- created 22nd November 2004 - last edited 19th April 2006
The Transport Evolution - Montreal to Ottawa
1790 - 1910

A Study of Railway and Canal Development on the Lower Ottawa River

by D Hugh M Reekie

1. Portage all the way

The Ottawa River was the principal route for explorers and voyageurs to reach the West. One could easily travel from Montreal to "the far west" - to places like Fort Chipewyan, by canoe with portages. Few of these portages were long or with significant vertical interval: the watershed between the Ottawa River and James Bay was only a few miles, with less than 100' height difference. The watershed between the James Bay and the mighty MacKenzie River was the worst, with a 700' height difference.

For over two centuries, this route was used by the fur traders; the Principals (like Simon Fraser, Simon McTavish, James & Peter McGill) spent their active years travelling from Lake Superior's lakehead to their far-west summer destinations. Peter Newman writes about the loose consortium of fur traders based in Montreal known as the North West Company "At one time or another there were on the NWC rolls: seven Simon Frasers, four Findlays, five Camerons, six MacTavishes, seven Mcleods, eight McGillivrays, fourteen each of Grants and Mackenzies and so many Macdonalds that they had to differentiate themselves by including home towns in their surnames, as in John McDonald of Garth". All these fur traders travelled the Lower Ottawa in canoes. It should be noted, however, that the Trent/Severn waterway from Lake Ontario was also used by the fur traders to reach Lake Superior - and also a route via Lake Simcoe from Fort York - the main reason for Yonge Street being developed so early: a long portage!

The distances were so vast that a midsummer gathering was arranged, on the shores of Lake Superior, for the exchange of goods; this permitted the canoe's occupants to winter at their "home base" - whether in be the Lower Ottawa or the "far west". The larger Montreal canoes, holding 3 tons, and the canoes for the interior (usually Canot du Nord of 1 1/2 tons capacity) would repackage and transfer their goods, a process taking up to 3 weeks, during August. This exchange transfer location was first in what is now Upper Michigan; it then moved to the Duluth area and ended up in what is now Thunder Bay. The journey from Montreal would start at Lachine, where there was a large trans-shipment point just upstream of the rapids; some small older buildings still remain by the river.

It is interesting to note that the National Capital Commission, Ottawa, ran a "Voyageur's Festival" on Victoria Island, Ottawa in the 1980s, which attempted to duplicate some features of this midsummer camp and goods exchange; included was a "Grande Balle des Voyageurs" which, on one occasion, included local dignitaries (Lord Mayor etc) dancing a Scottish Eightsome Reel in the outdoors, for the public to watch!

2. The First Lachine Canal

From 1817 to 1824 the first Lachine Canal was built, by Thomas MacKay, based in Perth; he was assisted by John Redpath, who later became involved in many Montreal activities. MacKay ended up in Ottawa; he built himself a large mansion, now used, in an expanded form, by the Governor General. The canal was rebuilt in the 1880s.

3. The Ottawa Portages

By 1810 the freight transport system in the Lower Ottawa had become quite organized. The three rapids, at Carillon, at Chute à Blondeau, and a "Long Sault" downstream from Grenville, meant that portage tracks were in use. Both banks of the Ottawa river had these portage routes, and this led to four "Transfer Communities" forming. On the northern shore, these were Carillon and Grenville, and on the south shore Pointe Fortune and L'Orignal; all four communities, therefore, have older buildings. L'Orignal is perhaps the most interesting: it is so close to Hawkesbury that the rise of the latter relieved the former of development pressure. One of the leading local men of the time was John Macdonnell who, noting the increase in the freight forwarding trade, built a covered freight transfer shed close to his home at Pointe Fortune in 1817.

In the early 1800s the portage tracks were pretty well defined, but travellers got lost on occasion. There is a written account of a voyaguer on the southern shore near Pointe Fortune taking a more southerly, and less muddy, path than the usual one used by the voyageurs to carry the canoes and freight: he got lost and found a small log house in a clearing. A young red-haired lass came to the door, but she could not understand either English or French; she spoke only the Gaelic; this was quite common in the area at the time.

