Trent-Severn Waterway - Maryboro Lodge Museum

Peterborough Lift Lock

The construction of the Peterborough Lift Lock was an intensely political affair from beginning to end. The Trent-Severn Waterway was the public issue that could move mountains in central Ontario. By the 1890s, it was one of the rare causes that had bi-partisan support, if only at election time. Anyone who thought about the case for building a through commercial waterway should have realized that claims being presented were nonsense—there was no realistic prospect that the waterway would ever become the most efficient means of transporting grain from the prairies to the Atlantic. But Sir John A. Macdonald used the construction of locks to buy votes in the region, and the Liberals would employ the same tactics.

By 1896, Sir John A. Macdonald had passed away, and his Conservative successors were facing uncertain prospects in the upcoming election. They had no intention of finishing the through waterway in the foreseeable future, but they knew that some progress on construction would improve their electoral fortunes in the region. In the lead up to the election, engineer Richard B. Rogers was urged to accelerate plans for completing the Peterborough-Lakefield division, including a novel structure, a hydraulic lift lock. There was no time to properly prepare plans before the election, so on May 7 the contract was awarded to Peterborough construction firm Corry and Laverdure. Remarkably, contract did not include specifications for the lift lock that they were being hired to work on, simply that they were to do the necessary work. The firm may have assumed that this was an extra on the contract, and that extras tended to be profitable. Letting the contract was not enough to save the Conservatives under Charles Tupper, as Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals won a majority on June 23. Locally, the two parties split the seats, which was not the result that Tupper’s Conservatives had sought.

“To the victor go the spoils:” Canadian politics in the Victorian era were rife with patronage. Senior positions and contracts tended to go to the supporters of the governing party. Rogers’ Conservative connections had benefitted him as long as that party was in power, but once the Liberals were elected, his position was in jeopardy. Though unpopular with his new superiors, he did have one thing that might save him: The construction included an innovative new structure, a hydraulic lift lock, which could not be completed without him.

If conventional locks had been used, multiple locks would have been required to overcome the 65-foot change in elevation that was surmounted by the Peterborough Lift Lock. For instance, two locks were required at Fenelon Falls in the 1880s to raise boats 23 feet. Constructing multiple locks would be costly and slow for any vessel travelling through the waterway. In 1879, engineer Frank Turner had proposed the novel technology of a lift lock as a way to reduce costs for a rival scheme to connect Lake Huron with Lake Ontario by cutting through the Oak Ridges moraine. Four years earlier, the world’s first lift lock, the Anderton Boat Lift, was completed in Cheshire. By 1896, there were no lift locks operational in North America and few anywhere in the world. The change in elevation and the lock size at Peterborough both exceeded any such structure in the world at the time. But Rogers was ready for the challenge.

Rogers proposed to construct three hydraulic lift locks on the Trent-Severn Waterway—at Peterborough, Kirkfield and Healey Falls. As he planned the Peterborough Lift Lock, Rogers had never seen a lift lock in operation, yet he succeeded in designing the largest lift lock in the world. At the time, concrete was an uncommon building material, which had a poor reputation. Rogers created a laboratory in the basement under his office to test various mixes, and arrived at a “dry mix” that he would specify, using little water. It was more expensive to produce and difficult to work with than other concrete mixes, but it was watertight and abrasion resistant. To ensure that contractors used the amount of Portland cement specified, Rogers made separate contracts with the cement manufacturers.

The locks were designed as two massive hydraulic elevators, where two caissons (watertight boxes) used the weight of water to power hydraulic rams. It was designed so that the upper caisson filled with slightly more water than the lower one, so once the valve was opened, its weight would force the fluid from the ram under it to flow into the other ram, causing one caisson to descend as the other rose. Boats displace their own weight of water, so the lock would still function, even if there was a large boat in one caisson and nothing in the other. One of the arguments being used against the Trent-Severn Waterway was how long a boat would be forced to wait at all the locks on the way. Because it was much faster than multiple conventional locks, the Peterborough Lift Lock could be touted as a way to help overcome this problem—though there was no changing the fact that travelling the Trent-Severn would be slower and limited to smaller vessels than following the Great Lakes. Though Rogers was confident in his design, the Minister of Railways and Canals asked him to travel to Europe to view existing lift locks before proceeding.

Not only had Rogers never seen a lift lock at the time he designed it, Corry and Laverdure built it without ever seeing a complete set of plans. It seems that Rogers realized that he was in a tenuous position, so he would meet the contractor every day to oversee the work, but never actually gave them a set of plans, despite their ongoing protest. As long as Rogers was the only person who knew the plan, he was indispensable!

Constructing this engineering marvel turned into an unfortunate experience for the contractors. They lacked experience with concrete work so they brought in costly, but experienced labourers from Toronto, Montreal and Buffalo. There was no agreement on the rate of pay in the original contract, then the government set the rates, and the contractors later claimed that they had received verbal assurances that they would not be made to lose money—but this was not written down.

