Smiths Falls July 7 - 8

We reached Smiths Falls on the 7th. The picture shows the falls & rapids for which the town is named. Of course this was the site of a mill which meant early industry. Now industry in many of these small towns is dying. Smiths Falls was known as Chocolate Town due to a Hershey Chocolate plant in town. Unfortunately, it closed in December 2008 when production moved to Mexico, laying off about 600 employees from this roughly 300,000 sq ft plant. The first night we went to an English Pub and had some English food. I had a dish called "Mash and Mess" or something like that. It was sausage, peppers and onions. Kaye had fish and chips.




Smiths Falls is the headquarters for the administration of the Rideau Canal. I can't pass up a museum so I went through the Rideau Canal Museum in the admin building for the Rideau. The Museum was just a short walk across the canal from our boat. Nice displays and a stairway to a tower to look out over the city. The picture is off color because I forgot to reset it from a tungsten light setting I was using inside.


This is our boat tied up to a floating dock in Smiths Falls. The rental car was about 1.5 miles away, NAPA 1 mile, and WalMart about 1 mile. A very convenient location but we still wanted to rent a car to see more of the town and help us get groceries. It actually took two stores to get all the groceries we needed.







We visited the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smith Falls. They had some unusual equipment including this Dentist Car. For 30-40 years the Canadian Government would place this car and others in remote areas, often First Nation (native Indian) areas. There would be a Dentist that would live in the car for a year or two and provide dental services to the children of the local population that would travel many miles to seek help, often by canoe. The car was set up with all the implements of dentistry including a chair and X-ray room.


These track worker cars were a little unique also. In the background in the barn, was a 1947 (I think) Cadillac that was converted to be a track inspection car.

The museum hosts were volunteers but obviously train enthusiasts. I spent quite a bit of time with them asking questions and talking about riding modern trains.








From Smiths Falls we decided to drive to Perth. Perth has some old buildings with many made of the local limestone. Shaw's is an old hardware store from the 1800's. It sits right downtown. One of the things the town seemed to be quite proud of was, that it was the sight of the last duel fought in Canada. They even have the pistols.

We drove around some of the town and walked the downtown part. The water below the bridge connects to a canal. The Tay Canal comes off the Rideau Canal and up to Perth. It is narrow and shallow and not quite right for our boat. So that is why we elected to drive here. The picture shows some of the architecture and the flowers. We just love the flowers the Canadians put out. This is also close to where I bought my first Beavertail. Stop laughing! It was actually pretty good. It is baked dough kind of like the elephant ears we get at County fairs in the US. You can order it with toppings and I chose apples and Cinnamon which was very tasty.