Friends of the river

The Bytown Museum beside the canal locks in Ottawa

I came across a website today that advertises a society called Friends of the Rideau. They seem to be based in the Smith Falls / Perth area and are holding their Annual Spring Meeting at the Rideau Canal Museum, by the eponymous falls in Smiths Falls, the weekend after next (May 14th). This is a great little museum, by the way, in a building which used to be a mill; a visit there makes an interesting introduction to the history, geography and ecology of the whole river and canal network.

Some of this is repeated by the Bytown Museum beside the canal locks in Ottawa, but why not? The engineering that went into this waterway deserves to be remembered and celebrated. The Rideau Canal been a World Heritage site since 2007.