Little did the firm know when the government set the rates that Rogers would specify decorative pilasters, cornices, string courses and mortared facework to beautify the structure. Bit by bit they learned that they were required to form elliptical passageways and many voids in the solid structure. As their costs mounted, the contractor ended up hiring independent engineers to provide written statements that the budget that the government set was inadequate, prompting the matter to be referred to arbitration. Though the arbitrator recommended that Corry and Laverdure receive an additional $126,000, the government only paid part of the award—in total the contractor received $354,899. With the concrete work complete, the Dominion Bridge Company was then paid $244,000 to complete the lift lock. It was a very expensive project for the era, when total Dominion government revenues were about $50 million annually.

The Peterborough Lift Lock was not only an engineering marvel, it was a beautiful structure for its era. Peterborough residents spent weeks preparing to celebrate its opening. Though Saturday, July 9, 1904, was a rainy day, thousands of people braved the elements to attend the opening. Anyone within 100 miles could take the train with a return ticket for the price of a single fare. A special train brought a large delegation from Ottawa, that included dignitaries from across Canada, including former opponents of the scheme. As the steamer Stoney Lake carried the dignitaries into the upper caisson, the rain stopped, then the crowd hushed, as some wondered if they might be about to witness a catastrophe. Then one caisson started to lower as the other rose. The 57th Regiment Band began to play as the crowd cheered. Being an election year, the politicians were not going to miss the opportunity to shore up their support. Postmaster-General Sir William Mulock (MP for Newmarket) said local residents should continue to pressure government until the ships entering the lock would “discharge alongside… the ocean ships of Montreal, carrying to the world the produce of the industry of the people of Canada.”

The second lift lock that Rogers designed would be completed near Kirkfield, but not before Rogers was forced to resign in February 1906, on the basis of inaccurate allegations, made public through local newspapers. The third proposed lift lock at Healey Falls was not undertaken—a flight of locks was built instead. After his public humiliation, for many years questions remained about the competence of the engineer who had designed one of the most ambitious and challenging Canadian public works to date. But as the years passed, his accomplishments came to speak for themselves. Though no vessel would ever realize the political justification for the canal by carrying prairie wheat through the Peterborough Lift Lock, it became a National Historic Site, and symbol of the Lift Lock City. The structure disproved the public allegations as it stood the test of time. That a costly engineering marvel was built for a purpose that was not credible, then its designer was forced to resign over allegations of incompetence that were completely blown out of proportion, speaks volumes about turn of the century Canadian politics.

Burleigh Falls

Many of the striking vistas in south-central Ontario are located on the Trent-Severn Waterway, and Burleigh Falls is among the most beautiful sites on this route. For generations, Stoney Lake has been one of the region’s principal draws and Burleigh Falls is a focal point. In 1849, Samuel Strickland wrote: “Viewed from Stony Lake, the landscape is one of remarkable beauty. The four cascades foaming and tumbling into the bay through lofty walls of granite, overarched by the rich foliage of dwarf oak, the more lofty pine, and gnarled branches of red cedar, whose roots are seen firmly fixed in deep fissures of the overhanging rocks present a picture whose varied features are not easily described.’ Strickland would say the falls were home to the best fishing on Stoney Lake. A century later, Burleigh Falls was still being promoted through postcards as a wonderful fishing destination.

Burleigh Falls is also located right on the boundary of where the limestone plains formed millions of years ago under a sea peter out, revealing the Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield that are much older still. In the vicinity of Burleigh Falls many different types of stone can be found. The falls themselves cut through Precambrian rock, which is much tougher material than the limestone found to the south. For sightseers, a waterfall on the Canadian Shield is beautiful, but when the time came to engineer a waterway, it presented a significant challenge.

The Trent-Severn Waterway was built primarily for political gain, so a few days before the 1882 Federal election was called, Tom Rubidge was sent to survey Fenelon Falls, Buckhorn Rapids and Burleigh Falls for locks (the Lovesick Lock was included with Burleigh Falls). Ironically, Rubidge was the Superintending Engineer for the Trent Waterway, while being opposed to its construction. He thought that public money would be better invested on canals on the St. Lawrence River, and being appointed to oversee the construction of the Trent Waterway did not change his views. He had a reputation of being a skilful engineer, but his tendency of expressing his true beliefs was not necessarily advantageous in an undertaking that was as political as the construction of the waterway. Many of the arguments used to advocate for the Trent Waterway were nonsense, but the waterway was an effective way to buy votes—and it was often not helpful to have Rubidge speaking his truth!

To maximize political advantage, the government posted the tenders on the eve of the election. John A. Macdonald’s message was clear, vote Conservative to have progress on building the Trent Waterway. He won the election and work went ahead. When the contracts were let, canals had not yet been constructed through the Canadian Shield, and the pricing did not reflect how much more expensive it was to excavate granite or gneiss than limestone with the technology of the day. George Goodwin won the contracts for both Buckhorn and Burleigh Falls, and proceeded with Buckhorn first. As the construction crew was boring holes to fill with explosives, they found that the drills frequently broke down because of how hard the rock was, and generally the excavation was far more laborious than anticipated. Buckhorn was completed relatively quickly, but the disagreements over the cost overruns would last.

Based on the experience of excavating through the Canadian Shield at Buckhorn, Goodwin realized that he might lose money at Burleigh Falls, so haggling over the budget came before the construction the second time. As Buckhorn was nearing completion in April 1884, he began moving his derricks and drills to Burleigh Falls. He built a workshop, stables, cookhouse and a storeroom, but little work was done on the canal while the negotiations proceeded. The disputes centred on the amount of money allowed for excavation, and then the route chosen.

