Ontario
Ottawa
The city of Ottawa, Ontario has been the Canadian capital since confederation in 1867. The area along the Ottawa River has been home to the Algonquin people for thousands of years. Indigenous groups would meet at the falls, known as Akikodjiwan (Chaudière Falls today), to trade and socialize. In fact, the name “Ottawa” is derived from the Algonquin word adawe, meaning “to trade”.
Ottawa was born out of a military necessity. Following the War of 1812, the British began construction of a canal in 1826 which would provide them a secure military supply line from Montreal to Kingston, avoiding the vulnerable St. Lawrence River border with the United States. The massive engineering project was supervised by Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the British Royal Engineers. He used an innovative “slackwater” design—building dams and locks to raise and lower water levels instead of digging a continuous trench—which made it one of the first canals engineered for steam-powered vessels. Thousands of Irish immigrants, French-Canadian laborers, and Scottish stonemasons worked in harsh wilderness conditions. Over the six-year construction period, about 1,000 workers died from accidents and malaria. The project was named the Rideau Canal, taking its title from the pre-existing Rideau River, which explorer Samuel de Champlain had named in 1613 because its twin waterfalls looked like a curtain (rideau in French).
The construction camp at the northern end of the Rideau Canal grew into the town of Bytown. It quickly grew into a rough, divided frontier town fueled by the massive square timber trade. The timber cut in the interior of Ontario would be squared up, formed into massive rafts, and then floated up the Ottawa river to Bytown where it could be shipped to England. While the canal was never needed for its original military purpose, it served as a vital commercial route for shipping timber, grain, and settlers through the mid-19th century. Bytown was incorporated as a city and renamed Ottawa in 1855. In 1857, Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of the Province of Canada, balancing rivalries between larger cities like Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and Kingston due to its defensible inland location. The rise of railways reduced the canal’s commercial importance. By the late 19th and 20th centuries, it shifted into a popular destination for tourism and pleasure boating.
Today, the 125-mile Rideau Canal is managed by Parks Canada and is a national historic site. In 2007, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site as the best-preserved slackwater canal of its era. The waterway has 45 locks across 23 lock stations. The northern entrance to the Rideau Canal in downtown Ottawa features an impressive flight of 8 locks in the shadows of Parliament Hill and the iconic Château Laurier. The locks are still operated as they were in the 19th century using nothing more than gravity and human power. A team of Parks Canada employees manually crank open the flood gates and operate the lock doors. It is really a brilliantly simple design and a real thrill to watch boats move up and down the locks as they would have two hundred years ago.
Ottawa became the national capital when Canada was confederated in 1867, leading to the construction of the original parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. For hundreds of years, the limestone outcrop high over the Ottawa River served as a landmark for the Indigenous people and traders. During the construction of the Rideau Canal, a military base was set up on the site that became Parliament Hill. Construction on the first Gothic Revival parliament buildings started in 1859 and the three blocks, East, Centre, and West, were completed in 1866. The Centre Block on Parliament Hill is the main building of Canada’s parliament, housing both the Senate and House of Commons chambers. A massive fire destroyed most of the Centre Block on February 3, 1916, sparing only the detached Library of Parliament. When the Centre Block was rebuilt, the iconic Peace Tower (clock tower) was added. The historic Centre Block is presently undergoing a massive, decade-long restoration. The building closed in 2019 to begin the largest and most complex heritage building restoration ever attempted in Canada which is estimated to cost $5 billion and be completed around 2030. The East Block houses the offices for senators and their staff, while the West Block is presently serving as the House of Commons Chamber while the Centre Block undergoes its long-term rehabilitation.
