Making friends with late fall and winter: a start.

The last few years I have been having a hard time with winter. I am just fine until about January 15th, when suddenly there is nothing festive in the stores anymore, and I no longer have a use for the snow and the cold. I start to feel like I have to survive the stretch from then until about mid April. For a good part of this time it is still dark outside when we leave for work in the morning, and already dark when we go back home. I miss my garden, because although it is not a showpiece, it relaxes me to work in it.

This year I have decided that it is counterproductive to live one quarter of your time in a sort of mental "on hold", just waiting for it to pass. Winter is not going to change to accommodate me, so I will have to change what I do and  how I think to better deal with it. So I have gone on a sort of mission to see and experience winter differently. Some of the ideas that I have are purely practical. For instance, snowshoeing will get me out of the house and into nature without having to go too far or invest ridiculous amounts of money in gear.

But I realised that I aside from the practical, also have to produce a mental shift. It does not make any sense to hate winter, because it is just part of nature's cycle. And so one of my goals is to rediscover the beauty in it, even when the snowbanks are brown from car exhaust, and the flakes are not big and fluffy, but hard and fine and sting your face in the wind.

And so I have been concentrating on what happens around me as the seasons move forward, and how nature and the area prepare for winter, because usually when I have raked the last leaves I stop observing what happens around me outside, and retreat inside.

Bear with me, it may look like I am changing the subject now, but there is a point to all this.

Saturday was an absolute beautiful late fall day. It is supposed to be drab now, after all it is November, but it was more like a sunny mid October day, everything was bathed in this golden light. Definitely time for a mini road trip. We picked Kingston, and then never actually made it there. Here's why.

We live a hop skip and a jump away from a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Rideau Canal stretches from Kingston to Ottawa, and was built as a means to transport troops, supplies and military equipment from Montreal to the British naval base in Kingston.  The decision to build this canal was made shortly after the war of 1812, when the threat of another attack by the United States on what was then the British colony of Upper Canada still remained. The St-Lawrence river was then not only difficult to navigate, but was too risky a route, as it runs along the border with the US.

It took six years, starting in 1826 to construct the 202 km waterway under the supervision of Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers. In 1827 Bytown was founded at the end of the canal, and this town was renamed Ottawa in 1855 when it incorporated into a city. By that time the treat of  an attack from the US had faded, and the St-Lawrence river rapids had been tamed. Use of the canal shifted to local commercial interest and after that to pleasure boating.

In 1925 the canal was designated a National Historic Site of Canada. It is now the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America, and is largely operated in the same way as it was on the day it opened. It consists primarily of the Rideau and Cataraqui rivers and some seven lakes. About 19 km of the waterway is man made, the rest consist of a series of 47 locks and control dams, which allow for the water levels to be controlled carefully, and raised the water level to make the rivers navigable.

If you live in Ottawa you are likely very familiar with the series of locks at the Chateau Laurier, which are featured on the UNESCO page, and also the locks at Hogs Back. But the most picturesque set of locks are the ones at Jones Falls.

So:

As we were driving the back roads towards Kingston yesterday, we saw the sign for Jones Falls and decided to pull in and have a look. The canal closed mid October for the winter, and water levels have been reduced so that most locks are completely dry.  If they did not do this, water would expand when it freezes, and could cause damage to the the lock walls. We have been to this place a number of times when pleasure crafts  are going through the locks, and the river is full of boaters.

We parked in front of Kenny Hotel. (The slide show on the website is worth watching.) It also appeared to be closed for the winter, and handymen were doing maintenance work on the outside. Other than the occasional sound of their electric saw, there was very little sound at all. The area is well off the road in what is already a very rural area. We could hear some traffic in the distance, but mostly it was quiet. There weren't even any birds singing, but at one point we did hear a woodpecker at work.

The locks were completely dry. Jones Falls also has a small generating station, (an unfortunately ugly building) and we concluded that with these low levels all the water that does flow is being bypassed through there for generating. We crossed the bridge from the parking lot to the the lock sites, and then climbed the stairs beside each of the first thee locks until we had a view of the fourth separate lock over the little bay.

The low water level in the bay exposed some beautiful rocks that were reflected in the very still water. The photographer hiked from rock to rock on the exposed bay bottom to get a good point from which to take some shots. I remained on the bay's retaining wall, warmed by the autumn sun and soaking in the peaceful setting.

View of the upper lock and the little bay with the reduced water level.

View of the bay's shore with someone's dock hanging down. The blue effect is caused by the shadows over the rocks.

Next to the highest of the three clustered locks is the lockmaster's house. It has also been shut down for the winter, and the flags have been removed. There were still some pamphlets in a holder. An old manual water pump sits next to the house, but just to the left there is also a well head visible, so likely the pump has been left for show. Behind it a piece of the Canadian Shield pokes through the soil. It really does not take much to realise what a tough job it must have been to install these locks.

The lockmaster's house. (Note to Kate: No detail whatsoever.......)

We decided to hike the trail along the bay to get to the upper lock. The trail is marked with a warning that it is rugged, and there is quite a bit of climbing to do. Unfortunately we must have missed a marker or something else obvious, because we ended up on the road that runs away from the area, or if you go the other way, it runs back to the lockmaster's house. We never made it to the upper lock. But halfway along the portion of the trail we did cover, we got a fantastic view.

Two other couples showed up to walk around, but neither of them stayed very long. Although it was only about two o'clock in the afternoon, the low slanted sun gives the impression that it is much later in the day. The angle did provide an opportunity for unique portrait photography.

There we are, courtesy of the low sun.

At the middle lock they was evidence of some construction work. You can see the remnants of what used to be a swing bridge, which must have been removed a long time ago. A bridge like this is still in operation at the Long Island Locks in Manotick. We found a temporary bridge here, and a temporary road to cross the lock. I assumed this is temporary, as this bridge does not lift. That's not going to work when the canal re-opens in spring. It also looked like major work has been done on the wall of the lock. A portion has been replaced by concrete, and they have made the lines in it to make it look like stone and match the rest of the structures. Perhaps this temporary bridge is for this work. Crossing to the other side of the locks would be quite the detour otherwise.

The middle empty lock with what must surely be a temporary bridge.

And from the other direction. Nice sky!

The lower lock, doors left open. There is still some water in this one, but not much.

And the view the other way. As you can see all the operation is still done the way it was originally. No grey panels with buttons to operate the doors or the sluices electrically. This is all done with shoulder and arm muscle power.

 The bridge back to Hotel Kenny.The white speck in the sky is the moon. Standing on the dock in front of the hotel, the water was so clear, you could see the bottom.

We spent so much time in this place yesterday, that it was really not worth it anymore to go on to Kingston. But neither of us was disappointed at that. In the past we would probably not have chosen to visit this place "out of season" and just have concluded that it would be uninteresting. It proved to be anything but!

And that is kind of the moral of my long and rambling story. I am trying to re-appreciate the beauty that is right outside my front door, because over time you start to take things for granted. And I am trying to appreciate it in ways other than the usual. In this case the usual would be the canal in summer or maybe just the skateway in winter. (In other words the way that this area is marketed to tourists.)

We will see how far I get with this. I'm sure to post about it.