Tom Rubidge planned a 600-foot canal that linked Burleigh Bay and Stoney Lake on the north side of the falls, with two locks. In the late nineteenth century, lock gates were generally made of wood and opened with a hand crank. As planned, the difference in elevation between the two waterbodies was 26 feet, which would mean that the lock gate would have to be 34 foot tall. The pressure of water against such a tall wooden, hand operated lock gate would be excessive. So, two locks were used, and a swing bridge had to be installed on the Burleigh Road.

Having been through the experience of excavating Buckhorn, Goodwin thought that it would be better to follow Perry’s Creek, which would allow a natural valley to be used. If this route was followed the lock from Lovesick Lake could be adjacent to the locks at Burleigh. It was the same route that N.H. Baird’s original Trent Survey had proposed. By the time Goodwin made this suggestion, he and Rubidge were already at loggerheads over the budget, and Rubidge saw no reason to change his plan. Rubidge was also responsible for the dam that held water back from the construction site and the contractor was not satisfied with the structure. Goodwin wrote directly to the Department of Railways and Canals, and John Page, the departmental engineer came out to examine the both proposals. He had Rubidge survey the second route, though he was opposed to the proposal. Not surprisingly, Rubidge found that his original plan was preferable, and more economical.

As the years passed with little progress made, the Liberal Peterborough Examiner took the opportunity to blame the lack of progress on the Conservative government and engineer Tom Rubidge. Rubidge had made himself unpopular by observing that the some of the prominent local figures who were demanding the construction of the waterway were also expecting to be compensated for the flooding that it would cause. Rubidge sent two of his employees to oversee the construction, prompting Goodwin to complain of harassment, again requesting John Page to visit. Rubidge was replaced with David Stark, Superintending Engineer of Ottawa River canals. Construction then proceeded much more quickly, with the first boat passing through the locks on October 26, 1887. By the mid twentieth century, concrete walls and steel doors had become common technology, allowing a single lock to replace the two locks around Burleigh Falls, and the new design allowed boats to pass under the bridge, rather than relying on a swing bridge as in the original design.

Buckhorn

When John Hall purchased land on either side of the Buckhorn Narrows in 1830, the rapids at this site were one of the many portages on the Trent Canal route. It was relatively short paddle from the Michi Saagiig village on Chemong Lake. Being located on an ancient waterway, access was by paddling or sailing in summer, or on the ice in winter. Two years later, Hall built a dam to power saw and grist mills on the site, along with a bridge that gave the settlement its original name—Hall’s Bridge.

The original Bobcaygeon lock was designed with the lower sill set too high, rendering it dysfunctional. To remedy this error, N.H. Baird designed a new wooden truss dam at Buckhorn to raise the water level in Pigeon and Buckhorn Lakes. The colonial Board of Works let the contract on August 15, 1837, and before long the dam flooded much land, particularly towards the southern end of Pigeon Lake. In 1845, John’s nephew, W.H. Hall took over the sawmill, living in a house beside the new bridge. His bridge was demolished in 1851 by a group of lumbermen who were on a rampage, leaving no span over the river. In 1858, the Board of Works built a new structure combining the functions of bridge, dam and timber slide.

For almost half a century, Buckhorn was an eastern terminus of navigation on the Trent Waterway. Though the rapid would require a relatively short canal to overcome, it would only open navigation to Lower Buckhorn Lake, which was surrounded by townships that were more sparsely populated than some other sections of the proposed Trent Waterway. But there was a strong lobby to build a through waterway—it was argued that it would be a route for shipping grain from the prairies to the Atlantic. Though any thoughtful observer ought to have realized that these claims were unrealistic, it was a very important issue politically. Just after the 1882 election was called, Tom Rubidge received instructions to survey Burleigh Chute, Buckhorn and Fenelon Falls. Together, these improvements would open navigation from Balsam Lake to Lake Scugog to Stoney Lake and to Chemong Lake.

After the Conservatives were re-elected, Geroge Goodwin received the contracts for the Burleigh and Buckhorn locks on October 27, 1882. He soon found that excavation through the Precambrian stone of the Canadian Shield was much more difficult than the limestone that he had excavated on the Ottawa River. The Buckhorn Lock was the first in Canada that had been excavated through granite, and the original cost estimates produced by both the Board of Works and contractor were much too low.

Goodwin had eight steam drills that were used to bore holes that could be filled with explosives, “but the rock proved so very hard that it was impossible to keep a drill in working order, the percussion being so severe that the machines could not stand it for any reasonable length of time.” He rarely had more than two drills operating at one time, as the drills frequently needed to be rebuilt. He had as many labourers repairing the drills as there were excavating. The iron bits that were available at the time, were scarcely able to bore through granite, and had to be changed frequently. As he ran into these unforeseen difficulties, Goodwin was unable to find enough labourers locally, so he brought in help from Italy. In August 1884, there was a huge explosion of a wagon load of dynamite on it way to Buckhorn. He managed to complete the lock by late November 1884 “in a very satisfactory manner,” but there would be much haggling over the cost-overruns.