Located directly below Parliament Hill is the iconic castle-like landmark hotel, the Fairmont Château Laurier. Built by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) under president Charles M. Hays, it was designed to anchor a network of luxury railway hotels. It was named in honor of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the sitting Prime Minister of Canada, who helped secure a portion of Major’s Hill Park for its construction site. Designed in the French Gothic Revival Châteauesque style to echo the nearby Parliament buildings, its construction features Indiana limestone, Italian marble, and a copper roof. Due to its close proximity to Parliament, it has earned the nickname “the third chamber of Parliament” where politicians gather and political deals are struck. Over the decades, it has hosted royalty (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth), world leaders (Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle), and countless celebrities. In 1980, the Château Laurier was officially designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Algonquin Provincial Park
Located in southeastern Ontario, Algonquin Provincial Park established on May 23, 1893 is Canada’s oldest provincial park. The Algonquin people were the first inhabitants of the area where they fished and hunted for thousands of years. The creation of the park in 1893 led to the displacement of local Indigenous communities who never surrendered their traditional claims. The park is a paddler’s dream for there are over 1,500 lakes in Algonquin Provincial Park with more than 500 of these lakes directly accessible via the park’s famous interior canoe routes. Most of the park’s numerous hiking trails and lakes are directly accessible off Ontario highway 60 which runs the length of the park. Most of the larger lakes, like Opeongo, Cache, and Two Rivers, have lodges along their shores and outdoor outfitters for renting equipment like canoes.
It was the enormous white pine forests which originally attracted Europeans to the region in the 1840s. When France cutoff Britain’s access to European timber supplies, they turned to their territory in Canada to meet the Empire’s need for critical shipbuilding timber. Thousands of young men would come to the region to harvest the white pine timber throughout the winter months. They lived in log cabins called camboose shanties where up to fifty men ate and slept. All winter long, the men would chop down trees using nothing more than axes and then square the logs up. The timber was moved on sleds over frozen trails by teams of horses to the edge of frozen lakes. Once the ice thawed in the spring, the logs would be bound together and fashioned into large rafts. The loggers would use steam-powered tugs or so-called “alligators” to winch the giant log rafts across the remote lakes to rivers where men called “log drivers” would guide the rafts up the Ottawa River. Once the rafts reached Ottawa or Quebec City, they were disassembled and the logs were placed into the cargo hold of ships for transport across the Atlantic to England. At one time, half of the able-bodied men in Canada worked in the nation’s timber industry.
In the late 1800s, lumber baron J.R. Booth constructed several rail lines that made it easier to get workers into the region and timber out. Other technologies like cross-cut saws and steam-powered winches made the job of logging more efficient and less laborious. The railroads also opened the region to tourism and several lodges and resorts, like the Highland Inn at Cache Creek, made the area a popular tourist destination in the early 20th century. When efforts by conservationists gained momentum to create Algonquin Provincial Park, the logging industry actually supported it because they felt it would stop development of their logging lands. Today, nearly 70% of Algonquin Provincial Park is opened to managed commercial logging which is mostly conducted away from the tourist areas along Highway 60. The Algonquin Logging Museum within the park features a re-created 19th century logging camp and does a fantastic job of telling the story of logging within the park: past and present.
Awenda Provincial Park
Awenda Provincial Park is located on a peninsula which juts into Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. The park takes its name from a Wendat word meaning “calm water” or “safe harbor”. During the late 1800s into the early 1900s, commercial logging stripped the peninsula of its massive original white pine forest. The mature sugar maples and red oaks visible in the park today are largely second-growth trees that reclaimed the logged landscape. The beaches of Awenda Provincial Park are very popular with day users. The four beaches in the park are connected by a shoreline trail which lead to sandy beaches along the calm, warm water of Lake Huron.
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls was formed approximately 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age when massive sheets of ice over a mile thick melted and retreated from the region. The melting ice filled newly gouged basins, creating the Great Lakes. Water from Lake Erie found a low path flowing north toward Lake Ontario, forming the Niagara River. The river dropped over a steep limestone and dolomite cliff edge sitting atop softer layers of shale. Rushing water constantly eroded the soft shale underneath, causing the hard caprock above to fracture and collapse. The falls actually began about seven miles downstream from their present location. The constant erosion by the Niagara River slowly shifted the falls upstream to their current location and carved out the deep Niagara Gorge over thousands of years. While the falls continue to recede upstream, the modern rate has been slowed due to water diversion for hydroelectric generation. In 1969, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a temporary dam to cut off the water flow to the American Falls for five months to study rock erosion and geological stability.
