Monthly Archives: October 2022

Watson’s Mill – Manotick

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October 30, 2022

My job as self-employed inspector under contract to various government inspection agencies gives me the opportunity to travel all over the province of Ontario. This past week, I spent 3 days working in the Ottawa area. During my travels I drove past the Watson Mill in Manotick and stopped to check it out. This mill continues to operate at select times and can be seen grinding grain which it sells as flour, along with baked bread. It wasn’t open when I was there, but you can take a virtual tour of the inside by clicking here.

Following the War of 1812 there was a general fear that the Americans would invade Canada again and so plans were put in place to create an inland military transportation route to supplement the St. Lawrence River. The construction of the canal brought many labourers and stone masons into the area and for the next few years most immigrants also came to the area via the canal. Moss Dickinson was 10 when the canal opened in 1832 and he saw the opportunity to commercialize the river and canal system. In 1858 a wooden dam was constructed at the future mill site using wood beams that were fastened to the rock with steel pins. The original dam can be seen in the archive image below.

In the late 1850s, Moss K. Dickinson and Joseph M. Currier owned a sawmill on the Rideau River, and they contracted Thomas Langell of Ottawa to build a grist mill to add to their growing industrial operations. It opened in 1860 with four runs of grinding stones which were powered by turbines that had been manufactured in Ottawa. In 1862 they added a woolen mill to the complex and the need for labour drew people to the area and the town of Manotick began to grow around the mills. In 1863 Dickinson bought out his partner and the mills remained in the family until 1929, operating under the name of The Long Island Mill. The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority purchased the mill in 1972 and restored it along with the Dickinson house and drive shed.

The construction of a sawmill, grist mill and carding or woolen mill provided the locals with the three basic necessities of life without the manual labour that had previously been required. The sawmill provided cut lumber for the construction of shelter, the grist mill provided flour for food and the woolen mill provided clothing. Alexander Spratt owned the mills after the Dickinson family and his family operated them until after the Second World War. Harry Watson bought the mill in 1946 and promptly changed the name to Watson’s Mill. He rebuilt the dam out of concrete in 1956 and today you can walk across the top of the mill to Long Island. A crane on wheels and rails was installed to raise and lower the stop logs that control the water level behind the dam.

Milling operations would cease in 1963 but the mill and dam remained as the most recognizable feature in the town of Manotick. From the middle of the dam the view upstream shows the slow-moving water behind the dam. Most of the fall colours had disappeared from the Ottawa region by this late in October but the scenery was still very beautiful.

In 1963 the National Capital Commission entered into an agreement with Watson to restore the mill and keep it as a functioning water-powered grist mill. In 1972 Watson sold his interests in the mill to the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority on condition that the mill remain known as Watson’s Mill. They completed the restoration and opened the mill as a tourist attraction in 1974.

Looking downstream you can see the cut-stone foundations from an earlier bridge across the Rideau River.

The view from the river side of the mill shows the Georgian symmetry of its three floor, five-bay construction.

Watson’s Mill in Manotick is one of only a few water-powered mills that still produce flour in all of Ontario and it is worth stopping for a visit if you are in the Ottawa area.

Google maps link: Watson’s Mill Manotick

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Kensington Market

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October 23, 2022

Saturday, October 22 was a beautiful day for late October and a perfect one to explore some of the small shops in the Kensington Market area of the city. George Taylor Dennison had served in the Canadian Militia in the War of 1812 and purchased an estate lot west of the town of York (Toronto). In the 1850s the former Dennison Family estate was divided into several narrow streets and over the next couple of decades was built up with small affordable homes. They were originally occupied by British workers but as this first group of residents prospered and moved out, they were replaced with a wave of Jewish immigrants. The small Victorian homes were converted into businesses by making shops out of the ground floor of the units and for several decades the area became known as the Jewish Market.

Following the Second World War, the area became home to new Canadians from Italy, Portugal, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. They each brought some of their culture to the area as they integrated into the fabric of the neighbourhood. Today, the mix of foods and shops reflects the diversity of the people who have called these few streets home. While graffiti can be seen on many of the buildings, there’s also some pretty creative artwork on display.