The original lock and dams were wooden, which required frequent repair. In 1906-08, Ed Conroy oversaw the construction of a new cement bridge. A wooden swing bridge facilitated traffic passing over the canal until a steel girder replaced it in 1938. With increasing traffic by road and boat after the Second World War, the single-lane swing bridge became a bottleneck. Traffic routinely backed up through the village. To raise awareness, local residents highlighted it with many different colours of paint—leading to its new moniker, “the Rainbow Bridge.” In 1977, the current fixed bridge was built, allowing two-way traffic to pass high above the locks.

Lindsay

The Lindsay lock was among the first structures to be started on what would eventually become the Trent-Severn Waterway. When work began in 1837, the re-creation of the region into an agricultural landscape was still in its infancy and much local development was highly speculative. Investors were snapping up thousands of acres of land in the hopes that thousands of immigrants would come to the region so tracts could be resold at a profit. William Purdy constructed saw and grist mills (near the present-day intersection of Georgian and Ridout Streets) that were operational by October 1833, anticipating that a town would develop to make them profitable. A few years later, work began on the Lindsay lock to accommodate steamships that did not yet exist.

When William Purday applied to the Crown to construct saw and grist mills in 1829, he mentioned plans to build a twelve- or fourteen-foot-high dam. The Crown made the unusual step of absolving him from liability for damages caused by flooding—did they actually think through the implications of what they were agreeing to? When Purdy did build the dam, the pond it created took four months to fill with water and in the process flooded approximately 11,000 acres, particularly in the vicinity of Lake Scugog. Immigrants watched with horror as the waters crept higher, flooding their fields and homes. It turned shorelines into bays—sometimes just the roofs of houses could be seen above the water. Debris floated out of swamps, accumulating as floating islands. At the time, malaria was endemic in Upper Canada, which was exacerbated by this giant mill pond of stagnant water, providing plenty of mosquito habitat. As local residents were dying and it seemed that Purdy was not responding to their plight, there were many people who were very angry at Purdy and his mill dam.

Since the Crown had authorized a mill dam to be built at such destructive proportions, colonial officials faced a difficult political situation. As he was surveying the proposed waterway linking the Bay of Quinte and Lake Huron in 1836, N.H. Baird was urgently asked to examine the situation at Purdy’s Mills. He suggested moving the dam downstream to be below the rapids, instead of above it, which would allow the mill to still have enough head of water to operate, while reducing the flooding along the Scugog River and Lake Scugog. He proposed building a wooden lock beside the dam, which he expected would link Lake Scugog with the proposed waterway.

Baird’s proposal was accepted and Homer Hecox was contracted to build the lock at a cost of $12,500. He started work right away, felling trees and hauling the timbers out of the bush in 1837, as the painstaking excavation of the lock began. It was the era of manual excavation, where holes had to bored in rock with a chisel and hammer to be filled with black powder. Construction continued through 1838, but the following year, he “failed and left the country” because he was not being paid regularly for the work done—the lock was being built in the midst of a financial crisis. While Hecox was working on the new dam and lock in 1838, enraged settlers affected by Purdy’s dam rose and destroyed it, but it was rebuilt—Purdy had the right to maintain the dam at its excessive height.

The colony’s Board of Works finished the lock themselves between 1842 and 1844, as they also bridged the Scugog River. The new structure solved the problem of Purdy’s mill dam and this proprietor fared quite well in the settlement. The government built the new dam, was responsible for its maintenance and Purdy had the right to draw off all surplus water not needed for navigation. Plus, he received $2,000 for expropriated property—that had been granted to him a few years earlier.

When the Upper Canadian government built the Lindsay lock, the presumed purpose was to facilitate steamboat navigation—canoes and early scows did not require a lock, they could be portaged around or lined through a rapid. However, there were no steamboats in the region in this era and plenty of sawlogs, so it was debatable whether the lock was more of a help or a hindrance. The Woodman, launched in Port Perry in 1851, was the first steamer on the upper lakes. But by the time it was operational, Lindsay’s wooden lock had fallen into disrepair.

In 1854 the government of Canada West (formerly Upper Canada, later Ontario) decided to replace the Bobcaygeon and Lindsay locks with a masonry structure. Bobcaygeon’s lock was rebuilt, but the work at Lindsay was not finished. By 1857, a recession made it very difficult to finance the work in an era when customs accounted for much of the government’s tax revenue. At the same time, the construction of the Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway obviated the need. The railway was a faster and more economical mode of transportation and once it was in place, the Woodman operated north of Lindsay, largely moving lumber and timber (it was appropriately named) to Lindsay’s wharf, which was located downstream of the lock, where it could be loaded on the railway. Instead of completing the lock, the material brought to the site was used to build a timber slide.

By the late 1860s, a second railway was proposed linking Whitby and Port Perry, which was a more direct route to Toronto and many American cities than the line running southeast to Port Hope. However, for it to have a steamboat link with villages like Fenelon Falls and Bobcaygeon, a lock at Lindsay was needed—so the company began agitating for the reconstruction of the Lindsay lock. When neither the federal government nor the provincial government agreed to undertake the work, the railway company asked for permission to build it. As the company’s supporters lobbied for action on the lock, government lawyers looked for a legal obstacle that would preclude transferring a public watercourse to a private corporation. In the end, the Province agreed to build the lock, letting two contracts totalling $21,000 to Lindsay master shipbuilder Thomas Walters. He built the lock, a swing bridge and dredged the Scugog River to allow ships to pass—all complete well ahead of schedule. The first train rolled into Port Perry in 1872.

