August 3 – Merrickville
44°54′58″ N 75°50′17″ W

Today we travelled from Kemptville to Merrickville, which includes a 20 mile stretch of water without any locks between Long Island & Burritts Rapids.

We had just passed through the last lock before Merrickville when we met up with the Kawartha Voyager which was en route to Ottawa. I was happy that we encountered it on a wide stretch of water so there was lots of room to pass by each other.

We waved at the people on the boat as we passed & I gave a short toot on my (tiny) air horn. The Captain of the Voyager responded with a hearty short blast of his air horn, which pretty much rattled Santosha’s glass windows. One of the passengers on the Voyager’s sun deck called out “our horn is bigger than yours” & there was lots of laughter on both boats!

When we arrived in Merrickville the lockmaster told us that all of the dock spaces above the locks were taken but that we were welcome to wait a couple of hours & then tie up on the upper level blue line dock after the locks had shut down for the day. That was fine with us. We tied Santosha to the lower dock & walked into town to look around. On the way to the main street Bruce & I found an opportunity to have a ride in Santa’s sleigh.

It’s so hot out we would welcome a little bit of real snow to go with the sleigh 🙂

Merrickville is a fantastic little town. The main commercial street runs perpendicular to the canal & there are lots of interesting shops. The town was established 225 years ago & it’s main street architecture is really well preserved.

Catherine & Barb window-shopped while Bruce & I found a comfortable bench to relax, enjoy the streetscape & watch the world go by.

Parks Canada has preserved some of the original buildings that housed a water powered grain mill & a woodworking shop. We especially liked the comfy chairs by the millstream.

There is also a very interesting blockhouse/museum beside the upper lock.

This weekend is going to be busy because Merrickville is holding their annual “Canal Days” festival with 1800’s era re-enactments, special exhibits & arts & crafts sales.

Another museum adjacent to where we were docked is operated by the “Friends of the Rideau Canal”. To our surprise this building features a Parks Canada poster that shows our very own Barb in a canoe that was taken “a few” years ago when she started working for Parks Canada. What year was that photo taken Barb?

After sampling some local ice cream & picking up some groceries we all returned to Santosha, brought her up through the triple locks & then tied up for the night.

There was more exotic meat waiting to be BBQ’d & Bruce & I were ready to take on that task.

Cheers!