{"id":9555,"date":"2013-07-18T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=9555"},"modified":"2013-07-17T19:18:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T23:18:39","slug":"whats-behind-reduced-boat-traffic-on-rideau-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/07\/18\/whats-behind-reduced-boat-traffic-on-rideau-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s behind reduced boat traffic on Rideau Canal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Locking<\/a>

Locking from the Rideau Canal into the Tay Canal<\/a> at Upper Beveridges<\/a> near Perth, Ontario. (photo: Lucy Martin)<\/p><\/div>\n

Long, hot summer days should herald the peak of boat activity. But some users of Ontario’s Rideau Canal are unhappy about shorter hours of operation and a sense of drifting neglect.<\/p>\n

The Rideau Canal consists of 45 locks connecting natural rivers and lakes – a 125 mile waterway from Kingston to Ottawa<\/a>. The historic UNESCO World Heritage site is\u00a0managed by Parks Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Ottawa Citizen recently reported<\/a>\u00a0that figures from Parks Canada indicate boat use in May and June is down by more than 30 percent, as compared to the same months last year. While steep fee hikes were proposed earlier this year, sharply negative response lead to a freeze on fees for three years. So what’s behind the drop in boaters?<\/p>\n

According to the Citizen article, Parks Canada theorizes that cold, wet weather at the start of the 2013 season is to blame. But many observers blame a shortened schedule.<\/p>\n

Morale among the lock keepers has been in decline too, according to\u00a0Frank Folts,described by the Citizen as “… the 79-year-old American who owns the iconic Hotel Kenney <\/a>at Jones Falls”<\/p>\n

Folts, who chats with lock workers at Jones Falls every day, has been impressed over the years by how dedicated and sincere they are. \u201cThey like to entertain people, and they\u2019re proud of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that pride\u2019s gone. There are guys who now look forward to retirement. I don\u2019t think money\u2019s really the issue. It\u2019s how they are treated as partners in this whole thing (by Parks Canada). I don\u2019t think they\u2019re looked upon as partners.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some users are worried the canal is\u00a0experiencing\u00a0a downward spiral. Sean Horsfall owns\u00a0Len\u2019s Cove Marina<\/a>\u00a0on Big Rideau Lake. As recounted in the Citizen article:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that\u2019s abundantly clear is that the status quo\u2019s not working,\u201d Horsfall said. \u201cThey\u2019re not marketing well, not communicating well, they\u2019re not appearing to have the best interests of all the stakeholders on the canal at heart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I live near the Rideau Canal and have\u00a0reported on it before<\/a>, I don’t own a motor craft and have scant personal experience with that side of canal operations. As it happens, I did paddle from Last Duel Park to Upper Beveridges Lock last Saturday as part of a\u00a0Rideau Trail Association<\/a>\u00a0outing. (One of two locks on the Tay Canal that connect the city of Perth to the Rideau Canal System.)<\/p>\n

While our group ate lunch there, a lone boat arrived to lock through. Two Parks Canada employees drove up from (I presume) Lower Beveridges Lock and hand-cranked the massive wood gates to float that boat upward and onward.<\/p>\n

The lockies were cheerful and friendly. The whole business was delightfully low-key in a beautiful setting – boating on an intimate, human scale. While numbers are not yet available for July traffic, it did seem to me that there should<\/em> have been many more boats out enjoying the waterway.<\/p>\n

Here’s a more cheerful item to add on the topic: a group of history students at Carleton University spent a year building a (free!) app that puts Canal history in your pocket. It’s called\u00a0Rideau Timescapes<\/a>. This past June<\/a> the project won a\u00a0public history prize<\/a> from the Canadian Historical Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What’s your experience on the Rideau Canal and your take on current operations?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long, hot summer days should herald the peak of boat activity. But some users of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6729,880,12681,6726,8629,5389,12682,4868,147],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9555"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9873,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555\/revisions\/9873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}