The Lindsay lock was busy for a few years, with traffic peaking in 1876 at 465 steamers, 867 Scows, 521 cribs of timber and 4,055,200 feet of lumber. The railway from Whitby to Port Perry was so successful that it was extended to Lindsay in 1877, drastically reducing traffic through the Lindsay lock. But by the 1870s, times had changed and there was no question of removing the lock. Lobbying continued to build a through waterway from the Bay of Quinte to Lake Huron, and the railway allowed the region to become a tourist destination. Though the railway would carry much of the lumber from the Trent Watershed, many of the visitors it accommodated enjoyed a pleasant steamship outing to see the lakes. The province rebuilt the lock in 1886 and afterwards it was transferred to the federal government, which built the current concrete lock in 1910.

By the time the concrete lock was built, a new era was beginning as the first motor launches were appearing. Previously, much of the water traffic in the region was carried by integrated steamship networks—it took several hours to traverse some of the larger lakes so a passenger might require multiple steamers for longer journeys. With railways and the first automobiles connecting many villages, only select routes would still support regular steamship service. The Lintonia was the last boat to offer scheduled service on the upper Kawartha Lakes, retiring in 1931—but its regular route connected the Lindsay wharf with Sturgeon Lake, hence it did not require the lock. While earlier iterations of the Lindsay lock were built to carry freight (largely wood), the concrete lock has primarily served recreational travel and personal watercraft.

Note that the original postcard, was printed circa 1910 with the negative flipped, hence it is a mirror image of the Lindsay lock.

Rosedale

Before the Rosedale lock was constructed, the river connecting Balsam and Cameron Lakes had a rapid that canoes could ascend with relative ease. The rapid did not have sufficient height to allow it to power a mill, but it did impede steamship traffic. By the late 1860s, though a through waterway had been promoted for decades, only a few locks had been constructed, which facilitated local navigation, including Bobcaygeon and Lindsay. The waterfall at Fenelon Falls prevented navigation further north. Rosedale would be a much easier lock to construct than Fenelon Falls, which given its height and the technology of the day, would require more than one lock to overcome.

In 1868, the newly created Ontario Provincial Government issued its first annual report relating to public works, which proposed building locks at Young’s Point and Rosedale, in response to petitions to improve navigation on the inland waters (the Dominion Government built the locks in the years that followed). The Toronto and Nipissing Railway was planning to construct a line that actually terminated in Coboconk (railways were often given overly ambitious names to attract investment). It, along with Fenelon Falls mill owners, lobbied the province to build the Rosedale lock, to connect Fenelon Falls to this proposed railway. It would provide an alternate route to Toronto markets—traffic could then take a steamer to a railhead at either Coboconk or Lindsay. When completed, the Rosedale lock facilitated navigation on Cameron and Balsam Lakes, as well as the Gull River to Coboconk. But it was a relatively easy and economical improvement to make, costing less than a fifth of what the Fenelon Falls lock subsequently cost in the 1880s.

On September 14, 1869, the Ontario Government let the contract to William Whiteside of Toronto for $19,800. He was required to build a 350-foot-long wooden frame dam, filled with earth, roughly half way between Balsam and Cameron Lakes, which would raise Balsam Lake by about five feet. The lock was to be built at the north end of the dam and was smaller than other locks built in the region—100 feet by 30 feet. Ontario was not contemplating building a through waterway, so this size was deemed sufficient for any steamboat likely to be plying Cameron and Balsam Lakes.

Whiteside began work in October, and was required to complete the lock by September 1, 1870. But he was not an experienced contractor and the work ended up behind schedule. By December 1870, he had only spent $2,720 of the allocated budget. T.B. Molesworth, assistant engineer for the Ontario Department of Public Works urged Whiteside to proceed with the work. By February 1871, Molesworth suggested hiring a new contractor, which prompted Whiteside to increase the pace of work, completing three quarters of the work by the end of the year. But when it was not completed by the end of 1872, Molesworth and the provincial government took over the work and completed it themselves. The total cost was $22,000. Though finished in 1873, there was no steamboat traffic through the lock and no lockmaster was appointed until John McFadden launched the Coboconk in 1876, which operated between Fenelon Falls and Coboconk. By then, Fenelon Falls had its own railway connection.

Countless sawlogs floated down both the Gull and Burnt River watersheds, which met in the north end of Cameron Lake near Rosedale. Because logs from the Gull River floated through Rosedale, as the province was constructing the new lock it also built a new timber slide in 1872. At about the same time as the lock was being constructed, the province was also building the Cameron Colonization Road (similar to modern Highway 35 through Rosedale)—it was complete within four miles of Minden by 1874. As the lock was constructed, the province built a swing bridge to replace the old wooden bridge over the river. It was reconstructed of steel in 1897—shortly after the Dominion Government rebuilt the lock.