The Kensington Market Garden Car has been a fixture in the area since 2006. Originally, supporters paid the parking meter to keep it there, but the city soon approved it as a tourist attraction and allowed it to stay, provided that it is insured and also removed every winter to allow for snow clearing. Some consider it to be the smallest park in the city.

The mid-Victorian row houses that formed the community can still be seen behind the store fronts

Dolce Gelato has used some colourful artwork to draw attention to their location in Kensington Market. This is one of three locations they operate in Toronto that serve authentic Italian Gelato.

There is a theory that Kensington Market is one of the most photographed areas in the city and it was designated as a National Historic Site in 2006. With Halloween just around the corner, there’s several buildings which are all decorated for the season.

Bellevue Square Park has a couple of historical plaques and a map of the area. The park was formerly used by Dennison as a parade ground for his volunteer calvary group when the area was still his estate. His volunteer group participated in putting down the Rebellion of 1837. Today there’s a small but vibrant park on the site of the former parade grounds.

Narrow streets, lack of parking and the volume of pedestrians make this an area to avoid driving in. There’s plenty of parking under the Dragon City Mall at Spadina and Dundas which will leave you free to wander around and investigate the area.

There’s a lot of little stores and markets in the Kensington Market area and tons of places to eat a wide variety of foods. It’s also just a short walk away from Chinatown where there’s another whole variety of places to investigate or find something to eat.

Google Maps link: Kensington Market

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White-tailed Deer

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October 16, 2022

White-tailed deer can be found throughout the GTA, and they are quite comfortable with the human presence, partially because they don’t experience the hunting season that their country cousins have to survive. Between Canada and the USA, the population is estimated to be over 35 million animals. Local populations and food sources are used to determine the number of animals that can be culled during hunting season so that the remainder can be healthy and thrive. While hunting deer may seem horrible to some of us it allows for a healthier herd that doesn’t suffer and die from starvation.

The life cycle starts in late May or June in Ontario when fawns are born. They are born earlier in the colder environments so that the young have the advantage of a full summer to get larger and stronger before the challenge of the next winter comes along. A yearling doe will have a single fawn in her first year and she’ll leave it alone while she forages in the first week of its life. She returns to nurse it 4-5 times per day until it is old enough to forage for itself. The newborn fawn in the picture below is well disguised among the branches and leaves.

Fawns have white spots in their fur when they are first born which they lose over the course of their first year.

The doe will take care of the fawn for the first year and they are very paternal and caring. The doe in the picture below is giving her fawn a lick on the top of the head.

In return, the fawn is very fond of the mother and shows signs of affection. The fawn in the cover photo was walking up to us to check us out but was called back by its mother who was concerned about how close it was getting. When she snorted the fawn immediately responded by returning to her. The fawn will become sexually mature in about six months if it is a female but will usually not mate until it is in its second fall. The males take about 1.5 years to become sexually mature.

A female will have a single fawn in her first year of reproduction but can have up to three fawns in subsequent years. These two fawns were following mama deer across the Credit River in Mississauga until she spotted us and called them into a retreat to the far shore.

Deer will molt twice per year, spring and fall, although the fawns will only molt in the fall of their first year. They will lose their spots in their first molt and the fawn below is seen part way through that process.

White-tailed deer will live between 6 and 14 years on average but can survive up to 20 years. A female will weigh between 88 and 200 pounds while the males typically will reach 150 to 300 pounds. They can reach 4 feet tall and 8 feet long.

Adult deer can run at speeds up to 64 kilometres per hour (40 miles per hour) and can jump up to 2.5 metres (8.2 feet). They rut (mate) in the fall between October and November and the female can come into heat every 28 days until she becomes pregnant. The normal gestation period is about 200 days while the animal passes through the winter.