Develpment of the Upper Ottawa valley became significant in the 1790s; for example, there were lumber developments near White Lake, south of Arnprior. Some entrepreneurs from Pointe Fortune moved up to Arnprior in the early 1800s - Daniel MacLaughlin the lumberman, for example. But the easiest way to travel from Montreal to White Lake in the 1790s was by established St Lawrence River public transport, to Prescott on Lake Ontario. The transport situation was considerably eased when the Soulange Rapids, near Melocheville (south shore downstream from Cornwall), were bypassed (for the most part) with canals in 1783 - built by the British Army, of course; Col John By's first Canadian assignment was the building of canals at Soulanges in 1801. The route from Prescott to the interior south of Arnprior was by trail through the backwoods; Perth was founded a few years later. Opening up cart trails such as the Opeongo Line, in the early 1800s, reduced the Prescott traffic. Later, the preferred water route would be totally reversed, as we shall see.

4 Immigration and the Buildup of St Andrew's East

Just downstream from Carillon, the North River enters the Ottawa, and the lower reaches provide excellent jetty locations for small vessels. So in the late 1700s, the community of St Andrew's East was founded to serve the new settlers: access to a major waterway was a requirement for any regional centre. As you visit the town today, you can still see the signs of the Scots, Irish and English settlers who put down roots in the early 1800s. They were farmers, weavers, entrepreneurs, woodsmen and labourers. One such entrepreneur was John Abbott.

Whilst many Scots were settling in Argenteuil County (Brownsburg and Lachute have many Scottish street names), others were moving further up the Ottawa. For example, a large group emigrated from Caithness in 1813, settling in the Upper Ottawa. The emigrants travels were via the St Lawrence until 1818, when roads to Richmond and March were constructed from the Chaudiere Falls area, making the Ottawa Valley route viable.

5. The first lock on the Ottawa - at Vaudreuil

Settlers could get their houseold furniture from Lachine to such places as Williamstown, near Cornwall, by "Bateau" - or Durham boat - without trans-shipment: a replica vessel is used at Upper Canada Village. But the St. Anne's Rapids, the outlet of Lake of Two Mountains, became a signifant barrier to trade. A private wooden lock was built at Vaudreuil by the St. Andrew's Steam Fowarding Company in 1816; the company restricted traffic to their own vessels. This lock remained in use until a larger government-built canal was commissioned on the eastern shore in 1843; this larger lock, at St Anne-de Bellevue, is still in use today.

In the 1820s, John Macdonnell built a wooden lock on the south shore at Carillon; after a few years it was destroyed under orders from the British Army: Mr Macdonnel had the indiscretion of charging transit fees for a large military flotilla - and bad news travels fast!

6. Military requirements demand the elimination of portages

The completion of the Rideau Canal in 1831 (started in 1826) put pressure on the portage system in the Lower Ottawa. British Army Engineers built locks on the Lower Ottawa, with initial planning from 1819, and Col By arriving in 1826. The canal by-passed the Long Sault, downstream of Grenville, in 1854. The downstream locks were built to the Rideau Canal dimensions, but the earlier upriver ones were smaller, and remained a bottleneck for larger vessels for many years.

