Robert Legget offers a rich history of the Rideau Canal - an adventure in engineering, built by soldiers and civilian labourers through swamp, bush and rocky wilderness - as well as a guide to current places of interest along the waterway and stories of the pioneers who settled there. He resurrects the controversy surrounding Colonel John By, Superintending Engineer of the construction of the canal, whose leadership was debated in the British press and after whom Bytown was named. Bytown is now Ottawa; Legget traces the city's development from construction camp to national capital.
