Lachine Canal National Historic Site

This guide to the Lachine Canal in Montreal opens on the muddy bank where John Redpath opened Canada's first sugar refinery in 1854, staffed largely by Irish immigrants who had just dug the canal by hand. You'll hear how the canal's own current, built to lift ships past the Lachine Rapids, ended up turning mill wheels for dozens of factories along its length, and how the surrounding neighborhoods of Griffintown and Point Saint Charles grew around that work. Listen while walking the old towpath, tracing the route that once moved sugar, flour and hops toward the docks.