VISITING OTTAWA AND ON TO MONTREAL

Canada is a young country, gaining it's independence from British rule in 1931.  It is the size of the United States with only 10% of our population. It is also has a more diverse population with a higher proportion of migrants than we have. In Ottawa especially we sense fhe  patriotism and energy of the Canadians. There seems to be an orderliness to daily life; perhaps it is their British heritage. Homelessnes and obesity are rarely seen.  The benefits of universal education and health care are obvious.
Ottawa is a great city to tour. By tying up at the canal wall in the middle of the city, everything  is convenient. The Rideau canal is the centerpiece of the city; people stroll along it in the summer and skate to work on it in the winter.
We catch the hop-on-hop-off bus near Parliament and get a grand overview.  The Museum of Civilization across the Ottawa river is not to be missed. A water taxi takes you there from the bottom of the staircase locks.
"Canada C-3" is a feature film at the museum that celebrates a 2017 icebreaker journey from Toronto to Victoria through the Northwest Passage. The event is profound in two respects.  It opens Canada's 15,000 mile coastline to maritime service and all the unifying and economic benefits that will usher in, just as the Canadian Pacific Railway did in 1885.  The "C-3" voyage is significant in another respect: It is a clear consequence of climate change.  Canadians are very concerned about climate change because it is affecting the higher latitudes so dramatically.  They remain engaged with the Paris Climate talks.
The Bytown museum at the staircase locks displays the history of the canal and the story of Col. John By, the British engineer who built it.  Now honored for his accomplishment, Col. By was discredited by an ungrateful government for going far over the budget that was set for him.
The Northern Lights Show at Parliament is spectacular!  Jim English and I go up at dusk to see it and are met by a huge crowd on the green in front of the Parliament building. This multimedia show projects Canadian stories of nation-building, discovery, and pride onto the Parliament building. It's a stunning experience.
Too soon, on August 31st, we drop down through the final set of 8 locks to the Ottawa river and head downstream with favorable weather to join the big ships where the Ottawa flows into the Saint Lawrence Seaway.  Up to this point we have not had to contend with commercial traffic since we started through the Erie canal.  Nano has now been away from her home port in Portland for one month.

DOWNLOCKING THE RIDEAU CANAL TO OTTAWA

The Upper Rideau lakes are the headwaters of both the Cataraqui river, which we just ascended, and the Rideau river which we are about to go down.  This is God's country: a highland forest punctuated by picturesque lakes, marshes, small towns and rural roadways.  Its natural beauty is breathtaking.  Gone are most of the inconveniences of the nineteenth century, a time when the Rideau canal opened this area to settlement and provided access to its natural resources.  Gone too are the mills and barges laden with their products along with forestry and mineral resources that supplied U.S. northern industry and made the canal a commercial success.
It is a bit of historical irony that less than a century after the bitter conflict between British Canada and the U.S., it was supplies from Canada that helped our northern armies win the civil war against the south.
Mechanically, Nano has run trouble free to this point, but gliding through the Upper Rideau lakes, the engine suddenly overheated.  Jim English, master diagnostician and all-around able crew member quickly located the problem: a seriously plugged cooling water intake.  The grasses and reeds along these slackwater passages had clogged the raw water screen and filter system.
After an eternity of effort working upside down in the engine compartment, Jim cleaned out the grasses and we were under way again. I thought if taking a picture of Jim at work but it was not a becoming shot.
We take 4 days to drop 196 feet through 23 locks to the top of Ottawa's "staircase", an 8-stage set of locks to the Ottawa river.
The distance is only 38 miles but we are captured by the charm of Smiths Falls for a couple of days.
A stop on the Canadian Pacific railway between Montreal and Toronto, Smiths Falls was a 19th century industrial center with flour mills, saw mills and foundries.  Today, we enjoy its bygone history and Matty O'Shea's Irish Pub.
Entering Ottawa, I whispered a wistful goodby to the Rideau lakes where I fished as a boy with my father more than 70 years ago. It was true Canadian wilderness then.  Not so much now, but still largely unspoiled and peaceful.

UPLOCKING ON THE RIDEAU CANAL

It was built for military purposes after the War of 1812 to provide an alternate route between the Crown colonies of Kingston and Montreal.  British Canada had already been invaded twice by the Americans: at Montreal and Quebec City in 1775 in the runup to the Revolutionary War, and again in 1814 in the battle of Lundy's Lane at Niagara Falls (As mentioned earlier in this blog).
British Canada had good reason to be nervous even after the War of 1812 was settled. America was building canals northward. The Champlain canal was opened in 1819 and the Oswego in 1829, both providing naval access and the possibility of an attack Canada yet again. Although the young and aggressive America made no further attempts to invade eastern Canada, the Rideau canal was built as a precaution nonetheless.  It was opened in 1832 and the center of British Canadian government was moved north from Kingston, first to Montreal and then to Ottawa.
Covering 125 miles from Lake Ontario at Kingston to the Ottawa river, the British utilized the Cataraqi and Rideau river systems to construct the canal in 5 summers.  During peak construction 4,000 men, women and children worked on the canal under conditions of extreme hardship. During the building of the canal close to a thousand died of malaria brought to the region by British soldiers who carried the disease back from their foreign assignments.  A Celtic cross stands near the summit in memory of all who perished during construction.
Building the Rideau canal was the most expensive project undertaken in the British empire st that time and the most financially scrutinized in London. The original budget for the canal was 169,000 pounds sterling, an amount that it's overseer, Col. John By did not agree with. 
When the canal was finished and the total cost of nearly 1 million pounds was tallied, Col. By was discredited for his masterful accomplishment and the name of Bytown at the end of the canal was changed to Ottawa.  He died a broken man in England three years after completing the canal.
Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Rideau canal is maintained in its original condition and operated by Parks Canada.  It's 45 locks on the main canal are hand operated mostly by healthy young college students in the summer season.
It takes us 2 days to navigate the 38 miles and 13 locks up to the canal summit at Newboro, 166 feet above Kingston. A great meal at the Stirling Lodge and a beautiful night tied above the last up-lock in this Canadian outback seems a world away from the big town of Kingston that

