The history of early Canada starts with water. Many communities were created at the foot of rapids, a natural spot for river travelers to stop. Montréal for example, one of the great cities of Canada, was founded at the foot of the Lachine Rapids. In the same way, Hull was founded by Philemon Wright in 1800 at the foot of the Chaudière Falls, on the north side of the Ottawa River. Across from Hull, on the south side of the Ottawa, the Rideau River flowed down in a glorious set of twin falls.

The Rideau route was only known to natives who used parts of it to travel from Lake Ontario to the Ottawa River. The earliest written report is a survey expedition initiated by the British government in 1783 when Lieutenant Gershom French, led by a native guide, went from Montréal, up the Ottawa River to the Rideau Falls, up the Rideau River to its source in the Rideau Lakes, down through the lower Rideau lakes into the Gananoque River system (which is where the Rideau lakes flowed to at that time), to the St. Lawrence at Gananoque. The path to Kingston as we know it today was non-navigable (there was no direct connection between the southern Rideau lakes and the Cataraqui River), Lt. French had to go to Kingston by heading up the St. Lawrence River.

During the war of 1812, naval strength was a major issue. The naval shipyards at Kingston were crucial to Canada's defence, and a safe supply route from Montréal to Kingston was crucial to any war effort. After the war ended, it was discovered that the Americans had been hatching a plan to stop access to the St. Lawrence. So it was in 1816, Lieutenant Joshua Jebb of the Royal Engineers was given the duty of surveying a route for a navigable waterway which in part was "to follow up the course of the Cataroque from Kingston Mills, and, keeping a northerly direction, to isolate into Rideau Lake, and descend the river which flows from it to its confluence with the Ottawa." Jebb also surveyed a second route via Irish Creek and in his final report he preffered the Irish Creek route over a route going through the Rideau lakes.

It was four years after Lt. Jebb's survey, that a important figure, Charles Lennox, the Fourth Duke of Richmond, and the Governor-in-Chief of British North America mad the decision to make a tour of the Canadas. This included a close inspection of the planned route of the Rideau Canal. In 1819, he began his tour, leaving Québec City, travelling to Montréal, and on to Kingston. From Kingston he headed overland, along rough tracks and trails, until he eventually came to the new community of Perth, on August 21.

Unfortunately, the Duke had been bitten by a soldier's pet fox in Sorel (near Montréal) two months before, and it was in Perth that the symptoms of rabies first were being shown. He was able to continue on to the new settlement of Richmond, but a day later, in a settler's cabin near Richmond, he passed away. Prior to his death, he had been able to get an important British figure, the Duke of Wellington, who at the time was the Master-General of the Ordnance (the branch of the government in charge of fortifications and canals), interested in the Rideau Canal project. Wellington wrote a memorandum on March 1, 1819 which, in part, advocated that the Rideau Canal should be constructed as part of the safety system for Canada.

No action was taken on the Duke of Wellington's recommendations to continue with the building of the Rideau Canal. The next event was in 1821 when the legislature in York appointed a commission to look into improving the internal navigation of the province. The Rideau was part of this commission, which made its report in 1824. The commission hired Samuel Clowes, a civil engineer, to make a detailed survey and cost analysis. Clowes conducted surveys of the Rideau route in 1823 and 1824. His answers ranged from a ludicrously low estimate of £ 62,258 for small 4 foot deep locks, to an equally unrealistically low £ 230,785 for a system with locks 100 feet long by 22 feet wide. These original low estimates would come to haunt Colonel by when he was shown with the task of actually constructing the canal. Clowes provided the first detailed level survey of the route and recommended taking the route via the Rideau Lakes as opposed to Lt. Jebb's 1816 recommendation of a route via Irish Creek.
 

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