Parks Canada riding a slow boat to new Rideau Canal services
Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: May 13, 2016 | Last Updated: May 13, 2016 4:42 PM EDT
New tourist experiences and services along the Ottawa section of the historic Rideau Canal are coming. More slowly than Parks Canada first promised, but coming all the same.
In March 2015, Parks Canada invited bids from companies able to provide a package of “innovative experiences and leading edge services” on and along the canal from the Ottawa locks to Hartwells locks at Carleton University.
The move effectively shut down the canal tours that Paul’s Boat Lines had been operating for 66 years and left the nation’s capital bereft of boat tours on the UNESCO World Heritage Site last summer.
The Parks Canada tender said all the new experiences and services had to be offered by May 20, 2016 — the official start of this year’s canal boating system. But with that deadline less than a week away, none of the promised improvements are yet in place.
Not to worry. That schedule was extended after Parks Canada signed a 42-year lease last September with a new operator, Ottawa Boat Cruise, said Jewel Cunningham, director of the agency’s Ontario Waterways unit, given that the company had to build two new 100-passenger electric boats.
The first boat is still under construction and won’t be launched until mid-June at the earliest. Company president Robert Taillefer said he wants to test it for a month or two before starting construction on the second boat, which won’t be operational until next summer.
By starting the season late, the company will miss cashing in on the lucrative Tulip Festival tourist market. But Taillefer said that was unavoidable.
“Building a ship usually takes close to a year or a year and a half. We’re trying to do it in a couple of months. We’re pushing everything, but we want to keep everything to Transport Canada standards while making sure it’s well done.”
Once the tours begin, passengers will be able to hop off or on at Lansdowne Park and Dow’s Lake, though they’ll have to pay a $5 surcharge on top of the $27 adult tour price.
They’ll also be able to catch a free shuttle that will pick up customers at 12 downtown hotels and book tickets online at rideaucanalcruises.ca — a service not offered by Paul’s Boat Lines.
As well, a new smartphone app will provide details and photos of attractions in the National Capital Region in nine languages.
Ultimately, Ottawa Boat Cruise hopes to operate, with its partners, a full range of tourism services, including bus and walking tours, accommodations and packages with attractions such as the Museum of Nature. “We want to have a complete service,” said Taillefer, citing Banff-based tourism giant Brewster Travel as a model.
But all of that will take time.
“We still need to work out a lot of details,” Taillefer admitted. “There’s a lot of stuff in (Parks Canada’s tender) that we can’t produce in the short time since we signed the lease. We need to go step by step and make sure that every step is done properly. How long that will take, time will tell.”
While some of the new services may be delayed, Cunningham said Parks Canada was excited by Ottawa Boat Cruise’s plans and is confident that it will be able to offer the expanded array of experiences the agency originally envisioned.
Even the enhanced cruise operation will open up new opportunities, Cunningham said. The barge-style construction will facilitate the romantic dinner cruises and charters the company is planning to offer, she said.
The lease makes Ottawa Boat Cruise the sole tourism operator on the urban stretch of the canal, something Parks Canada thinks will help tourists by giving them a sole point of contact for canal-related activities.
Other companies could still propose additional experiences or services, Cunningham said, but would have to do so in partnership with Ottawa Boat Cruise.
dbutler@postmedia.com
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