Desjardins Canal

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The Desjardins Canal, named after its promoter Pierre Desjardins, was built to give Dundas, Ontario, easier access to Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes system of North America. Although a technological achievement and a short term commercial success, the canal was soon eclipsed by the railway and Dundas by neighbouring Hamilton.

[edit] Historical context

Water transportation is often the most efficient, cheapest and most reliable form of transportation before paved roads and railways are developed. Consequently, in the first half of the 19th century, Canada and the United States were gripped by canal-building fever. Great works like the Erie Canal, Welland Canal and Rideau Canal were undertaken during this period.

It was in this context that the government of Upper Canada authorized in 1823 the construction of a canal through the Burlington sandbar separating Burlington Bay from Lake Ontario. Dundas was the leading settlement in Wentworth County and it hoped to become an intermodal transportation junction at the end of Governors Road and the head of Lake Ontario.

However, cutting through the Burlington sandbar was not enough. An additional passage was needed to link Cootes Paradise to Dundas in the west and Burlington Bay in the east. Because Cootes is a marsh, water levels were very low and were inadequate for the draught necessary for useful commercial boat traffic.

[edit] Rise, fall and rebirth

Pierre Desjardins, a local settler originally from France, began organizing in 1825 to dredge the marsh and build a canal linking Dundas with Burlington Bay. The canal company received its charter in 1826, but its leading light died the following year after falling from a horse. The Desjardins Canal was completed in 1837 and the commercial benefits it brought helped Dundas grow enough to incorporate as a town in 1847.

However, this success was short lived as the completion of the Great Western Railway in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1854 offered stiff competition. Like the earlier canal-building boom, the railway-building boom seized North America in the mid-1800s and provided a practical death-blow to water transportation.

The canal company tried to participate in the new railway craze by building a railway bridge across the canal. However, the venture was tragically punctuated in 1857 by a derailment which killed seventy people. Local opposition prevented the reconstruction of the bridge.

As water traffic and Dundas slowly declined in importance relative to Hamilton, the Desjardins Canal gradually fell into disuse. In 1867, sediment blocked direct access to the town.

Today, its remains can be seen north of Cootes Drive in east Dundas and in the rotting logs in the shallows of Cootes Paradise. As part of the renaissance in the area, the city of Hamilton established a walking path along the former canal.