Ruggles Wright, the son of Philemon Wright, was impressed by the use of the timber slide in the Scandinavian forest industry. He constructed the first slide in Canada on the Wright property at the ChaudiΦre and charged $1 per crib to users. In 1849 the government purchased his slide for $40,000 and constructed others to bypass rapids all along the Ottawa river. The construction of the slide required considerable expertise in determining its location in relation to the river bed and the currents and in building the approaches (coffer dams, channels), the walls of cribbing, the plane, and finally the control gates. Slides were constructed on the Ottawa at the ChaudiΦre in 1829, des Chats in 1832, at the ChaudiΦre (south side) in 1836, Portage-du-Fort in 1838-39, Calumet in 1843, and des Joachims in 1843.
