Fall is a beautiful time of the year in Southern Ontario with the trees turned multiple colours and mosquitoes safely dead. Going home for Thanksgiving means my wife and I’s usual trip down Hwy 15 from Ottawa to Kingston. Hwy 15 follows the Rideau Canal from Smiths Falls all the way to Kingston. The path of the highway means that the views are spectacular from traveling up and down the valleys. Passing lakes, a nice little cheese factor in Forfar and beautiful farm landscapes.

The part of the route I want to highlight in this blog is the accessibility of the Rideau Canal. Numerous locks and falls are within 10kms of the highway and this makes it easy to dart off the highway and view some spectacular sites of natural and cultural significance.

On Saturday my wife and I stopped in at Jones Falls a mere 3km off the highway. The location is beautiful and boasts a 1877 3 storey hotel, 4 huge locks, a stone blacksmith’s shop (demonstrations inside), a defensible lockmaster’s house and a 350 foot long, 65 feet high hand cut stone damn. These are impressive structures and remarkable feats of engineering. The damn was the third largest in the world when it was constructed in 1832. Read more history of the site here.

I would highly recommend if your traveling from Western Ontario to Ottawa that you consider taking highway 15 instead of the 416 up to Ottawa from the 401 as the travel time is the same but the experiences are far more remarkable on the former.