we just left.

O CANADA! KINGSTON AND FORT HENRY

It was a sunny and still Sunday morning when we made the 40 mile crossing from Sacket's Harbor to Kingston on a glassy Lake Ontario.
Sliding back in time again, the story of Kingston began about 350 years ago.
Situated mid way between Montreal and Toronto, the French established a trading post in 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui river.  Over the next 100 years French settlers moved in and established Fort Fontenac at the site. Then. In 1759 the British captured and destroyed Fort Fontenac during the 7 Years War.  By 1780 British loyalists began moving into the area renaming it Kings Town and refortifying it with Fort Henry on the heights overlooking the remains of old Fort Fontenac.
Kingston rose to become a center for confederation and in 1841 briefly became the capital of a newly united Canada.  But, although Kingston was never attacked during the War of 1812, queen Victoria deemed it too close to a young and aggressive America to remain as a center of government.
Our brief stay at the municipal Confederation Marina has been a welcomed big city experience.  For $25 U.S. we took a great tour of the city on the Hop-on-Hop-off double-deck bus. Queen's University, Canadian Naval Academy and Fort Henry are among the stops. We have even managed to stay up for some night life including the movie Mary Shelley at the Screening Room on Princess street.  It is a must-see movie: Wife of the English romantic poet, Mary Shelley was the author of Frankenstein.
Polite, civilized and graffiti-free, our introduction to Canada at Kingston is a great experience. It is also the begining of our second canal adventure: the historic Rideau Canal that will take us north to Ottawa.

LAKE ONTARIO AND SACKET'S HARBOR

On Saturday, August 18, Nano slipped gingerly out of Oswego Harbor, past its decrepit entrance lighthouse and into a headwind and choppy waters.  After a few hours of kidney stress test and making little headway, Jim English   had the brilliant idea of quartering off and tacking into the chop just like real sailors do. Sure enough, our ride softened and we picked up speed saving ourselves from an eternal thrashing on the lake.
As the world's 14th largest lake Ontario has claimed many ships due to its east-west wave-building fetch of nearly 200 miles. What we experienced with an east wind was really nothing compared to what the lake is capable of with a westerly.  As the hours passed and we entered the Thousand Islands, conditions improved and we glided comfortably into Sacket's Harbor in the early afternoon.
During the War of 1812 Sacket's Harbor was the center of U.S. naval shipbuilding on the great lakes and military headquarters for the northern army. It opposes Kingston, Ontario situated on the northeastern shore of Lake Ontario and the center of British naval shipbuilding. While Kingston was well fortified in 1812, Sacket's Harbor was not.  Yet, American forces successfully repelled two British assaults on Sacket's Harbor during the war.  Kingston was never attacked.  The very presence of an American naval and military force across Lake Ontario however, changed the course of Canadian history as we will discover later.
Today, Sacket's Harbor is a well-kept waterside town with summer concerts and patio dining.  Our stop here made the harrowing risk of braving the inland recreational waterways of northeastern America all seem worthwhile.

AHEAD TO THE PAST: OSWEGO AND FORT ONTARIO

Arriving at the mouth of the Oswego river-canal from Syracuse, we time-traveled once again back to the mid-18th century and the 7-year French and Indian war between Britain and France.  In 1755 Fort Ontario was built by the British to contest the westward expansion of French fortifications designed to secure the territory of Nouvelle-France on the North American continent.
The fort was captured and destroyed the very next year by Montcalm only to be rebuilt by the British a decade later and then destroyed by George Washington's Continental Army during the revolutionary war.
But wait! There's more: Fort Ontario was again attacked and destroyed by the British in the War of 1812.  And so history was pretty rough on Fort Ontario because of its geostrategic location in the struggle of empires to lay claim to North American  territory.
Before we leave the NY canal system we must pay tribute to the Italians. While they may not have contributed much to canal construction, they sure added to our enjoyment of it.  The wonderful old-style restaurants of Buca di Beppo in Albany, the Savoy in Rome and Vona's in Oswego have all left a lasting impression on our tastebuds. There are hidden benefits to diguising myself as a mediocre cook on Nano; We eat ashore often.