July 16: Carillion Lock to Montebello

Today we went through the amazing Carillion Lock next to the dam and largest hydro electric plan in Quebec. The guillotine gate opened for us at 9:00 and we drove into the cavern realizing that the wall in front of us did not open! This lock raises 65 feet to the Ottawa river. That is the height of the Atlantic Beach bridge in North Carolina to give you and idea of how tall it was. Luckily, they had a floating dock to moor the boat. Then the water rose over the wall at the end of the area we were in and we moved through a shallower

channel to the lock gates.

The Ottawa river is wide and the depth averages 50 feet in the channel. The shores are wooded with occasional houses varying from quite grand villas to cottages. We stopped at a marina where they told us that it freezes to ice 3 feet thick in the winter and that trucks drive across it just like a road. We stopped at the marina to buy our first fuel we have bought in Canada. It was $1.63 a liter for 1050 liters.

Tonight we are staying at the Chateau Montebello, another one of the grand old Fairmont hotels build for the railroad journey across Canada. The hotel here is the largest log structure in the world, built out of huge red cedar timbers shipped from British Columbia by rail and completed in 1930 by 3500 workers. It is beautiful. Actually, we are staying in their marina – so we brought our room with us – and we got free internet! We rode our bikes for a short ride around the grounds and took a dip in the pool before coming back to the boat for dinner. We grilled out on the boat, heard live saxophone music drifting over the grounds, and watched the moon rise as we dined.