Bytown Museum

The Bytown Museum occupies the Commissariat, a rugged limestone structure clinging to the base of the Rideau Canal locks. Built in eighteen twenty-seven, this building stored the tools, flour, and gunpowder needed by the workers carving the waterway through the wilderness. Lieutenant Colonel John By, the engineer behind the canal, insisted on such thick stone walls to keep the supplies dry and secure. Today, the locks still lift boats between the Ottawa River and the canal, just as they did two centuries ago.