After our flight to Iqaluit, in northern Canada, from Nuuk, Greenland, was cancelled, Steven and I flew back to Reykjavik, where we'd started our summer adventure, and then on to Ottawa, my hometown. In a few days, we'd participate in the burial of my brother Paul's ashes with his widow, Gloria, my three other brothers, and other loved ones.
On the ride into Canada's capital city, I noticed the profusion of Canadian flags that had cropped up in reaction to Trump's enmity toward the US's northern neighbor and his proclamation that Canada should be the 51st state.
Cattails are a common sight in the Ottawa area, but much rarer in Colorado or any of the mountain states.
The next day, my brother John kindly took us on a driving tour through the Ottawa Valley, located in Eastern Ontario. It had been decades since Steven and I had made time to play tourists instead of just staying put in Ottawa itself, when we flew or drove back to visit my aging parents, four brothers, and childhood friends. John started our tour in Burritt's Rapids, a small village and the oldest settlement on the Rideau River, founded in 1793.
The community looked pretty sleepy when we walked down its main street, but it once bustled with the construction of the Rideau Canal from 1827 to 1831. It then boasted several mills, a tailor shop, a hat shop, two shoe stores, a bank, a post office, two hotels, and even a resident doctor.
A photo of John standing in the entryway of the Community Hall, which dates to 1841, and was the former general store:
Hydrangeas flourished in Ottawa's humid summer temperatures.
At the end of the street was Burritts Rapids Bridge, which connected nearby communities. Declared a National Historic Site, it was a bobtail swing bridge, meaning it pivoted to allow boats to pass through the Rideau Canal.
I took this photo from the embankment, which was constructed in 1831 to hold the Rideau Canal 15 feet above the river to the north.
Until I saw the historical marker, I had forgotten that the Rideau Canal was the continent's oldest continually operating canal. The 200km (125 mi) long chain of lakes, rivers, and canal cuts was also described as one of nine historic canals in Canada. Originally built for military defense, the Rideau Canal is now maintained and operated by the Canadian Parks Service as a historic recreational waterway.
The Burritt's Rapids Lockstation was number 17 of 45 along the Canal.
A few minutes later, we realized we were there at the perfect time, as a fisherman from Kingston, Ontario, was waiting to make his way through the lock! One of the employees told me that the lock was open from 9 to 6 on weekdays and until 7 on weekends, and that about 15 to 20 boaters passed through each day during the summer.
I don't know how arduous it was for the men to crank open the lock, but it couldn't have been a walk in the park!
Closing the lock again:
Not far from Burrit's Rapids was the lovely town of Merrickville, where the Andersonville Bridge and Upper Nicholsons Dam, also part of the Rideau Canal National Historic Site, were located.
An innovative way to repurpose old canoes into a Little Lending Library, don't you think!
Canadian patriotism was alive and well throughout the Valley!
If you ever find yourself in this part of Canada, take an hour or so to wander down Merrickville's very appealing main street, pop into the shops, and stop for lunch or just coffee and ice cream. You'll be glad you did, as it felt like a walk into the past.
The town's park was home to the Merrickville Cenotaph, a war memorial.
The historic Merrickville United Church was situated in a prominent location on the main street.
On a side street was the stately Fulford Academy, a private coeducational day and boarding school.
As Eastern Ontario is so close to the province of Quebec, it wasn't altogether strange seeing its provincial flag on one of the farms.
The banner alluded to the bridge we had just walked over outside of Merrickville.
We then returned to Burritt's Rapids to walk along its Tip to Tip Trail. The trail led past cool cedar forests, muskrat marshes, a beech nut grove, and the pine-covered upstream tip. The soil ridge trail was built 175 years ago. The embankment holds the canal channel water 15 feet above the river, just visible through the trees. The work involved in accomplishing such a task with shovels and wheelbarrows is difficult for a modern mind to grasp.
A sign in the bushes across the creek cautioned boaters to sound their horn at the aptly-named Whistle Point because of the curve in the bend.
None of us could identify the vibrant yellow flowers. Fortunately, my phone came to the rescue and identified them as Jerusalem Artichokes.
Our phones also labeled the green ash trees along the path.
On our way to John's home on the outskirts of Ottawa, we passed several striking churches, all so close to each other that I thought the road should be called the Highway to Heaven!
The most notable church was St. Clare Mission in Dwyer Hill. A small wooden chapel, 40 by 30 feet, was built in l849 to accommodate approximately 20 Catholic families living in the rural area. Around l880, it was clapboarded, and a foundation was put under it. By 1900, it was in poor condition and deemed not worth repairing. Financial difficulties prevented its replacement until l915 when noted Ottawa architect Francis Sullivan was hired to build a new church. The only Canadian student of the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Sullivan designed some of Ottawa’s most noteworthy buildings, many in the Prairie School style, from 1911 to 1916. For CAD$6000, he gave the small rural community a unique structure that, in the words of one critic, “occupies its pastoral setting with obvious grace,” and is considered one of Sullivan’s best works.
The parish's small population was primarily engaged in farming and, in the winter, working in the lumber camps. On more than one occasion, the diocesan authorities had to be requested to reschedule the Forty Hours Devotion, usually set for February, since the parish priest noted, “many of the men with their horses are away to the shanties and will not be home until March, and the others at home live far from the chapel.”
One of my enduring memories of driving out from the home where I grew up in Ottawa's eastern suburb to the west end community of Munster Hamlet, where John has lived for about forty years, is the seemingly never-ending fields of corn. I haven't had any of that local corn for far too long, but I almost drool when I think of how delicious it always was!
Next post: Traveling back in time to our 2022 vacation to Newfoundland in Eastern Canada, which I didn't finish posting about.
Posted on December 2nd, 2025, from Denver, after Steven and I just returned from spending American Thanksgiving in snowy Chicago with our four children and their families, who flew in from Denver, Brooklyn, and San Francisco. Please make sure to take care of yourself and your loved ones.
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