11) RIDEAU CANAL WORKERS FINALLY WIN RECOGNITION

Based on an article by David Butler from the Ottawa Citizen

     Six years after they were nominated, the workers who built the Rideau Canal will finally be recognized as historically significant. The thousands of labourers - mostly Irish immigrants and French‑Canadians - who carved the 202‑kilometre waterway through a wilderness of bush, swamps and lakes will be formally recognized by the government of Canada for their contribution. The labourers worked in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, and hundreds paid for it with their lives.

     The existing designation of the 180‑year‑old canal as a national historic site will be expanded to commemorate the workers. Larger‑than‑usual plaques and interpretive panels will be erected at the Ottawa locks and Jones Falls to tell their story.

     "The workers are integral to the story of the Rideau Canal, which is why I decided that the original designation should be expanded to honour their contributions," said a news release from Environment Minister Peter Kent.

     The Rideau Canal, declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 2007, was first designated a national historic site in 1925. However, the contributions of the canal workers were not formally recognized in the original designation.

     It is estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 labourers were involved each year during the main construction period from 1827 to 1831. The Rideau Canal, which extends from Ottawa to Kingston, opened in 1832 and was one of the largest construction projects in 19th century British North America.

     The labourers worked exclusively with tools such as axes, picks and shovels for 12 to 16 hours a day and six days a week in summer, clearing brush, excavating lock pits and channels, quarrying stone, erecting wooden weirs and bridges and building rubble embankments and masonry locks and dams.

     They had to deal with the ever‑present threat of disease, especially malaria, then called "ague" or swamp fever. Due to illnesses and accidents as many as 1,000 are believed to have died, though no reliable statistics were kept.

     Many of the workers settled in Eastern Ontario, where up to 100,000 descendants still live, but winning recognition for them was an uphill struggle.

     In 2010, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board rejected an application from the Celtic Cross Commemorative Group, saying the canal labourers weren't of national historic significance because their work "represented a typical and common form of labour at the time, and that it was not unusual, nor was it remarkable."

     But after a Citizen story on the rejection triggered a torrent of criticism, the board - which is supported by Parks Canada - reversed its position and recommended that Kent bestow recognition on the workers. When no announcement was forthcoming, the group's Kevin Dooley went public with his concern that recognition of the workers had "gone off the radar."

(The above article is from the January 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)