Smiths Falls is a small eastern Ontario town on the Rideau Canal, about an hour from Ottawa by car and on the rail line toward Toronto. It is not a grand destination, but it has enough canal and railway history to justify a spare day if you like working waterways, old stations, and towns built around transport.
The Rideau Canal is the main reason to stop. Smiths Falls has three lockstations, including the modern Combined Lockstation, where boats rise through the largest single lift on the canal. The canal itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Canada's great 19th-century engineering projects, still operated by Parks Canada as a living waterway rather than a static monument.
The railway layer is just as strong. Smiths Falls was once a junction where lines radiated toward Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Brockville, and Napanee. The Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario uses the old Canadian Northern station, while the raised Smiths Falls Bascule Bridge still stands beside the canal as a rare surviving rolling-lift railway bridge.
This is a selective stop, not a must for every Ontario itinerary. But for a traveler already in Ottawa, Kingston, or the Rideau corridor, Smiths Falls has a clear identity and enough real anchors to beat another ordinary afternoon in town.