A Place For Telling The History Of The City

 The Bytown Museum started its life as the Commissariat, a storehouse and headquarters for the building of the Rideau Canal from 1826-1832. It is the oldest stone building in the city, and today is home to a collection for local history focusing from time immemorial to 1920. It is a marvelous spot, with a few ghost stories, and well worth a visit.

Directly across the Canal from the Museum is a cliff- augmented halfway up by an artificial wall, which was once topped by a railroad track, long gone. A close eye might see the outlines of a building on that wall, long since gone, but which once housed offices for the Canal building process. An even closer eye might see a statue up above in Major's Hill Park.

That statue is Colonel John By, the British military engineer who led the building of the Rideau Canal in the first place. He's also considered the founder of what would become Ottawa.

The Canal is a delight.

Back up to have a look inside.

The Canal's first purpose was to be a military route inland from the St. Lawrence, at a time when there were high tensions with the Americans.

Its 202 kilometres from here to Kingston involve a series of locks and dams, noted here in red. A monumental project for the time, and one that lives on today.

It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Here we have a medical kit of the time, along with a display case containing mosquitoes. Malaria was a big killer of the men who built the Rideau Canal. More than a thousand of them died during the years the Canal was constructed.