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| Newsletter of the Friends of the Rideau | Summer 2006 |
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RIDEAU WORLD HERITAGE
You may remember from previous articles that the actual boundaries of the nomination are the Rideau Canal and the military fortifications in Kingston. The boundaries of the Rideau are the land and waters owned by the Federal Government, the jurisdictional area of Parks Canada. There are no additional rules and regulations that come with World Heritage, the World Heritage Convention does not override a country's sovereign right to make its own management decisions. In the case of the Rideau, a slightly modified version of the existing Parks Canada management plan for the Rideau Canal will be the management plan for the World Heritage site. While Parks Canada has not yet made the nomination document public, pending French translation, they have published the criteria under which the nomination was submitted. The World Heritage Convention provides for six criteria under which a cultural property can be submitted. Three of these were chosen for the Rideau nomination. 1) The Rideau Canal is a masterpiece of human creative genius. Through a fundamental stroke of creative genius, Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers envisioned the creation of a slackwater canal on a monumental scale. This approach was highly innovative – and technologically risky. The slackwater system was virtually untried at that time in Europe. 2) The Rideau Canal exhibits an important interchange of human values over a span of time within a cultural area of the world, on developments in technology. Building the Rideau Canal and its fortifications required adapting existing European technology to the North American environment and to the specific circumstances and geography of its setting. The experience gained in the engineering of the works and fortifications for the Rideau Canal advanced these technologies to a new level. 3) The Rideau Canal is an outstanding example of a technological ensemble, which illustrates a significant stage in human history. One of the very few canals in the world built primarily for strategic military purposes, the Rideau Canal and its associated defensive works were built at a time when Great Britain and the United States of America vied for control of the northern portion of the North American continent. We understand that once the nomination has been translated it will be posted to the Parks Canada website and we will be able to see the nomination in its entirety. So check in at: www.pc.gc.ca/rideaucanal every so often to see if it has been posted. The next stage in the process will be a technical evaluation visit to the Rideau Canal this summer by representatives from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). They are charged with verifying that all the nice things said about the Rideau in the nomination document are true. If you bump into any of the ICOMOS people this summer, be enthusiastic – World Heritage will be a very good thing for the Rideau. ICOMOS will submit their evaluation report for the Rideau to the Secretariat of the World Heritage Committee no later than February 2007. The Secretariat will make sure that the evaluation meets World Heritage criteria and then they will send it on to the Bureau of the World Heritage Committee (consisting of 7 elected members of the full 21 member committee). The Bureau will review the nomination in detail and make one of four recommendations: a) that the nomination be recommended for inscription without reservation; b) that the nomination not be recommended for inscription; c) that the nomination be referred back to the nominating State for further information or d) that the nomination should be deferred on the grounds that a more in-depth assessment or study is needed. Those of us who know the Rideau assume that the Bureau will recommend option A. The Bureau will send its report to the Secretariat for distribution to the World Heritage Committee in April/May 2007. When the full World Heritage Committee meets in late June/early July 2007, it will consider and then vote on all the nominations for that year. We will find out at that time if the Rideau Canal will become a World Heritage Site. |
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While we are keeping our fingers crossed for World Heritage designation, the 175th anniversary of the opening of the Rideau Canal is a sure thing for 2007. Event planning is switching into high gear. If you or your organization wish to do a Rideau 175 event now is the time to get organized. Visit the Rideau 175 website at www.rideau175.org or contact us or the Rideau Canal Office of Parks Canada for all the details. |