7. The First Carillon locks - a Masterpiece of Cost-effective Engineering

Captain Henry Du Vernet, the British Army officer ordered in 1819 to plan the lower Ottawa locks, started at Grenville; the initial group was finished in 1829; the first or entrance lock finished up a little narrower then the selected dimensions of 107' x 19'4" of the top three locks. The remaining locks were built to the Rideau Canal dimensions 128 x 32'6" - good enough for many steamboats, as suggested assertively by Col By. At the Carillon Rapids, Duvernet came up with an innovative method of construction: instead of blasting out rock, as one would normally do, adjacent to the rapids, he built a mini-canal without the need for gunpowder. By geographical chance the North River, which flows into the Ottawa downstream of Carillon, has a loop to the south (upriver of St Andrew's East) which is only a quarter of a mile north of the Ottawa. Henry Du Vernet tapped into this water source to create a headwater supply, whose height was 13' above the waters upstream of the Carillon Rapids; you can see this small "ditch" today. As you traversed the short canal going downstream, the first lock took you UP to this headwater level. Then you travelled along the canal past the rapids; them you went DOWN two locks, with a total drop of 23', to reach the Ottawa again - an actual drop of 10 feet over the rapids, with a canal length of about a mile. Although innovative, Col Duvernet was plagued by settlers' complaints - they feared that the taking of water form the North River would create water supply difficulties for them. In contrast, the Chute à Blondeau Lock was much simpler to create - with only a 4 feet height change; both sets of locks were commissioned in 1834.

8. Until 1847 - the preferred route from Montreal to Lake Ontario

As mentioned, the Soulange Rapids, near Melocheville (on the south shore), were only partially by-passed with canals. Until 1847, when the St Lawrence Canals were finally finished, the joint Ottawa River and Rideau Canal route was the preferred way for up-bound shipping, because this avoided the strenuous passage through the St Lawrence Rapids: vessels had to use strong engine power or use ropes and on-board winches (known as snagging) to go up the lesser parts of the Soulange rapids. The downstream journey from Prescott to Lachine would take 2-4 days, but the upstream time was over 7 days, often much longer - depending on season, water levels and intensity of water flow.

9. The Carillon-Grenville Broad Gauge Railway provides Passenger Relief

The Carillon & Grenville Railway was commissioned, on the 5'6" "Colonial" Broad gauge, in 1854. This permitted passengers to by-pass all the three sets of Lower Ottawa Canals, and presented the opportunity to provide for a significant increase in both freight and passenger traffic: large steamships plied from Lachine to Carillon, and from Grenville to Ottawa - and the small canal system's bottleneck was eliminated. This overall improvement made the passenger trip much more pleasant - and quicker; you could now travel from Montreal to Bytown in a day.

   A Carillon-Grenville Train - A postcard from a b & w photo, courtesy RD Brown Collection & Jim Sandilands

The railway line continued to be used until 1911 under various ownerships and, like the Chats Falls Horse Railway, was never connected with other rail systems. At one time John Abbot owned the rail company.

10. Steamboats and the Peak of Canal Traffic

Philemon Wright, the Hull lumberman, operated a small packet boat from Grenville to Ottawa, the Britannia, prior to 1819; this was succeeded by a larger vessel, The Packet. The Grenville - Ottawa run saw its first steamboat in 1822, The Union of the Ottawa - twelve years after John Molson had put a steamboat on the Montreal-Quebec City run; then The Shannon, (with passenger accomodations) served for 80 years. In 1830 the steamboat St Andrew's was built to run from Lachine to Carillon & St Andrew's East. - The William King replaced the smaller Union; John Molson was President of the new consortium, the Ottawa and Rideau Forwarding Company.

   Steamboat Queen Victoria - Public Archives of Canada photo

In later years The Prince of Wales (appropriately-named) ran from Lachine to Carillon, and the Queen Victoria (shown above) from Grenville to Ottawa; these two vessels carried the Prince of Wales on his upriver journey in 1860. Other vessels used were the Atlas (150' x 25') and the Lady Simpson. Small models of many of these vessels can be seen at the Argenteuil Regional Museum, Carillon.

