The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority publishes a schedule at 7:30 am every day for the times that Montréal area locks will accommodate pleasure boats.  We met a man on a jet ski who wanted to chat about the Loop the previous day who said he had waited 11 hours one time to get through the St. Lambert and Côte St. Catherine locks.  

So we woke up early on Canada Day (observed) to see if the authorities had published anything yet – nothing. Then at 8:15 am, the website suddenly told us that the St. Lambert lock would allow boats through at 9:00 am.  So we broke camp as rapidly as we could to trek the 5 miles down river and then upriver to then wait until 9:45 to lock through.  We had plenty of company and we had to raft 3-4 deep in the locks.

Rafting 4 deep in the St. Lambert lock.

Luckily we made it for the morning’s opening – and with relatively little delay (as compared to 11 hours), we made it through both locks by noontime back to the Lake St. Louis. By this point we’d been underway nearly 4 hours and had travelled only 16 of the 89 miles we had to go today to get to the Château de Montebello.  We zigzagged through the Lake St. Louis (lots of right angles to avoid the very shallow spots) to get to the lock at St. Anne de Bellevue.

St. Anne de Bellevue is a tiny town on the west side of the Montréal island, but is a favorite local boating destination and we expected crowds.  The sides of the canal in St. Anne are lined with restaurants set back from the Parks Canada tie-up walls where you can overnight.  To our relief the lock light was green and we were able to enter the lock immediately – with intense rafting from wall to wall – in order to rise 1 foot in elevation.

Approach to St. Anne de Bellevue Lock; rafting in the Lock.

After St. Anne we passed under the Trans-Canada Highway bridge in to the open expanse of the Lake of the Two Mountains (Lac des Deux Montagnes) and immediately spied the mouth of the Ottawa River.   It was a relatively breezy day and the water mildly choppy with temperatures in the 90s. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms and squalls.

Trans-Canada Highway; Mouth of the Ottawa River from the Lake of the Two Mountains.

Our first lock and only lock on the Ottawa River was the Carillon Lock – famous because it has a guillotine opening and it raises the boats by 62 feet – one of the highest lock lifts in North America.  It is a monster of a lock, but made friendly by Parks Canada staff that very conveniently tie you up to a floating dock.  The lock was completed in 1963 in order to eliminate a staircase of 7 smaller historical locks – and create a hydroelectric dam – circumventing and smoothing out the Long Sault Rapids.  As we approached the Carillon Lock we had a green light and went in without any waiting.

Carillon Lock

As we departed the lock, there were dozens of boats rafted 3 deep waiting to go down towards the lower Ottawa River and Montréal.  Near the Carillon Lock, the southern side of the Ottawa River changes from Québec to Ontario (the north side is still Québec).

As we made our way heading west up the Ottawa River the skies in the west began to darken.  We needed diesel and stopped at Hawkesbury on the Ontario side, hoping to ride out the squall that was coming (and coming quickly).  As we approached the marina - probably a bit too fast - it became clear that our boat was much larger than most others in the marina - unintentionally creating a disruptive wake that got some of the marina denizens hopping mad.  One observation is that in the US, creating a wake on shore will get you (and deservedly so) a dressing down and then it’s over.  In Québec, it got very long and animated hand and arm gestures and shouting that went on and on.  Oh well.

We found the very short finger pier of the fuel dock and wedged our way in just in time for the wind to pick up – and threaten to blow our Salty off the dock and into the other boats (just what we needed - NOT).  In any case, the squall refocused the chorus of wake complaint and blowing over in about 15 minutes but not before thoroughly soaking us and the fuel dock staff.  Even though we were in Ontario, the language of this place is a deep dark dialect of French with a cadence where it was impossible for us to pick out a single recognizable French word.  Nonetheless, some very friendly curious people came by to praise Salty in English and chat about the Loop.

We were shortly thereafter on the water again – with the river becalmed as if no storm had just passed with a smooth water surface.  The storm evidently took the wind with it and all those pesky small boats and jet skiers and the their wakes with them.  

Becalmed Ottawa River after the thunderstorm; Salty Dog at repose at the Montebello Marina after 10 hours of action.

After a very long day of about 10 hours, we arrived at the Château de Montebello, just in time for dinner.

River facing restaurant of the Château de Montebello; Main lobby of the hotel.