Live & Learn

When we first started planning this trip, we worried that the boys might get restless sitting all day, but we find that a steady supply of fish crackers and fruit roll-ups keeps them happy. Along with Joel and me, they are energized by the sense of adventure that comes with navigating the canal. Mapping out the locks gives the trip a scavenger-hunt feel, and we all anticipate the changing scenery around each corner. Between locks, the land morphs from forest to marsh to cow pasture to cornfield; the water widening to windy lakes and then narrowing to gentle passageways. Rows of cottages and more than a few sprawling year-round homes line the shores, and the boys are impressed by a neglected boathouse sunk into the lake up to its roof.

But at every stop, there is a taste of history: the Lockmaster’s House at picturesque Chaffeys Locks, with its slits for the barrel of a gun; the nearby cemetery, where fieldstones mark the graves of nameless labourers; and the brick house on the hill at Jones Falls, with its small, simple rooms, where a succession of families faithfully served out their tenures.

As we’re passing through Chaffeys Locks, the rain catches us. We huddle under a tarp in our matching bright yellow raincoats, waiting for it to pass, while Joel tries unsuccessfully to jury-rig a temporary shelter with tent poles. The tarp clings to our faces like plastic wrap. “This is just like being trapped under a giant waterfall,” Noah grumbles and grins at the same time. Samson, in the midst of toilet training, announces that he has to pee, so out comes the potty tucked under the seat, and he does his business in the downpour. Multi-million-dollar cruisers sail past, their passengers watching our odd little scene while sipping wine inside their dry cabins.

It helps that we don’t have far to go. At the foot of Chaffeys Locks, nestled in a tree-lined inlet, we pull into The Opinicon Resort Hotel, a stately family residence built in the early 1800s that was converted to a fishing club at the turn of the 20th century and is now an old-fashioned resort with horseshoe pits, assigned seating in the dining room, a sheltered berth for boats and individual cottages for rent. It is the kind of place that hosts generations of families and where they are proud to say they do not accept credit cards, trusting their guests to send a cheque once they return home - a fact confirmed by an American fisherman we meet in the lobby.

At breakfast the next day, we chat with Bob Conklin, 68, from Pennsylvania, who has been coming to the Opinicon since he was three years old; tomorrow, his daughter and her kids arrive. Until then, he goes fishing three times a day, starting at 4:30 a.m., motoring easily between the weedy five-metre-deep Opinicon and the more than 30-metre-deep neighbouring Indian Lake. “The water is restful,” he says. “No two lakes are the same.”

Conklin’s fishing tales having inspired Noah, we trudge up the road to buy some junior rods. His enthusiasm is short-lived, however. While waiting on the dock at Jones Falls for the flight locks - a series of four locks that transfer boats nearly 18 metres - the bass practically leap onto the hook. But after watching his father, a reluctant fisherman at best, pull a hook from the eye of a fish, Noah promptly decides to give it up for good. Fishing is a passionate pursuit on the Rideau system, but our family will stick to sightseeing.