paradox is that in flooding marshland to create today’s picturesque lakes, By inadvertently gave life to a richer ecosystem, says Mr. Lunn. Today, Morton Bay is home to such species at risk as the pitch pine tree and the eastern rat snake.
They are hopeful signs—and a sobering reminder—that the Rideau Canal’s delicate balance between the natural and the man-made itself hangs in the balance.
When not writing for the Citizen, Pauline Tam dreams of paddling the length of the Rideau Canal in a vintage cedar-strip canoe.
Aug. 1-4, 2008. Highlights include:
Today
6:30 p.m.: Official launch of the Rideau Canal Festival—Confederation Park
7 p.m.: ‘B in the Park’—An evening of music where you can also adopt a metre of the canal—Confederation Park
Tomorrow
Rideau Canal Builders Day
Noon: Builders Legacy Ceremony—Bytown Museum
11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.: 100 km BBQ challenge at the Green Rendezvous—Confederation Park
Saturday
Rideau Canal Heritage Day
10 a.m.: National Capital Triathlon – Mooney’s Bay
11 a.m.: Opening of Ecosphere Environmental Fair – Confederation Park
9 p.m.: Rideau Canal Parade of Lights flotilla, from the National Arts Centre to Dow’s Lake
10 p.m.: Fireworks at Dow’s Lake
Sunday
World Heritage Celebration Day
10 a.m.: World’s Largest Parade of Bicycles – from Carleton University to Ottawa City Hall Festival Plaza
2 p.m.: World Heritage Flotilla—from Dow’s Lake to the National Art Centre
Monday
Colonel By Day
11 a.m.: Colonel By Day Proclamation Ceremonies and Celebration – Bytown Museum
11 a.m.: Children’s Muster, where children get to experience life as a soldier—Commissioner’s Park
Noon: Old Fashion Picnic – Commissioners Park
Noon: Canoe Rendezvous—canoes, kayaks invited to paddle about Dow’s Lake
2 p.m.: Closing ceremonies begin with the Celtic Cross commemoration including musical acts, blacksmithing, musketry demos, games and face-painting
For more information and events go to: www.rideaucanalfestival.ca
(C) Ottawa Citizen