FoR director Josephine MacFadden is still working very hard to bring a documentary about the Rideau Canal to the screen in 2007. Jo envisages two products, a one hour special television program and a shorter promotional version for Parks Canada visitors. Jo is presently navigating the very rough seas of Canadian broadcasting in search of a potential broadcaster. She is also in the process of writing the first draft script with the new co-writer/director Greg Hancock. For more information about the project, or if you would like to make a contribution, please contact Josephine MacFadden at: macfadjp@magma.ca |
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Our newest brochure, Managing Aquatic Vegetation on the Rideau Canal, done in partnership with Parks Canada, will appear at Rideau lockstations this summer. It will join our other brochures including our very successful How A Lock Works and Be Rideau Loon Aware brochures. In addition, we have a bookmark in the works, one side promoting Rideau 175 and the other side Friends of the Rideau. We hope to have this printed in a few weeks. They will be distributed at the lockstations and other venues this summer. All of our brochures, as well as some Parks Canada brochures, can be found in downloadable PDF format on our website at: www.rideaufriends.com Lake associations that wish to have paper copies of the Managing Aquatic Vegetation on the Rideau Canal brochure available for distribution via your newsletter or at your Annual General Meeting should contact Mary Ann Stienberg at the Rideau Canal Office of Parks Canada - MaryAnn.Stienberg@pc.gc.ca, 613-283-5170 or toll free 1-888-773-8888. |
 What did the Rideau Canal look like prior to the building of the locks and dams in 1826-1831? What did the early surveyors of the Rideau Route see? How much flooding did the building of the Rideau Canal cause? These questions and more are answered in a new book, Engineered Landscapes, that investigates the pre-canal geography of the Rideau Canal and the amount of flooding caused by the building of the locks and dams. The author, Ken Watson (your newsletter editor) is set to publish this book in the coming month.A bit of a tome at 300 pages, the book is divided into three parts. Part 1 describes the pre-canal geography based on survey descriptions, maps and some recent field investigations. It includes a geographic description of the pre-canal waterway, primarily a description of the rapids and falls that had to be overcome to create a navigable waterway. It also includes first hand accounts of the pre-canal Rideau Route, maps and transcriptions of the first three full route surveys, those of Lt. Gershom French in 1783, Lt. Joshua Jebb in 1816 and Samuel Clowes in 1823 and 1824. The accounts of these surveys have not been previously transcribed and are presented in this book for the first time. Part 2 briefly reviews details of the building of the dams and locks, the channel engineering, and the exact levels of flooding brought about by the building of the Rideau Canal. Every section of the Rideau Canal has been subject to some degree of flooding, the amount of this flooding has never been previously determined. This book attempts, through historical research and present day field investigations, to quantify the flooding brought about by the building of the Rideau Canal. Part 3 provides an overview of recent field investigations into some of the questions that arose from the initial research for this book, principally to scientifically delineate portions of the now inundated pre-canal landscape. The book is the result of three years of research and writing. It wasn’t all pouring over hundreds of maps and documents, the research afforded many opportunities to get out into the field, including doing bathymetric surveys of several Rideau lakes. The research also answered many niggling questions such as “were there any waterfalls in the original Jones Falls” (the answer is “no” - it was a long series of rapids) and “was there a portage around the Hogs Back Rapids” (another “no” - those rapids could be run by canoe in the pre-canal era). The audience for this book is going to be those really keen on the history and geography of the Rideau Canal. Those perhaps not so keen may wish to wait another few months when Ken plans to release a spin-off book, titled “The Rideau Route.” This will be a re-write of Part 1 of Engineered Landscapes aimed at a general public readership. It will include the survey maps and report transcriptions as well as a travelogue style description of the pre-canal “Rideau Route,” but it will omit the technical flooding discussion. This should produce a book that is half the size (and half the price) of Engineered Landscapes and much more readable for a general audience. The book should be available in late May (because Ken wants to be boating by that time, not doing more edits on the book). Look for the announcement on Ken’s website: www.rideau-info.com |