The iconic Niagara Falls are actually composed of three falls. The largest is the Canadian Horseshoe Falls where about 90% of the river’s total discharge flows over falls measuring approximately 2,200 feet in width. The water over the Horseshoe Falls drops 188 feet into the river below which has a plunge depth of 100 feet. The American and Bridal Veil Falls are side-by-side and they measure 1,060 feet in width. This set of falls has a vertical drop of 110 feet before hitting the rock pile (talus slope) below. The Horseshoe and American Falls are separated by a narrow strip of land in the middle of the river called Goat Island. Niagara Falls features a peak water volume of more than 6 million cubic feet per minute during daytime tourist hours. The volume of water over the falls is actually reduced during non-peak tourist times like overnight and winter months. During this time, more water is diverter for hydroelectric generation. The water in the rapids above the falls reach 25 mph before accelerating significantly at the drop.
Indigenous groups, including the Onguiaahra and the Neutral Nation, lived in the region long before European arrival. The name “Niagara” comes from an Indigenous word meaning “the neck” or “near the big waters”. The first documented account of the falls by a European was made by French missionary Father Louis Hennepin in the late 17th century. The Niagara region changed hands numerous times between the French and British throughout their North American conflicts. During the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, the Niagara River became a strategic border between the United States and Britian. In fact, to this day the river defines the border between the United States and Canada.
By the 1820s, the falls had become a famous honeymoon and travel destination. Long-running attractions like the Maid of the Mist boat tour began operating in 1848. The American side of the falls saw rapid development and commercialization around the tourist industry. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission was established in 1885 to control the lands and buildings immediately surrounding the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. The commission established a green belt alongside the river and falls which resembles a park setting to this day. In 1896, inventor Nikola Tesla and industrialist George Westinghouse implemented the first alternating current (AC) power station at Niagara Falls. Built on the American side and harnessing the power of the river, the station successfully transmitted electricity over long distances and turned the area into a global hub for renewable energy.
For nearly 200 years, thrill-seekers have risked their lives attempting dangerous stunts at Niagara Falls in search of fame and fortune. The first recorded daredevil to challenge the falls and survive was Sam Patch who in 1829 jumped from a wooden platform into the Niagara River near Goat Island. During the summer of 1859, a tightrope walker named The Great Blondin crossed the Niagara Gorge a total of 21 times, performing incredible stunts like cooking an omelet midway. The first person to plunge over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel was a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor who successfully completed the stunt in 1901. Over the decades, she was followed by a host of other wannabe daredevils who braved the falls. Tragically, many individuals were killed going over the falls and following the death of William “Red” Hill Jr. in 1951, local authorities made stunting over Niagara Falls illegal. Today, illegal stunting over the falls carries massive fines of up to $25,000 as local parks police actively deter copycats.
The Niagara Parks Power Station (originally the Canadian Niagara Power Company Rankine Generating Station) began construction on May 23, 1901, and opened in January 1905 as the first major large-scale hydroelectric generating station on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. The power station was designed with Romanesque architecture, a Queenston limestone exterior, and a low profile to blend into the natural park setting. It was modeled after the Adams Generating Station on the American side which was designed by Nikola Tesla. It was among the first turn-of-the-century plants designed to generate alternating current (AC), allowing electricity to be transmitted over long distances rather than just locally.
When the power station opened in 1905, it had five AC generators in operation on the top floor, known as the generating hall. Water was diverted from the Niagara River into the power station where it was filtered to remove debris which could damage the turbines. The water dropped 130 feet in large steel pipes before it hit the turbines buried deep beneath the plant. The turbines rotated large shafts which rose to the generators on the top floor to produce the electricity. After turning the turbines, the spent water was diverted into a large tunnel, known as a tailrace, where it was dumped back into the Niagara River past the falls. After the initial success of the power station, it was expanded to a final configuration of eleven generators capable of producing 76 megawatts of hydroelectricity.
For over a century, the Niagara Parks Power Station operated continuously supplying electricity to Fort Erie, Ontario as well as Buffalo, New York. When the station was decommissioned in 2006, the Niagara Parks Commission acquired the property and transformed the historic industrial site into a multi-faceted visitor attraction which opened in 2021 following a lengthy restoration. In addition to touring the generating hall, visitors can descend 180 feet below the station to walk the 2,200-foot-long tailrace tunnel which carried spent water back to the Niagara River. At the end of the tunnel, there is a viewing platform where visitors can witness the power of the Horseshoe Falls from their base.
