Steamboat Connections

An impressive history of the first twenty-five years of steam navigation on the Ottawa and upper St Lawrence Rivers. In Steamboat Connections Frank Mackey gives us a narrative account of the first twenty-five years of steam navigation along the St Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. Relying on a wealth of primary archival sources, Mackey focuses on the development of steamer traffic from 1816 - when the foundations were laid for the first stage-and-steamboat line between Montreal and Upper Canada - to the early 1840s - when locks, canals, innovations, and human daring conquered the rapids on those rivers and allowed for navigation between Montreal and the Great Lakes. He shows how, starting in 1841, small steamers ran "the circuit" - down the rapids of the St Lawrence to Montreal and then back up to Kingston and other Great Lakes ports via the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal.