Location: Kirkfield, Ontario
Date of Completion: 1905
Engineer: Richard Birdsall Rogers
Nominated by: Laurie Scott, MPP (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock)
A machine as big as an industrial building, capable of lifting a boat 15 metres up, the Kirkfield Lift Lock is an extraordinary achievement of human ingenuity and an important part of Ontario’s built heritage.
Trent-Severn Waterway
A critical piece of transportation infrastructure, the Kirkfield Lift Lock is just one of 44 locks that form the 386 kilometre-long Trent-Severn Waterway, a complex system of locks, canals, and lifts connecting Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay. Canals such as this one played an important role in the 1800s settlement and development of North America, bypassing rapids and waterfalls to create new routes between navigable bodies of water. And, unlike our U.S. neighbours, canals in Canada were, for the most part, government-led initiatives rather than private ventures.
Starting within North America’s Canal Age (1790–1855), which saw the construction of numerous important canals like the Eerie Canal (1825), Rideau Canal (1826), and the first iteration of the Welland Canal (1829), the Trent-Severn Waterway was originally surveyed as a military route in the 1830s, with its first lock built in 1833 at Bobcaygeon. Connecting Pigeon Lake with Sturgeon Lake, the intent was to open up the interior of the province to development, encouraging agriculture, forestry, and commerce along its route.
The waterway’s development was slow—its route often used as a political tool to garner votes—and subsequent locks and canals were not built until the 1880s. By 1904, the waterway reached Peterborough and Lake Simcoe, and in 1920 it finally reached its final destination of Georgian Bay.
Map of the Trent—Severn waterway. Map courtesy of Parks Canada.
By the time the waterway was completed, its usefulness as a commercial waterway was over. Ships transporting goods in the Great Lakes were far too large for the canal’s width, and railway connections now handled the majority of freight transportation within the province’s interior. However, its scenic location crossing through the heart of Ontario’s cottage country—from the Kawarthas through to Muskoka—allowed it to take on a new life as a major tourism destination.
Today, the Trent-Severn Waterway is managed by Parks Canada as part of the national canal system and welcomes more than one million visitors each year.
A Canadian First
Of the Trent-Severn Waterway’s 44 locks, 37 of them are conventional locks, one is a marine railway, two are flight locks, and two—including the Kirkfield Lift Lock—are hydraulic lift locks.
Hydraulic lifts are huge machines powered by the weight and pressure of a large volume of water. They are used in place of conventional locks where there is a great difference in water level within a very short distance, like where there is a waterfall or dam. Unlike conventional locks where boats move from one chamber to the next, hydraulic lift locks consist of two chambers that move up and down in synchronicity, acting as counterweights to each other. Each boat chamber rests on a huge piston in cylindrical casings. When it is time to move, the valve between the two casings is opened and the weight of the upper boat chamber, which always contains more water and is therefore heavier, pushes its piston down. This displaces water which goes into the second chamber and pushes that piston up. When the boat chambers are at the same level, the valve closes and the gates of both chambers open. This allows additional water from the upper level to flow into the upper lock chamber and the lower lock chamber to discharge the same amount of water, setting the system up for the next round of movement.
The idea of doing a hydraulic lift lock came from Canadian engineer Richard Birdsall Rogers, who had been commissioned to travel to Europe to study existing boat lifts in France, Belgium, and England. The ones in Ontario most resemble the lifts of the old Canal du Centre in Belgium, which are now protected at UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Section drawing of lift lock, cutting through well. Image courtesy of Parks Canada.
The Kirkfield Lock, along with the Peterborough Lift Lock, which is also located on the Trent-Severn Waterway, are equally exceptional sites. They were the first lift locks ever to be built in Canada, proving that the technology could be successfully applied within the harsh Canadian climate.They also hold world records as the highest hydraulic lift locks in the world: Kirkfield coming in at number two with a lift of 15 metres, and Peterborough topping the list at almost 20 metres. While sharing many similarities, the Kirkfield and Peterborough locks differentiate themselves in material: the former is British steel while the latter is concrete.
Their unique mechanical systems, and their sheer scale and ambition, make them an important part of Canada’s built heritage and our province’s development story.
This post forms part of our World Architecture Day Queen’s Park Picks 2023 series in which the OAA asked Ontario’s Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) to nominate a prominent building, past or present, in their riding for a chance to learn more about it. Check out the rest of the series to learn more about great buildings across the province!