Rideau Canal National Historic Site of Canada
Learning Experiences
The Rideau Canal offers educational tours as well as a dramatic evening campfire program, Spirits Rising.
These programs are recommended for Grade 5-10 audiences.
In terms of Ontario curriculum links they are most suited to the following grades:
Grade 5: Science and Technology (Structures and Mechanisms - Forces Acting on Structures and Mechanisms)
Grade 7: History (British North America)
Grade 8: History (Canada: A Changing Society), Science and Technology (Matter and Materials - Fluids)
Guided tours may be booked throughout the year, though April to October is the best time to visit the canal. Spirits Rising is offered from mid-May to the end of August. Contact the Rideau Canal at 1-800-230-0016 for more details.
Student guided tour fee: $2.00 Spirits Rising fee: $9 per person
Online EduKit Activities - Gates and Locking Through
GUIDED TOURS
Ottawa Locks: From Colony to Capital
- looks at environment, engineering, technologies, historical figures, development of 19th-century Canada and the founding of the capital
Merrickville Lockstation: Industrial Heritage, Historic Community
- focus on Canada's 19th-century industrial heritage, development of water resources for transportation and power, contrast of past and present technologies (canal, swing bridge, hydroelectric generating station)
Smiths Falls Lockstation: Technology Old and New
- tour concentrates on contrast of old and new technology, building techniques, changes in canal operations (defence to settlement to commerce to tourism)
Jones Falls Lockstation : Engineering in the Wilderness
(off Hwy. 15, near Elgin, Ontario)
- recounts struggle of canal builders with disease, inhospitable terrain - learning about engineering innovation and technology, preservation, 19th-century life - tour includes a visit to an operational 1843 blacksmith shop, the Stone Arch Dam (largest dam of its time in North America), and the home of the first lockmaster at Jones Falls (Sweeney House)
Kingston Mills Lockstation: Gateway to the Past
- focus on changing use of the canal over time (defence, settlement, commerce, pleasure use) - features topography of the Canadian Shield - includes tour of military Blockhouse
Spirits Rising - Kingston Mills (Evening Ghost Story Program)
- theatrical presentation that includes a short tour of Kingston Mills Lockstation and an after-dark encounter with the "ghosts" of the Rideau Canal.