Ottawa Locks

Interesting facts

The Rideau Canal, which begins at this flight, is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America.

As many as a thousand workers may have died building the canal, most of them from disease, above all complications of malaria.

The canal finally cost £822,804; the overruns got John By recalled to London, and he retired without any honours for the work.

The first full steamboat passage ended at Bytown on 29 May 1832, when the steamer Rideau arrived from Kingston with Colonel By and his family aboard.

From the Ottawa River the canal climbs 83 metres to its summit at Upper Rideau Lake, and these eight locks account for a large share of that climb.

UNESCO judged the Rideau the best-preserved slackwater canal in North America, and the only one of its era still running along its original line.

Each autumn Parks Canada drains the water at the Ottawa locks, then sets beams across them so the canal above can be raised to skating level.

The Rideau Canal Skateway, which ends at the top of these locks, entered Guinness World Records in 2005 as the largest naturally frozen skating rink.

The cleared skating surface is 7.8 km long, about as much ice as 90 Olympic hockey rinks laid end to end.

The 1827 Commissariat beside the bottom lock still has its secure vault and the block and tackle once used to hoist goods to its upper floors.

Why it is worth it

The Rideau Canal begins with its most dramatic flourish: eight locks climbing one after another out of the Ottawa River, a stone staircase set into a ravine between Parliament Hill and the Château Laurier. Boats rise 24.1 metres in the course of the flight — the biggest single lift anywhere on the Rideau system — and the passage takes about an hour and a half. From the river the view is of grey limestone chambers, dark timber gates and green copper roofs above; from the bridge at the top, of the whole flight dropping away towards the water.

The site was chosen in September 1826 by Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers, who needed a way to bypass the falls and rapids at the mouth of the Rideau River. His first plan was two flights of four locks with a turning basin between them, but when the lock size was enlarged in 1828 there was no longer room for that, and the eight had to be built as one continuous staircase. The work at Ottawa fell to Thomas McKay, in partnership with John Redpath, and the limestone was quarried from the cliffs right beside the works. Loose sand on the valley floor and water seeping in from springs made it a hard place to build. The whole canal, from Ottawa to Kingston, was finished by 1832, and it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site — inscribed in 2007.

What makes the flight so appealing today is that it still works the way it did then. Parks Canada staff open and close the gates by cranking cast-iron winches by hand, and on a summer afternoon a queue of pleasure boats works its way up the steps while people lean on the railings to watch. Beside the bottom lock stands the Commissariat of 1827, built by McKay as a storehouse and offices; it is the oldest surviving stone building in Ottawa and has housed the Bytown Museum since 1917. In winter the canal above the locks freezes and becomes a city-long skating route that ends right here, between Parliament and the hotel.

Come in the boating season to see the gates in use, or late in the day when the stone of the Parliament buildings above catches the light.

Getting there

The locks are in downtown Ottawa, about a kilometre from Centretown, at the foot of Parliament Hill beside Wellington Street; the entrance to the lockstation is at 3 Canal Lane. Rideau station on O-Train Line 1 is a short walk away. The nearest airfield is the small Rockcliffe Airport (YRO), about 6 km away, but scheduled flights use Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport (YOW), around 14 km from downtown and linked to the centre by O-Train.

Ottawa Locks

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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