Male deer are known as bucks and grow a set of antlers every spring which they cast off after mating season each year. They are the fastest growing tissues in nature and are made of bone, nerves and cartilage. They are covered by velvet which has small hairlike structures that allow the buck to feel their antlers and prevent them from getting damaged during the growing phase.

Growing antlers can take 3-4 times the nutrients that are required to grow the rest of the skeleton. For this reason, a male will have larger antlers after 4.5 or 5.5 years when the skeletal structure is finished growing. Dropping testosterone levels cause the antlers to be cast off in late winter or early spring.

Antler size and growth potential increases with the age of the animal. When they are 1.5 years old their antlers will only be 55-60% of their later potential. At 4.5 years they will have reached about 90% of their potential. The availability of food, severity of the winters and drought will determine whether a male reaches 100% of its antler potential at 6.5, 7.5 or 8.5 years of age.

The bucks tend to spend most of their lives alone except during the mating season when they use their antlers to fight other bucks for the right to mate with the local does. The females may mate with more than one male in the effort to become pregnant. Deer eyes have more rods than cones which means that they actually see better at night.

White Tailed Deer can be found in all of the ravines in Toronto and most of the larger parks. In the city they have become accustomed to people and are easier to spot while outside of town they tend to vanish at the first scent of humans.

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Peterborough Lift Lock

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October 9, 2022

On a business trip to Peterborough in July I had a few minutes to stop and watch the operation of Lock 21 on the Trent-Severn Waterway. The waterway is 386 kilometres long and was first travelled by a European in 1615 when Jacques Cartier explored the region using long standing indigenous routes.

The canal was originally surveyed as a military route with the first lock being built in 1833 as part of a commercial venture. Three more locks were under construction in 1837 when the Rebellion broke out. It was determined that the canal would have too many locks to be used for rapid troop movements and so the three locks were completed, and progress was suspended. With the canal incomplete and no outlet to a major lake it was connected to other travel routes by toll roads, plank roads and eventually by railways. The image below shows the side view of the lift lock in Peterborough,

It was restarted in the late 1880s by the government of Sir John A. Macdonald, but little progress was made, and it was generally used as a political tool to get votes from the communities along the route. In the late 1890s it was undertaken with a new commitment, and it reached Peterborough and Lake Simcoe in 1904. The First World War slowed progress again and it didn’t reach Trenton until 1918 and Georgian Bay in 1920. By this time the ships had grown too big for the canal system and railways were carrying most of the commercial traffic. It became a pleasure route and eventually would be declared a National Historic Site of Canada and be used as a linear park. The image below shows the lift lock with the left hand side elevated and the right side being loaded for the next lift.

When it was completed in 1904 it was the highest hydraulic boat lift in the world and the largest concrete structure in the world. The vertical lift was 65 feet (20 metres) while most conventional locks had a lift of 7 feet (2.3 metres). The system consists of two identical caissons that sit at the level of the river at their lowest point. They each sit on a 7.5 metre diameter ram. In the picture below the lift is half completed and the two caissons can be seen beside each other.

When the lift reaches the top, it stops 12 inches below the water level in the upper reach. The gate is opened and water flows in to equalize with the level of the river in the upper reach. This causes the upper caisson to increase in weight so that it is 1844 short tons compared to the lower one which has 1700 tons of water in it. When the system is ready to reverse the valve between the two rams is opened and the extra weight in the upper caisson pushed the ram of the lower caisson up until the positions are reversed. The system requires no external power as the weight of the water is enough to operate the system.

Just below the lock is a swing bridge that allows the Canadian Pacific Railway to cross the river. When not in use by the railway it is moved out of the way of boat traffic on the river.

The Peterborough Lift lock was declared a National Historical Site in 1979.

Related stories: Newmarket Ghost Canal, The First Three Welland Canals.

Google Maps Link: Peterborough Lift Lock

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National Air Force Museum

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October 2, 2022

On a recent business trip to the Trenton Airforce Base, I stopped and took in the collection at the National Airforce Museum of Canada. All of these photos were taken from outside the fence as I didn’t have time to go in and review the collection properly before my next appointment. There are other aircraft located inside the storage building which tends to house many of the older planes. The museum opened on April 1, 1984, on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal Canadian Airforce.