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Your newsletter editor designs and maintains websites for several organizations on a volunteer basis. Last month he added another one, the Canadian Canal Society. It is still a work in progress, Ken is working with the CCS to add content to the site. Check it out at: www.CanadianCanalSociety.org |
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A reminder that our membership year runs from June 1 to May 31. Those whose membership has or will expire will have found a membership renewal form enclosed with this newsletter. Please take a moment to renew today. Please note that our membership dues have not increased since 1990 - it’s a really good deal - so please renew today! |
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Those of you who have had the pleasure of boating into beautiful Morton Bay of Whitefish Lake will remember the spectacular granite outcrops known as Rock Dunder and Dunders Mate. The land around Rock Dunder was owned for years by the Boy Scouts of Canada. They put it up for sale last year. We’re pleased to hear that the Rideau Waterway Land Trust has recently completed the purchase of this property, which consists of 238 acres of wilderness and 7,000 feet of natural shoreline. It will now be preserved in perpetuity for the benefit of the public. |
 #7Who remarked, with a twinkling eye, “A ling in the spring, Is a most tasty thing – A’wa’ wi’ th’ haggis! Come, give ling a try.” The ling has a long storied history in the world of fish. You all remember “The Second Lay of Gudrun”, and the “Elder Edda” in which the Vikings reminisce about drinking horns carved with “the ling-fish long of the land of Hadding”. However, this is not the ling of which the good Colonel was speaking – no, indeed – he referred to “Lota lota”, not “Molva molva”. In Rideau sagas, the ling (aka burbot) has a poor reputation. F.H. Wooding, in The Angler’s Book of Canadian Fishes, says, ‘Burbots are cold-water fish and are exceedingly predacious, living mainly on other fish. They have voracious appetites and often devour fish almost their own size.” Great efforts were made to rid the Rideau lakes of this “predacious”, “voracious” fish. In 1901, the Anglers Association of Westport sought a government bounty “on all objectionable fish” so that Wolfe Lake might be cleared of ling. Capt. John Fleming of Newboro began netting ling in Wolfe and Rideau lakes, but his efforts were hampered by “parties lifting and taking fish from Government nets”. Fleming found the culprits – four Fermoy men were charged $20 each and costs. About this same time, over 3 tons of ling were caught, dressed and shipped from Big Rideau Lake by Robert Moore. In 1914, Overseer J. H. Phillips of Smiths Falls reported that he spent two months taking ling from Otty Lake. And so . . . In the 1930s, ling removal was still a hot topic. Smiths Falls Fish and Game Protective Association members were netting ling and distributing them to those on relief. Game Inspector John Barrans of Perth District netted over 2,400 ling from the Big Rideau and neighbouring lakes. Robert Moore was still at it. Farmers were taking them for feeding hogs and the ling were offered by the carload to anyone who wanted them. But by 1937, the game wardens still reported catching nearly 6,000 ling in the same lakes. And in the late 40’s through to the mid-60s, the annual catch was as high as ever. If there’s a real problem, what’s the answer? It seems obvious – make the ling a game fish – hold ling tournaments and invite all the big names – Bob Izumi, for example. Get Shimano and Molsons behind it. Since the Northwest Territories made ling a game fish in 2004, can Ontario be far behind? Have big fish dinners after each tournament – no catch and release. Contests for the tastiest recipe – the Colonel would approve. When boiled and buttered, the sweet flavor of burbot has earned it the title of "poor man's lobster." Make sure everyone knows that burbot, the “freshwater cod”, has a liver oil equal to that of its saltwater cousin – here’s a healthy alternative to the over-fished Atlantic cod. Another proposal – if the federal Department of Fisheries were put in charge, ling populations would be brought under control swiftly. The ling is a poor, misunderstood creature. This shy and reclusive survivor deserves better from us. Next Robbie Burns Day, spare the over-hunted haggis and turn to the ling with the toast. “Lang may yer ling reek”! - Ed Bebee
