Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal, a monumental early 19th-century
construction covering 202 km of the Rideau and Cataraqui rivers from
Ottawa south to Kingston Harbour on Lake Ontario, was built primarily
for strategic military purposes at a time when Great Britain and the
United States vied for control of the region. The site, one of the first
canals to be designed specifically for steam-powered vessels, also
features an ensemble of fortifications. It is the best-preserved example
of a slackwater canal in North America, demonstrating the use of this
European technology on a large scale. It is the only canal dating from
the great North American canal-building era of the early 19th century to
remain operational along its original line with most of its structures
intact.