Two new swimming docks opened in July on both shores of the Ottawa River, giving visitors additional places to cool off in the water.
One is located on the shoreline at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, while the other is directly across the river at East Wharf, near the Rideau Canal locks at the foot of Major’s Hill Park.
“We had very strong and positive public feedback for River House, for Westboro Beach, for Dow’s Lake,” said Jen Halsall, the National Capital Commission’s chief planner on the project. The popularity of those attractions and the hotter summers Ottawa has been experiencing in recent years made more swimming spots a priority for the federal agency, she said.
“That really spurs us further in our planning,” she said, “and in our stewardship to make our waterways even more accessible and even more interesting year-round for people to enjoy.”
‘We had very strong and positive public feedback for River House, for Westboro Beach, for Dow’s Lake. That really spurs us further in our planning and in our stewardship to make our waterways even more accessible and even more interesting year-round for people to enjoy.’
— Jen Halsall, swimming site planner, National Capital Commission
The launch of new swimming docks in the heart of the national capital follows the opening of a swimming area at the NCC River House in Rockcliffe Park and at Dow’s Lake in 2023 and 2025, respectively. The NCC also completed a refurbishment and reopening of Westboro Beach last year, signalling the commission’s heightened interest in animating Ottawa’s waterways.
The Dow’s Lake dock won a Canadian Brownfield Development Award for reclaiming the section of the Rideau Canal as a public swimming site after it was prohibited for a century for health and safety reasons.
While the positive public response to the new swimming docks was a key driver of this year’s openings, Halsall said the NCC’s focus on creating opportunities for people to cool off in the summer is also a response to Ottawa’s changing climate.
Halsall noted that no two spots on the Ottawa River are the same when it comes to strength of the current, potential underwater hazards, depth and water quality. That meant the new swimming locations at East Wharf and the history museum required extensive testing and preparation before they were deemed safe sites for swimming.
In addition, these sites fit into high-profile landscape studded with national landmarks, tourist attractions and public services, making the swimming docks accessible and well integrated with what’s around them. Halsall characterized the region’s shorelines as a “blue ribbon” of attractive destinations connected by the water.
“We want to see people, when they swim at East Wharf, enjoying the Rideau Canal; we want to see people visiting the National Gallery, or walking through Major’s Hill Park, or getting a treat at one of our bistros along the way, or circling the walk behind Parliament Hill,” she said.
The docks are visually similar to those at Dow’s Lake and River House, and cater to experienced swimmers since they are unsupervised. Halsall said she hopes public interest in the docks’ installation translates into plenty of swimmers in the water throughout the summer.
“We know that both of these sites do have a fair amount of foot traffic already,” she said. “We know the curiosity is there, and we’ll just see how it goes this summer.”
Unfortnuately, as the NCC builds these swimming spots, they are planning to destroy the last natural beaches used for swimming on Kettle Island with a bridge.