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Kingston’s CHATEAU RIDEAU by Professor Brian Osborne At the cusp of the 20th century, Kingston, like many other North American cities, was seeking the elixir for economic growth. Transshipment and commerce were being threatened, new industries were not forthcoming, so what about tourism? After all, Kingston was well served by excellent rail and shipping connections and yet, it was argued by boosters, “You’ve watched the crowded steamers put in at Kingston and then put out again. You’ve seen the steamers’ passengers, good people, desirable visitors, people demanding modern comfort and having money to buy it go on to Alexandria Bay and little Gananoque.” So, why didn’t they stay? After all, “Kingston’s natural attractions are many”: the city’s romantic history, picturesque setting, and “invigorating air”; Queen’s University, beautiful churches, the Royal Military College; good roads, charming country drives, and “natural golf links equaled only in Scotland.” And then there was “the city’s commanding view of the Islands and its proximity to their shadow-splashed passages as well as the opportunities for water sports, splendid boating and canoeing and rare good fishing and hunting up the beautiful River Rideau.” The answer was clear: “Everyone in Kingston knows why. Because Kingston cannot entertain [visitors] as they want to be entertained. Because Kingston does not provide the comforts and conveniences they ask. In short, because Kingston has no hotel to appeal to these travelers.” After all, Quebec City has its Chateau Frontenac, Ottawa was constructing its Chateau Laurier and so, in 1908, the Kingston Hotel Company proposed its own project: the Chateau Rideau to be erected on the waterfront in the city’s Macdonald Park. Of significance was the paradox that Chateau Rideau required the destruction of one of the Martello towers erected to defend the Lake Ontario terminus of the Rideau navigation! It was to be a modern and imposing edifice: a fire-proof structure of steel and reinforced concrete with a limestone facade in the “French Chateau Style”; some 300 rooms equipped with individual bathrooms and thermostats; a ballroom 34 feet high, 88 feet long, and 50 feet wide to accommodate up to 700 people; a 109 by 56 foot “regal suite” suitable for “nobility or royalty from Europe”; a basement area with cafes and facilities for motor-car or boat day-tourists, presumably to keep them away from the European nobility; a billiard room with a special match-table set in an amphitheatre. Wow! How did Kingstonians receive this concept? Writing in the Daily British Whig, “Business Man” declared that Kingston was seen as “Rip Van Winkle” and argued that, “Give a Martello tower to be replaced by a $500,000 hotel! Yes, by all means. We have lots of old military landmarks left, in fact, too many for our own good. It is about time the saying that Kingston is dead was buried.” But others disagreed. The next day, the “Citizen” provided a rebuttal: “the proposal to demolish the fine old Martello tower which gives such character and dignity to Murney Point, and is the most distinctive historical landmark of our historic city seems to me an unthinkable proposition.” Other problems were that the land was owned by the Canadian government and was to be maintained as a public park. Not surprisingly, interest in the project began to wane and, by 1914, Council’s “Hotel Committee” reported that they had “so far found no one willing to erect an hotel in Kingston, and put money in it, although they are willing to make money by doing so, providing the citizens of Kingston will put they hands in their pockets to pay the bill.” The city had to wait a further fifty years before hotel accommodations were enhanced. And a century later, on 5 April 2006, a Kingston Whig Standard editorial returned to the theme of Kingston’s connection to tourism in general and the Rideau: Kingstonians should realize that “they have a real stake in the Rideau...The northern path of the Rideau Canal must be seen more as a part of the Kingston region’s tourism system.” Plus ca change...!” |
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Friends of the Rideau is a volunteer, non-profit organization, working in co-operation with Parks Canada to enhance and conserve the heritage and charm of the Rideau Corridor. For more information contact: Friends of the Rideau, 1 Jasper Avenue, Smith Falls, Ontario K7A 4B5 – Tel: (613) 283-5810 Fax: (613) 283-2884 – Email: info@rideaufriends.com – Website: www.rideaufriends.com. Comments about the newsletter can be directed to the editor, Ken Watson, c/o Friends of the Rideau or by email at: kwatson@kos.net |
