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Capital Lives by Valerie Knowles
Price $ 17.00>> 
Engineers
Engineers employed in the building of the Rideau Waterway were
the first members of their profession to arrive in what is now Ottawa.
Members of the military, whose names have long since been forgotten,
they were charged with mapping a route for the 120-mile plus waterway,
designing canal locks, dams and water basins and dredging channels.
Only later in the century did some some celebrated engineers settle
in Ottawa and then they were involved principally with railways.
One of these was Thomas Coltrin Keefer, who wrote The Philosophy
of Railroads, a stirring plea for the expansion of Canadian railways.
He moved to Ottawa in 1864, two years before the first City of Ottawa
department of engineers was set up. An even more illustrious engineer
described in this book was Sir Sandford Fleming, who settled in
the capital in 1869 when he was involved with the Intercolonial
Railway. Although not nearly as well-known as Sir Sandford, Sir
Collingwood Schreiber merited inclusion in this collection because
he was another outstanding railway engineer who made Ottawa his
home.
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