P-140 Aurora – This long-range patrol aircraft was put into service in 1980 and remained active until 2017. It has a range of 7,400 kilometres and has been used for rescue missions as well to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking. After being in storage for a year it was brought to the museum and re-assembled for display.

CC-115 Buffalo. This aircraft was built by De Havilland in Downsview and completed on August 27, 1967, after which it went into service as a transport plane. In 1975 it took on a dual role as a Search & Rescue craft until it was retired in September 2020 after over 50 years of service.

CC-144 Challenger. This aircraft was put into service in April 1983 in Ottawa to provide transportation for VIPs. It got a new assignment in 1995 when it went to Nova Scotia to serve as a training plane for pilots in electronic warfare. Five years later it was back in Ottawa flying VIPs around. It was in Florida in 2012 when it struck a large bird and was damaged requiring extensive repairs. In 2014 the Challenger fleet was reduced from 6 planes to just 4 and this one was retired. It found a new home in the museum in 2015.

CL-28 Mark II Argus. This is one of 20 Mark II aircraft purchased in 1958 and used for maritime patrol. It was stationed at Summerside P.E.I. in the 415 Maritime Patrol “Swordfish” Squadron. It flies at 463 kilometres per hour and was in service until 1982 performing patrols as part of anti-submarine warfare.

CH-124 Sea King went into service on May 14, 1964, performing surveillance and anti-submarine tasks. It has a compact design with rotors and tail that fold up allowing it to land on the smallest warships. It is also amphibious and can make landings in water. This one served in The Gulf War in 1991 as well as East Timor in 1999-2000. When it was retired in 2018 it had the most air-hours of any Sea King having racked up 17,775.3 hours.

The F86 Mark V Sabre is a fighter craft, and the model was purchased between 1948 and 1958. The one in the museum was in service until 1969 serving in Chatham, New Brunswick until it was placed in duty as an instructional airframe. This model of fighter can achieve speeds of 973 kilometres per hour.

CH-147D Chinook was originally a USA army helicopter beginning in 1969. The Canadian Government bought it and five others in 2008 to deploy to Kandahar in Afghanistan. It has been part of the museum collection since 2016.

F-18 Hornet. This aircraft is capable of flying at Mach 1.8, 2,200 kilometres per hour at sea level. The one in the museum was put into service in 1982 as a training craft in Cold Lake, Alberta. All training on the Hornet was conducted at Cold Lake. This airplane was donated to the museum in 2009 as part of the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of flight.

The Spitfire Mark IX was one of the primary fighter crafts of the allied forces in the Second World War. It was in service between 1940 and 1950 and could fly at speeds up to 586 kilometres per hour. This example was donated to the museum in 2001.

Ch-118 Iroquois was a combat support unit which performed search and rescue operations. It was in service between 1968 and 1995 when all Iroquois were retired from service. This machine was then used at CFB Borden and then CFB Trenton for aircraft battle damage repair training. It was placed in the museum in 2007.

Code named “Fishbed” by the Allies, this Russian fighter jet was never flown by the Canadian Military. It was officially known as a MiG-21 and was first put into service in 1959 and was able to fly at 2,230 kilometres per hour. The specimen in the museum was put into service in 1975 in East Germany. After German Unification in 1990 it was soon withdrawn from service and was donated to the Canadian Government in 1993. It has been in the museum collection since then.

The CF-116A Freedom Fighter in the museum was in service from 1968 to 1995 and entered the museum in 1997. It was used at Cold Lake, Alberta as a tactical fighter and training aircraft. In 1976 it was transferred to the 419 Moose Squadron where it was painted red and white like the Canadian Flag.

This is just a sampling of the 37 aircraft in the museum, several of which are housed in the indoor facility. At some point I would love to spend the time to go through the museum properly and see the full exhibit including all the other memorabilia that is on display.

Related Stories: Downsview Airforce Base

Google Maps Link: National Airforce Museum of Canada

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