We are lucky to have three nice waterfalls in the city – Hog’s Back Falls along the Rideau River, the Chaudière Falls on the Ottawa River and the Rideau Falls where the Rideau River spills into the Ottawa River. The spring runoff makes them particularly awesome at this time of year, however all of these falls are still worth checking out any time of the year. Here is a 14km bike tour almost entirely along bike paths that visits all three sites.
Hog’s Back Falls was originally a set of rapids known as the Three Rocks Rapids, but the building of the Rideau Canal resulted in the more spectacular version we have now. More on the transformation from rapids to falls is described in these two links:
A Rapid Ride: The Billings shoot Hogs Back “Falls”.
Washed Away The Story of the Building of the Hogs Back Dam.
Next stop – the Chaudière Falls on the Ottawa River, just west of Parliament Hill. When french explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived at the falls he noted how its elongated curved form and volume of water flowing over it ressembled a boiling cauldron, or chaudière. More on the history of the Chaudière Falls can be found here.
The above map shows three great locations from which you can view the falls.
Last stop – the Rideau Falls! The Rideau River ends by spilling down into the Ottawa River in most spectacular form resembling a huge curtain of water, or in French a ‘rideau’ of water.
Et voila!
OttawaVeloOutaouais 