By the 1890s, the Dominion Government was working towards constructing a through waterway. With Fenelon Falls, Buckhorn, Burleigh Falls, and Lovesick complete, it was working on connecting Peterborough to Lakefield and Balsam Lake to Lake Simcoe. Other locks were built to be 134 feet long x 33 feet wide. In 1895, the smaller lock at Rosedale was deepened and reconstructed to meet the common specification of the Dominion Government. Crews of workers drilled holes in rows across the channel. Working in groups of three, one held the drill, while the other two alternately struck it with large stone hammers. After each blow, the man holding the drill was to rotate it a half turn. Using this painstaking method, twelve thousand holes were drilled in the bottom of the river, and in three thousand of them, charges of dynamite were exploded. Work was paused two and a half months for the federal election, and wooden stakes were put in the nine thousand remaining holes, which extended a few inches above the water, causing the river to look somewhat like a porcupine. Before the election, the crew was almost entirely formed of Conservative supporters, but after the Liberals won the election, the victorious party ensured that their own supporters were hired to finish the job.

For many years, a large proportion of the traffic through the Rosedale Lock was freight such as lumber and farm produce. Because horses and wagons would be carrying freight to and from the locks, it made sense that the roadway went right up to the locks. It was also convenient that passengers and their luggage could be picked up this way too. There was a turning circle beside the locks into the 1930s, so automobiles could pick up their passengers. But as the twentieth century wore on, pleasure craft came to predominate, and the area around the lock was redeveloped into a park and lock station.

Kirkfield Lift Lock

Work began on the Trent-Severn Waterway in 1833, but it was not completed until 1920—and only after a tremendous amount of political lobbying. The first navigational improvements were typically relatively easy projects. More challenging components, such as linking the two watersheds between Lake Simcoe and Balsam Lake would have to wait for decades. Because the waterway was an important political issue along its course, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald realized that either proposing or letting contracts for waterway improvements immediately before an election, maximized the political gain for these extremely expensive improvements. Though Macdonald had passed away, as his third Conservative successor Charles Tupper was to face Wilfrid Laurier in the 1896 election, he let a contract to begin work on the division joining Lake Simcoe and Balsam Lake. Laurier’s Liberals won the election and favoured railways, but since they inherited a contract for one of three sections, politically, they could not allow the division to go unfinished, so they would see it to completion.

Though the Laurier government might not have constructed this lock at all unless the Conservatives had begun work on the section, the new Prime Minister was just as politically savvy as his predecessors. Contractors Larkin and Sangster along with the Dominion Bridge Company of Montreal began work on the Kirkfield lock just before the election of 1900. An earlier survey of this division proposed eleven locks, but with the use of a lift lock, R.B. Rogers reduced the requirement to five conventional locks, plus the lift lock—which was (and remains) a feat of engineering.

Rogers had already designed the Peterborough Lift Lock, visiting Germany to learn about this technology. For his second lift lock, he made some changes in the plan, replacing the concrete towers to guide the caissons (the chambers or ‘tubs’ of water that were alternately lifted or lowered). He also used a steel aqueduct to feed water instead of concrete. His design used one caisson as a counterweight for the other, using hydraulic rams to lift one as the other was lowered 49 feet—being the second highest lift lock in the world, after Peterborough. The lock pit had to be excavated entirely out of stone—which was a very laborious job in the age of blasting, steam shovels, horses and manual labourers.

At the time the Kirkfield Lift Lock was built, concrete was a new building product and few people were familiar with its use. Unfortunately, the concrete inspector on this section did not have the expertise that he claimed and had an alcohol addiction that meant that he was often absent or unfit for work if he was present. Rogers’ plan for the concrete work was not correctly followed, causing approximately 1,000,000 gallons of water to pour through the walls per hour. Rogers oversaw the necessary repairs at the cost of $254—relative to a total project cost of $717,000. Yet the supervising engineer and inspector falsely claimed that Rogers’ plan had been followed, ultimately contributing to his politically-motivated dismissal—the concrete inspector escaped any official consequences, and moved on to another job. Rogers’ treatment was at to a significant degree politically motivated.

By 1907 work was finally completed on the division linking Lake Simcoe and Balsam Lake. A gala was held on July 6, where many dignitaries attended, but not R.B. Rogers—who had designed the engineering marvels that to this day remain the two highest lift locks in the world. At the time, the Minster of Railways and Canals had also been dismissed, so the honour of opening the lock was assigned to Postmaster-General Rudolphe Lemieux. The steamer Stoney Lake was the first boat through the lock, carrying the federal party, followed by two other steamers with newspaper reporters and local dignitaries. The Trent Valley Navigation Company’s Manita brought an excursion, followed by some small gas launches—a new technology at the time, that would soon represent the bulk of traffic using the lift lock.

The Kirkfield Lift Lock were overhauled in the 1960s, as the original manual controls were replaced with automated, electric controls—from then on, a single operator in the control tower could run the lock. The lockmaster’s house was demolished, as a massive concrete structure reinforced the canal, with a two-lane underpass. On September 2, 2022, the northern caisson suddenly began to leak as the Kawartha Voyageur was being lifted—leading to a terrifying experience for those on board: “All of a sudden there was all this water coming over the lock and it was like something shifted and it was making weird noises like distressed metal and clanking,” one passenger explained. In 2023, it operated using just one caisson as repairs were completed. More than a century after it first opened, the Kirkfield Lift Lock remains a fascinating local landmark.

