Kingston To Ottawa Via The Rideau Canal
Heading on from Kingston to Ottawa, the obvious route is east along Hwy 401 and then north up Hwy 416, a fast journey of around 175km. With more time, however, it's worth considering taking Hwy 15 (and ultimately Hwy 7) inland from Kingston as this minor road follows much of the route of the Rideau Canal . Completed in 1832 after a mere six years' work, the 120-mile canal - and its 27 lock stations - cuts through the chunk of coniferous and deciduous forest, bogs, limestone plains and granite ridges that separate Ottawa and Kingston. It was intended to provide safe inland transport at a time of poor Anglo-American relations, but after the political situation improved it developed as an important route for regional commerce. The canal's construction led to the development of Bytown, renamed Ottawa in 1855, but in the second half of the nineteenth century the railways made it obsolete. Today, it is plied by holiday traffic and motorists visit its locks . The two most interesting are Kingston Mills, 12km inland from Kingston, and, even better, at Johnson Falls, about 50km from Kingston. At the latter, the complex includes four locks, a dam, a former blacksmith's forge and a defensible lockmaster's house.
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