Ottawa residents gather to honour workers who died during construction of Rideau Canal

A ceremony was held Monday, Aug. 5, 2024 at the Celtic Cross memorial near the Rideau Canal in Ottawa to pay tribute to the estimated 1,000 workers who died while building the canal between 1826 and 1832. (Maddison De Varennes/CTV News Ottawa)

Several people gathered Monday afternoon at the Celtic Cross Monument near the Rideau Canal to pay tribute to the estimated 1,000 workers who died while building the iconic canal.

The annual Celtic Cross Ceremony is dedicated to the workers and their families who died building the Rideau Canal between 1826 and 1832. As many as 7,000 people worked to build the Rideau Canal and as many as 1,000 of them died due to accidents or disease. Many of these deaths were unrecorded and many of the workers were buried in unmarked graves along the canal's length.

The monument was first unveiled in 2004. It is located across from the Bytown Museum along the Rideau Canal between Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier. It was damaged in 2017 in what was believed to have been an accident and later replaced.

The canal was originally built following the War of 1812 to provide a secure supply route from Montreal to Kingston that would bypass the St. Lawrence River. Lieutenant-Colonel John By oversaw its construction. The settlement that grew near the construction site on the Ottawa River, dubbed Bytown, would go on to become the Ottawa we know today.

The workers built the canal and its locks were largely Irish immigrants, French Canadians, and Indigenous people. Diseases like malaria took many lives alongside workplace injuries.

Today, the Rideau Canal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a major tourist attraction, drawing in boaters and visitors from around the world. In the winter, 7.8 kilometres of its length is frozen and it becomes the Rideau Canal Skateway, the world's largest skating rink.