The Waterways

The waterways are the most important natural features of the Capital region, and they have shaped both the landscape and human settlement over time. Long ago, the rivers served as Aboriginal highways and gateways into nomadic hunting territories. Settlers used them as routes into the wilderness, and later, as a source of power for fledgling industries. Today, the rivers of the Capital region continue to provide hydro-electric power and to shape human activity, with a new emphasis on their scenic and recreational value.

The Ottawa River

The Ottawa River forms the axis of the Capital region. The most important tributary of the St. Lawrence River to the southeast, this river has its source 150 kilometres due north of the Capital region, in the highlands of north-western Quebec. For much of its length, it forms the boundary of Quebec and Ontario and of two important land forms (the Canadian Shield to the northeast and the St. Lawrence Lowlands to the southwest). An Aboriginal transportation route 6,000 years ago, the river was also the shortest route to the west for fur traders paddling from Montreal to the Great Lakes from the 17th to the 19th centuries. In 1832, the completion of the Rideau Canal linked the Ottawa River directly to the Great Lakes (Lake Ontario). The river is 1,126 kilometres long, drops 300 metres in elevation from its source to the junction with the St. Lawrence, and at its widest point on the lower part of the river, is 7.4 kilometres across. It drains 14,761 square kilometres of land and has a flow of 1,982 cubic metres per second (more than all the rivers of England and Wales combined).

The Rideau River

A tributary of the Ottawa, the Rideau River joins the main river just east of downtown Ottawa. The confluence is marked by a fine set of double waterfalls (11 metres high), which gave the river its name (“rideau” means “curtain” in French). In the 19th century, industrialists used the falls to power their mills. From 1826 to 1832, British military engineers built channels, dams and locks to link navigable stretches of the Rideau River and lakes along its course and joined it to the Cataraqui River (near Kingston on Lake Ontario) to create the 202-kilometre Rideau Canal. The Long Cut — a 7.8-kilometre stretch of man-made channel — runs through the heart of downtown Ottawa and drops steeply into the Ottawa River over a flight of eight locks. In winter, the canal becomes the Rideau Canal Skateway.

The Gatineau River

From the north, out of the vast rocky highlands known as the Canadian Shield, flows the Gatineau River. The Gatineau was transformed into a logging river in the 19th century. Every year until well into the second half of the 20th century, lumberjacks rolled cut timber into the river every spring and sent it down the spring floods to mills at the confluence of the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers. The Gatineau River also gives access to an area that is rich in mineral resources and mining.

Related links

• Rideau Canal Skateway