We left the bustle of Montreal behind as we headed back to the St. Lawrence Seaway bound for the St. Lambert and St. Catherine locks. Cruising books and other boaters had warned us that there can often be a 3-4 hour wait per lock, but we really lucked out this Tuesday morning and locked right through with the tall ship, Pride of Baltimore. These locks are not on our Park Canada pass and are $25 each which is collected by the lockmaster with a shovel passed to us like a church usher with a collection basket. The Pride of Baltimore is headed to Oswego to begin a tall ship tour of the Great Lakes area.
We parted company at St. Anne de Bellevue, a charming town strategically located at the mouth of the Ottawa River. We retire Richardson's Hudson River and Adjacent Riverways Chartbook of 110 pages here—that’s a lot of traveling which began in 7/09. The Ottawa River stretches 360 miles to the west, was called the “Grand River” by native people and the voyageurs who used it, along with portages, to go all the way to the Great Lakes. The English put in the locks to protect their military and commercial endeavors. We will only be traveling 97 miles to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and then will travel down the Rideau Canal—we love Canadian locks and towns!
St. Anne de Bellevue has room for at least 30-40 boats on 2 walls. The town has 10 waterfront restaurants, a grocery store, library with Wi-Fi, a marina store where we found charts we needed for the Thousand Islands and beer and wine at Couche Tard. McGill University Macdonald campus is here and has miles of walking and bike trails and the #211 and #251 bus stops are here to bring you into Montreal. The highlight of our stay was the French Canadian celebration of St. Jean Baptiste Day on June 24th. Pouring rain cast a pall on the daytime events, but then the sun burst through at 5 pm, the dancing, singing and partying began, capped by a fire show of twirling batons lighting the night sky.
It was time to move on to the Carillon Lock which is 65 feet high and is the largest in Canada. We decided to spend the night below the lock on the wall and found a half day of activities in town. You can visit the old lock and the restored lockmaster house which now is a museum complete with a café with friendly staff. Walk another ½ mile into town and you will find the D’Argenteuil Regional Museum which has an interesting historical collection. You can walk up the hill to meet the current lockmasters who take pride in being the “king of Canadian locks” and even gave us a bit of O Canada, the national anthem. We have met so many wonderful Canadians who are eager to share their country and it is really the people who make the memories special.
Next stop was a lunch stop at Hawksbury after locking through the Carillon on Saturday morning. Hawksbury has a welcome center, free dock with electric and in a ½ mile walk to Main Street, you can find a bakery,Le Petit Pain, a used book store and the LCBO liquor store—what else do you really need. We definitely would have spent the night but wanted to get further down the river towards Ottawa. We passed the Chateau Montebello at Milepost 42.2 but it charges $3.70 per foot and I am not sure heaven charges that much. A Canadian boater had told us about an excellent anchorage at Baie des Arcand located about ¾ mile sw of the Chateau which has at least 6 feet of depth and a priceless experience.
We parted company at St. Anne de Bellevue, a charming town strategically located at the mouth of the Ottawa River. We retire Richardson's Hudson River and Adjacent Riverways Chartbook of 110 pages here—that’s a lot of traveling which began in 7/09. The Ottawa River stretches 360 miles to the west, was called the “Grand River” by native people and the voyageurs who used it, along with portages, to go all the way to the Great Lakes. The English put in the locks to protect their military and commercial endeavors. We will only be traveling 97 miles to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and then will travel down the Rideau Canal—we love Canadian locks and towns!
St. Anne de Bellevue has room for at least 30-40 boats on 2 walls. The town has 10 waterfront restaurants, a grocery store, library with Wi-Fi, a marina store where we found charts we needed for the Thousand Islands and beer and wine at Couche Tard. McGill University Macdonald campus is here and has miles of walking and bike trails and the #211 and #251 bus stops are here to bring you into Montreal. The highlight of our stay was the French Canadian celebration of St. Jean Baptiste Day on June 24th. Pouring rain cast a pall on the daytime events, but then the sun burst through at 5 pm, the dancing, singing and partying began, capped by a fire show of twirling batons lighting the night sky.
It was time to move on to the Carillon Lock which is 65 feet high and is the largest in Canada. We decided to spend the night below the lock on the wall and found a half day of activities in town. You can visit the old lock and the restored lockmaster house which now is a museum complete with a café with friendly staff. Walk another ½ mile into town and you will find the D’Argenteuil Regional Museum which has an interesting historical collection. You can walk up the hill to meet the current lockmasters who take pride in being the “king of Canadian locks” and even gave us a bit of O Canada, the national anthem. We have met so many wonderful Canadians who are eager to share their country and it is really the people who make the memories special.
Next stop was a lunch stop at Hawksbury after locking through the Carillon on Saturday morning. Hawksbury has a welcome center, free dock with electric and in a ½ mile walk to Main Street, you can find a bakery,Le Petit Pain, a used book store and the LCBO liquor store—what else do you really need. We definitely would have spent the night but wanted to get further down the river towards Ottawa. We passed the Chateau Montebello at Milepost 42.2 but it charges $3.70 per foot and I am not sure heaven charges that much. A Canadian boater had told us about an excellent anchorage at Baie des Arcand located about ¾ mile sw of the Chateau which has at least 6 feet of depth and a priceless experience.
