The Cataraqui River ( ) forms the lower portion of the

Rideau Canal The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston. It is 202 kilometres long. The name ''Rideau'', French for "curtain", ...

and drains into

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between Tor ...

. The name is taken from the original name for

; its exact meaning, however, is undetermined. Early maps showed several name variations including the Great Cataraqui River and Grand River Cataraquay. The river was once called Riviere de Frontenac, or Frontenac River. The alternate spelling "Cadaraqui" also appears in some historic texts. Prior to the

being built (1826 – 1832), the Cataraqui River had its headwaters in Dog and Loughborough lakes.Watson, Ken W. (2007), The Rideau Route: Exploring the Pre-Canal Waterway, Ken W. Watson., It was a meandering creek, a 1795 map (by surveyor Lewis Grant) noted "a great number of rapids and Carrying Places on this creek." This changed with the building of the Rideau Canal. The Superintending Engineer of the project, Lt. Colonel John By, used a slackwater construction technique, building dams to drown rapids. In the area of the Cataraqui Creek from Upper Brewers to Kingston Mills he had the forests cut down to form a straight channel (this work is visible in the Burrowes paintings of Brewer's Lower Mill shown below). The area was then flooded in late 1831/early 1832 with the completion of canal dams at

Kingston Mills Kingston Mills, located approximately north of downtown Kingston, Ontario, is the southernmost lockstation and one of 24 lockstations of the Rideau Canal system. Kingston Mills is a component of the Rideau Canal National Historic Site, and along ...

, Lower Brewers and Upper Brewers. Today the watershed of the Cataraqui River includes lakes south of the watershed divide at Newboro, such as Sand, Opinicon, Clear and Newboro. However, in the pre-canal era, water from those lakes flowed into the White Fish River which drained to the

Gananoque River The Gananoque River is a river in Leeds and Grenville United Counties in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Shows the course of the river highlighted on a map. The river is in the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin and is a left tributary of the Saint Lawrence R ...

rather than the Cataraqui River. The section between those two rivers was the Cranberry Flood Plain; the only water contribution from the White Fish River to the Cataraqui was in times of spring flood. This changed in the early 1800s with the building of a mill dam by Lemuel Haskins at White Fish Falls, near today's village of Morton. That dam retarded the outflow of the White Fish River to the Gananoque, backed it up over the Cranberry Flood Plain, sending water south to the Cataraqui River. To stop the escape of his mill water down Cataraqui Creek, Haskins built a second dam at the Round Tail (just north of Upper Brewers) which blocked the channel of the creek. These two dams made the Cataraqui Flood Plain navigable for the first time. When the Rideau Canal was built, Haskins' dam at Morton was enlarged and a new dam was built at Upper Brewers. Those two dams (managed today by Parks Canada) created Whitefish Lake, Little Cranberry Lake and much expanded Cranberry and Dog lakes. Most of the flow from what was previously the White Fish River watershed now flows down the Cataraqui River. The

Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority The Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority is one of 36 conservation authorities in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is headquartered in Kingston, Ontario The authority was established by an Order in Council in December 1964 via the Conser ...

administers water management concerns within the Cataraqui River

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

. File:The lock at Lower Brewers nearing completion in 1831.jpg, The lock at Lower Brewers nearing completion in 1831 by Thomas Burrowes File:Brewer's Lower Mill - view down the Cataraqui Creek and clearing made for the Rideau Canal, 1829.jpg, Brewer's Lower Mill - view down the Cataraqui Creek and clearing made for the Rideau Canal, 1829 by Thomas Burrowes File:View on the Cataraqui Creek, Brewer's Upper Mills in the background, 1830.jpg, View on the Cataraqui Creek, Brewer's Upper Mills in the background, 1830 by Thomas Burrowes

References

External links

*
Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority
{{coord, 44.2619, N, 76.46725, W, type:river, display=title Rivers of Frontenac County Landforms of Kingston, Ontario Tributaries of Lake Ontario

See also

References

External links