Canal Lake’s Arch Bridge

In the mid nineteenth century, bridges in the Kawartha Lakes region were typically wooden, employing trestles as necessary depending on the span. These wooden bridges sometimes required painstaking filling to reduce their length—moving tons of stone by hand before the advent of earth moving machinery. In the final decades of the century, steel bridges became common and some examples of steel bridges from this era are still standing today.

At the turn of the century, concrete was a new building product and few local builders were familiar with its use. In nineteenth century Ontario, it was a challenging material to work with—to mix concrete successfully, clean water, pure aggregates and high quality cement (all ingredients that were hard to come by) needed to be mixed in precise proportions. Trent Waterway engineer R.B. Rogers was a pioneer in concrete construction, creating a laboratory in the basement of his Trent Canal office to experiment with different mixes, to maximize the strength, durability, and water resistance of concrete. Construction began on the Otonabee Lock, his first concrete lock, in 1896, followed by the Peterborough Lift Lock, which remains the highest lift lock in the world. To provide the materials for these projects, a local concrete industry was born.

When work began on connecting Balsam Lake with Lake Simcoe, Rogers commissioned another monumental lift lock at Kirkfield. His plans for this section included creating two artificial lakes—Canal Lake and Mitchell Lake, both of which involved digging a canal through a forest, before flooding it. On Canal Lake it was then necessary to bridge the newly created canal. Even though the reputable Dominion Bridge Company of Montreal helped build the Kirkfield Lift Lock, a concrete bridge was chosen, but designed to look like a traditional stone bridge, with abutments on both shores. It was even detailed to give the appearance of voussoir stones over the archway, with coursed stonework on either side—at first glance many observers might mistake it for traditional masonry. When it was completed in 1905, it became the first reinforced concrete bridge in Canada.

The Canal Lake Arch Bridge was designed based on Austrian Engineer Josef Melan’s System. Instead of using iron bars to reinforce concrete, he incorporated a rigid iron truss into the structure. In 1898, he had built the longest reinforced concrete bridge in the world at Steyr, Austria at 42.4 metres. The Canal Lake Bridge does not take advantage of this principle to create a shallow arch, rather its opening is almost a 30 foot semi-circle, hence its nickname “the Hole in the Wall Bridge.” It is 202 feet long and 16 feet wide.

When it was first completed, the bridge presented an unusual appearance. The drowned forests were not cleared until after the opening of the Kirkfield Lift Lock in 1907—so this marvel of engineering would have initially been surrounded by a large, dying, flooded forest. Once the trees were cleared and the lake naturalized, the bridge became a much appreciated architectural feature, one of the many interesting sights along the course of the Trent-Severn Waterway. In 1988, it was designated a National Historic Site.

In 2008 Bruce Stanton, Member of Parliament for Simcoe North unveiled a plaque on the site, but the bridge was beginning to show its age. The City of Kawartha Lakes closed it on April 16, 2018 so GMP Contracting could refurbish the bridge, replacing the concrete deck, curbs and walls. Completed in March 2019, the old concrete bridge, designed for horse traffic, is once again carrying horseless carriages. Born in the age of horses it is narrow for motor cars, but that it just one of its many charming features.

Bolsover

From the 1830s until the end of the nineteenth century, there had been a tremendous amount of lobbying and political pressure to construct a waterway connecting Georgian Bay with Lake Ontario via the Trent River. Yet, for decades, all of the improvements had also served local navigation—for instance, facilitating boats passing between the lakes that were soon to be named the Kawarthas, removing points where transshipment was necessary. But at the end of the nineteenth century, the Dominion Government began work on the parts of the route that only made sense in the context of a through waterway, including connecting the Trent and Severn watershed by linking Balsam Lake with Lake Simcoe.

As was the case elsewhere on the Trent Waterway, the prospect of building the Bolsover Lock was used to leverage votes in a federal election. Before previous elections, surveys had been ordered on other sections, and in 1894 further surveys were ordered between Balsam Lake and Lake Simcoe. The route had already been surveyed several times, but further surveys were a great way to build public excitement, and they would go ahead even though there was little prospect of finding a better route. $350,278 was expended on surveys and engineering to link Peterborough-Lakefield and Simcoe-Balsam. In 1894, total revenues for the Dominion Government were approximately $34 million—so the surveys and engineering alone for these two expensive sections were more than 1% of annual revenues. It was a very expensive way to buy votes in one particular region.

But the local Member of Parliament Sam Hughes made the most of it through his newspaper the Victoria Warder. He reported on all the different prospective routes, including one from the south end of South Bay on Balsam Lake to Beaverton. The Warder proclaimed: “Several splendid young men have secured employment on the survey party now locating the canal across Eldon. Next spring, when regular work begins, chief engineer Rogers will require all the good men in the locality.” Engineer Richard B. Rogers already knew which route would be chosen, but he had to follow orders for additional surveys which would improve the political chances of the governing party. After the death of Sir John A. Macdonald, the Conservatives were divided, and would ultimately be defeated by Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals. Though they opposed the Conservatives’ handling of the canal, they too would not dare cancel it.