11. Rebuilding the Canals and Locks

The Dominion Government rebuilt the Carillon Locks into a simpler 2-lock system in the 1880s; part of the last, or downstream lock can be seen today. Also, the higher water level from a new dam near Carillon removed the need for the Chute à Blondeau lock; the "dam" was really a weir - a row of stones sufficient to increase the water level - relatively easy to implement. The Grenville portion was rebuilt with only 5 locks, from the original 7. The canal banks can still be seen from the entrance lock at Grenville to a point downstream, under the new Perley Bridge; the entrance channel splits Grenville in two, and both banks can be readily explored, with easy road access.

The Ottawa north shore road, route 344, from Greece's Point to Carillon runs along the top of a dam or berm - the northern bank of the old Ottawa River Canal, hightened in the early 1960's when the new Carillon dam was built. In many places the wall of the southern side of the old canal is visible - usually just with a row of small trees, but in a few places, with a row of exposed stones.

12. The Railway Takes Over

The first lines of steel to Ottawa were laid by the Bytwon and Prescott Railway, which opened its terminal station at Sussex Street, Lowertown, in December 1854. Thirty years later a railway engine was still a novelty to some. A newspaper article in 1884 reported: "Some days ago a brigade of canoes reached Rockliffe under the direction of Mr. Whitman, a Hudson Bay trader. The Indians making up his party had never seen a locomotive before and when the train came into Rockliffe they cheered and jumped wildly."

13. The Final Log Raft

The Napolonic Wars of 1812 caused a blockade of lumber trade out of the Baltic; so pressure for lumber from other sources increased significantly. Soon there were river lumber runs in many places - for example in Aberdeenshire, Scotland - as well as up the Ottawa valley.

These river runs had to be managed. The Ottawa River Improvement Company was typical of the many companies operating on Ontario's rivers in the 1800s. Often they ran the steamboats, and maintained the log slides. One of the companies' main tasks was to ensure that the river was in a suitable condition for both logging and vessel operations, as there was a specific contractual arrangement between each logging company and the River Company. On the Ottawa, the large log rafts, for the most part re-assembled (after by-passing the Chaudière Falls) within sight of Ottawa's Parliament buildings, rode down all the lower rapids and were finally dismantled at Quebec City. The final log raft down the Ottawa was in 1903.

Philemon Wright, from Boston, and Johnathon Fassett, from Vermont, settled at the junction of the Gatineau and Ottawa Rivers in 1800, setting up various trades; white pine was first cut in 1806. The first squared-timber log raft passed down the Ottawa in 1807, taking 35 days to negotiate the Long Sault, down from Grenville. The first major navigation improvements on the river were done by Wright, who modified the rapids, and managed to get the log raft transit time through the rapids down to less than a day.

The design and use of these giant log rafts, and how they were partially dismantled to "ride the slides", is described in detail in Charlotte Whitton's logging book A Hundred Years a Fellin'. The final activity of the ORIC was the cleaning up of river logs in the 1970s - mostly upstream of Ottawa. As their timber concessions were logged out, the Fasset Lumber company moved up the Ottawa, finishing up in Algonquin Park in the 1930s. A promotional video of their lumbering activities was made, and has recently been re-released - a fascinating mixture of lumber camp life, horsepower, large lumber mills, steam trains and river log drives.

14 The Carillon Power Dam - New locks required.

With the decision of Quebec Hydro, in the 1950s, to build a power dam at Carillon, is was decided to raise the River's level to that above Grenville. The dam now incorporates a single lock, with a vertically (!) opening gate, to drop down to the level of Lake of Two Mountains. This now is the only lock between Ottawa and Lake of Two Mountains. Part of the 1880s canal lock can still be seen on the Quebec shore, in Carillon Park. The entry locks at Grenville, upstream of the road bridge, can also be seen - without their gates, of course. All the other locks are submerged. After initial planning, it was found that a rock fault required that the dam be built half a mile further upstream than the original plans. The MacDonnell-Williamson mansion, purchased by Hydro Quebec, on the south shore near Pointe Fortune but in Ontario, was not pulled down and flooded; it was left to rot. In recent years the building has been saved and is now a museum.

15 References