Rideau Canal - A Day's Locking

Merrickville to Muldoon Road

Merrickville-Muldoon Rd 19km

For those paddlers wanting to spend a day on the canal and get some experience using the locks this paddle could be for you.   If like me you have a season lock pass it's a no brainer, alternately you can pay for a day's locking at $1.60/ft and it would cost you around $27 for a 17' kayak  letting you travel through 7 locks and as you are travelling downstream you get a very smooth ride.  Going upstream can get a bit bumpy so always stay towards the rear of the lock.

Put-in by library

So in order to catch all three Merrickville locks we put in by the beach just west of the library after first dropping my vehicle at Muldoon road and transferring my yak to George's car.  A short distance downstream we enter the first of three locks.  We are informed that the Voyageur Kawartha cruise ship is coming up and that we will need to wait in the basin for her to pass us.    This takes about 20 mins for the second chamber to fill to our level and the Kawartha passes by.

Kawartha Voyageur

We slip into the second chamber only to be told we will be doing it again with a couple of cruisers coming out of the third and last lock.   The Kawartha has a hinged bow which when up allows it to fit in the locks.

Last of three

We're off again!(credit George)

Clear of the locks we paddle off towards Clowes lock at about 3.5 km distance passing first under the CPR bridge.   From now on all locks will just be single chamber.   Clowes is over towards the left shore as there is an open dam across most of the river indicated by the red and white balls strung across the river warning of the danger.

Approach to Clowes

From here it is a little over a 1/2 km to Upper Nicholson and then about the same again to Lower Nicholson.   The one lane Andrewsville bridge crosses Upper Nicholson and is seasonal being closed for most of the winter months.

Andrewsville Bridge

Lower Nicholson (credit George)

We now have about 5 km of clear sailing before reaching our next and last lock of the day at Burritts Rapids where we plan on stopping to eat lunch.  From there we will have slightly over 8 km left to paddle to arrive at our destination Muldoon road. On reaching Burritts we decide to land before locking through as there is a large floating raft to port which makes for an easy exit and then haul the kayaks up onto the raft where they can remain while we have lunch.   On the downstream side of the locks they have a floating dock which is much higher and often has people fishing from it so more problematic.

Easy exit (credit George)

With lunch over we catch our last lock which has just released several cruisers so there is no waiting and in less than ten minutes we are paddling towards Muldoon road.

Last leg

Afternoons tend to have a lot more traffic and the closer you get to Ottawa the more yahoos you come across, the kind who don't slow down and often get too close as they race by madly waving erroneously thinking we are pleased to see them as we bounce over their bow wave.  By the time Muldoon road appears we are rather thankful to be getting out of the stupid zone but all in all it has been another good paddle, now we just have to retrieve George's car from Merrickville and we are done.

Muldoon Road

Happy paddling!

KayakJock