For all of the money that would be expended on linking these two watersheds, there is little evidence that the Dominion government thought through the consequences of what they were doing. The total cost for linking Peterborough-Lakefield and Balsam-Simcoe was $4,199,170—or 12% of total 1894 Dominion of Canada revenues. Linking two watersheds would permanently change the species that inhabited them. Huge tracts of land were flooded, as two artificial lakes were made, and reservoirs would have to be maintained to hold sufficient water to operate the waterways in both directions. The government was committing in perpetuity to manage the hydrology of both watersheds. A significant amount of the flow down the Trent would have to be diverted to the Severn watershed to create the artificial lakes and operate the locks because Balsam Lake was higher than Lake Simcoe. This would permanently reduce the amount of flow down the Trent River, reducing the capacity of its mill sites (later power plants), while increasing flow on the Severn. As waterfronts all along the waterway were subsequently developed, residents would expect the federal government to maintain what it created—meaning the costs would carry on in perpetuity. How much of this was considered, as the federal officials sought to buy votes with public money?

When Laurier came to power in 1896, work was already underway on the Balsam Lake end of the route to connect this watershed to Lake Simcoe via the Talbot River. Between 1900 and 1907, the firm of Larkin and Sangster completed the section from the Kirkfield Lift Lock to Bolsover at a total cost of $419,823. There had once been a narrow, winding creek flowing into Balsam Lake. A dam at Bolsover would back up the water diverted from Balsam Lake passing through the height of land via new lift lock at Kirkfield, creating Canal Lake. Since it was created from forested dry land, the trees had to be cleared and a channel dredged to allow boats to pass. Canal Lake also serves as a reservoir to hold water passing through the lift lock so it can be used to operate locks further downstream.

As forests were flooded to create Canal and Mitchell Lakes, it resulted in a ghastly landscape of dead-standing trees. A delegation came from Ottawa to attend the opening of a newly completed section from Balsam Lake to Lake Simcoe on July 6, 1907. A procession of steamers, led by the Stoney Lake toured them through the Kirkfield lift lock, the new lakes and canals, as they witnessed the huge numbers of dead trees. Afterwards, canal superintendent J.H. McClennan was asked to remove the unsightly spectacle. After navigation closed for the season that fall, the newly created lakes were drained to allow the dead standing timber to be cut. Some of the material was salvaged to make cedar posts, along with 60,000 feet of pine, hemlock and elm bridge planking. It also supplied the lumber to build lock master’s houses. Throughout the Trent-Severn Waterway, land was flooded as the dams raised water levels. To this day, many stumps remain marking areas that were drowned to create the waterway—especially on Mitchell and Canal Lakes.

Mnjikaning - Atherley Narrows

For many years the Atherley Narrows have been a very busy spot. Each year, countless motorists on Highway 12 pass over a concrete bridge, as boaters navigate the channel between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching on the Trent-Severn Waterway. Though so many people pass by, how many realize the ancient history of the site? For millennia, local inhabitants fished at Mnjikaning. For all of the changes that this region has seen over the years, Mnjikaning is one landmark that has endured.

In centuries past, weirs were a common fishing technique and the narrows between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching were well-suited. Couchiching is a shallower and warmer lake, while Simcoe is larger, deeper and cooler. As fish migrated through the narrows separating the lakes, it presented an opportunity for humans to harvest them. Here, the clay bottom of the channel is soft. It takes little exertion to push a stake into the riverbed—but, it is then quite difficult to pull it back out. The section of the ancient riverbed that remains is about 6 or 7 feet deep (The site was significantly modified in 1856-7, when a deep, straight channel was dredged to connect the two lakes.) Compared to other narrows, it would be a relatively easy place to construct a weir, that would then be durable.

Mnjikaning is at least 5000 years old—one stake was carbon dated to 3300 B.C., which would make it older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Indus Valley Civilization. There is no reason to assume that it could not be older still. An archaeological examination concluded that the weirs were likely directing the fish towards the north side of the channel, where they would be harvested. Near that side, there were stones, which could have provided a solid footing for fishing. The stakes used varied in size from 0.5 to 3 inches in diameter, and included several different kinds of wood. The weir likely consisted of vertical stakes, with smaller branches woven horizontally around them to form a wattling fence, concentrating fish into a very narrow channel for harvest, with nets and spears. There would have been a particularly large number swimming through during spawning runs—many local fish species spawned in spring, though herring migrated in autumn.

Mnjikaning was still in use when local Wendats (Hurons) guided Samuel de Champlain through the narrows in 1615. He described how the communities there “make great catches of fish which they preserve for the winter.” For years, the French would call Lake Simcoe, ‘Lac aux Claies,’ which is a reference to these weirs. After the Wendat were dispersed during mid-seventeenth century wars, Anishinaabeg (Michi Saagiig, Mississaugas, Ojibwas, Chippewas) resided in south central Ontario.

Mnjikaning is a sacred site. Not only is it ancient, it is also perhaps Canada’s best preserved fish weir and is among the oldest remaining structures in the country. In recent years, there has been a lot of development in the vicinity—as can be seen by comparing a mid-twentieth century H.R. Oakman aerial photograph, with one from 2024. The four-lane bridge was constructed in the 1990s, as a controversial decision was made to remove part of the fish fence for preservation. This inspired the Mnjikaning Fish Fence Circle to help preserve and interpret the site. Today, as both shores are lined with homes and marinas, it is easy for passers-by not to realize just how unique the narrows are.