Alan Latourelle, CEO of Parks Canada, watches as âsoldiersâ from Fort Henry in Kingston measure off metre sections of the canal for the Adopt-A-Metre program.
Last year, UNESCO recognized the Rideau Canal as a World Heritage Site. This summer, the city will celebrate the popular attraction with the first-ever Rideau Canal Festival.
The World Heritage List recognizes locations worldwide, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Taj Mahal in India, for their outstanding cultural and historical values. The canal is Canada’s 14th world heritage site – and the only one in Ontario.
In early August, the festival will include a variety of activities such as the world’s largest parade of bicycles in an attempt to set a Guinness world record, the first Rideau Canal night flotilla, a daytime flotilla starting from Fort Henry in Kingston, and the Colonel By Heritage fair. Events will take place at three official sites along the canal: the Bytown Museum, Confederation Park, and Dow’s Lake.
Henry Storgaard, chairman of the Rideau Canal Festival, said people tend to take the canal for granted and hopes the festival will remind people that it is a valuable asset to the city.
"The more people learn about it the more people understand its value to the city the more support there will be for the preservation of the canal and for the greater enjoyment of it," he said.
The 202-km canal is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America. Lt.-Col. John By supervised construction of the waterway connecting the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. It officially opened in 1832, and was initially intended to provide a secure supply and communications route from Montreal to the British naval base in Kingston in case of an American invasion of Canada.
Besides recognizing the canal’s historical context, a main goal of the committee is to put on a festival that is both family and eco-friendly. Organizers have partnered with Zerofootprint, a Toronto-based environmental group, to monitor all carbon emissions and leave little to no environmental impact.
The festival has received strong support from the city’s private sector as well as $300 000 in funding from the Ontario government. Organizers want the celebration to remain free but are encouraging festival goers and businesses to adopt a metre of the canal through the Adopt-A-Metre program for $20. All proceeds will contribute to the sustainability of the festival as well as a fund to offset carbon emissions produced by the event.
Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien was on hand at the festival announcement to adopt his portion of the canal and said celebrating the canal is an integral part of the city’s history.
"The creation of the capital of Canada has been based on the canal," he said. "We celebrate our very existence because of the work of those 4,000 Irish over the period of six years to create one of the engineering marvels of Canadian history."
The festival will be held on the August Civic Holiday long weekend, with activities beginning on Friday and ending on Monday. Storgaard said he hopes the festival will be popular enough to become an annual event in the city.
" [We want] to have a sustainable festival that we can focus people’s attention, not only from the city of Ottawa but all along the canal and hopefully with tourists as well, to bring their attention to the heritage of this and the absolute magnificent beauty and the recreational activities that it affords all of us," he says.
To adopt a metre of the canal or for more information visit www.rideaucanalfestival.ca