Saturday, January 8, 2011

The joining of rivers and canoe clubs

Since I live in close proximity to the Rideau River and the Ottawa River I'll be making regular references to both rivers in this blog. If you read Peter Ustinov's short story, The Frontiers of the Sea, you're gradually made aware that the sea has no frontiers; the world and its inhabitants are all one. Inland waterways can't be thought of as separate entities either. I sometimes stand above the Rideau Falls and imagine the water stretching without a break from here to the Gulf of St Lawrence, to the Atlantic, to Europe and beyond. I know I'm not the only one who does so.

Today we met three of our friends for lunch at the New Edinburgh Pub, sitting at a table beneath a black and white photo of members of the New Edinburgh Canoe Club, dated 1929. The NECC, when it amalgamated with the Ottawa Canoe Club became part of one of the oldest boat clubs in Canada. Known since 1965 as the ONEC––the Ottawa New Edinburgh Club. This is still in existence, as is its boathouse, nearly a hundred years old now, standing on stilts in the Ottawa River below the Rockcliffe Parkway.

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