comparable to what it cost to ship a frigate full of guns, cables, and ammunition all the way from England! The reason that the costs were so close is due to all the extra time spent on navigating the shallow waters of the St. Lawrence. So it was in 1815 that the Rideau Canal had its first motion for existence. On October 10, 1815, the first orders were given to Sir Gordon Drummond to get estimates to make this supply route navigable. This order for an estimate by Lord Bathurst was quite possibly influenced by the endorsement made by Captain Gaugreben of the Kings German Legion. He recommended a military waterway along the Rideau because "It would be far enough north of the St. Lawrence to insulate loyal Upper Canadians from ‘those turbulent!
             Americans' and also an appropriate place to locate a concentrated military settlement." In 1823, after numerous exploration parties ascended up the Rideau, Samuel Clowes recommended that the new waterway should proceed by way of the Rideau lakes. This recommendation was not the expected verdict but was taken at face value due to Clowes vast experience as a civil engineer.
             After the decision was made to make the Rideau canal an actuality rather than an proposal, the next problem was who would build it. After much deliberation, Colonel John By was chosen for the task. Colonel By was given an incredibly difficult job to accomplish. His instructions were to complete a water communication having a uniform depth of five feet, from the Ottawa River to Kingston. This was to be almost one-hundred and thirty miles cut through some of the densest wilderness in the area.
             Colonel By used a workforce of somewhere between two and four thousand men to cleave the Canal into existence. These same men used shovels and wheelbarrows to accomplish this gargantuan task. They laboured up to sixteen hours a day, with only one day of rest each week. The workers had to contend with both mosq...