The History of the Desjardins Canal

The History of the Desjardins Canal. Welcome to the Port of Dundas!. The park in which you stand was once the turning basin of the old Desjardins Canal, a watercourse dredged through the marsh of Cootes Paradise that allowed ships to sail from Lake Ontario right into the Valley. From the 1840s to the 1860s the Canal ushered in an era of prosperity which made Dundas a hub of industry and commerce., Before the railways, when water was the only viable means of getting goods to market, the people of Dundas hatched a plan to connect their Town to the shipping of the Great Lakes. A mill owner named Richard Hatt was the first to put forth the idea during the War of 18 12, but after his death it was his clerk Pierre Desjardins who would lend his life and name to the enterprise., After much effort the Desjardins Canal opened in 1837. Soon, ships laden with foreign goods were visiting Dundas to trade for local produce. Dundas became the destination for farmers from across the region who would bring their loaded wagons and stay at the many famous hotels and taverns which were built in the downtown. After its height in the mid-1850s, the canal trade began a slow decline as railways spread across the country and ships needed deeper harbours. Industrial investment moved to Hamilton instead, and by the 1870s the Desjardins Canal was effectively out of business.