The field notes of Thomas Burrowes capture some of the challenges that faced bridge-builders on the Ottawa River. “On my arrival at the Falls of the Chaudiere,” he wrote...
“I found Lieut.-Col. By was there awaiting the coming of His Lordship, the Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-General of British North America, whom I had passed on the way up…. On Monday, the 25th of September, 1826, the day after his Lordship arrived, he directed Colonel By to commence the erection of a Chain of Bridges over the several chasms and rock Islands below the romantic Falls at this place…. I was immediately ordered to measure the Gap or chasm at the north or Hull side of the River, and to draw a design for a bridge of rough stone to be thrown over the said chasm….” |
The canal works on the southern shore of the Ottawa River were separated from Columbia Falls Village (later Hull) on the north by Chaudière Falls, a series of plunging falls that Thomas Burrowes painted in 1831. Burrowes’s first assignment was to draw up plans for a bridge. |
