Author: Coral Lindsay

Copyright ©Kars Branch of the Women's Institute

ISBN 978-0-9781361-2-3; 214 pages; soft cover

Kars on the Rideau has been updated by its original author and well-known local heritage interpreter Coral Lindsay, a lifetime resident of the village on the west bank of the Rideau River south of Ottawa.

 Mrs. Lindsay has added more than 300 photographs, images, and maps, recent archaeological findings and additional families and facts to the story of the founders and farms introduced in the first edition, published in 1972. That book was based on the work of the Kars Women's Institute when a nine volume Tweedsmuir History of Kars was compiled at the suggestion of Lady Tweedsmuir, wife of the then Governor General of Canada. Much of the social and economic change over the 38-years since is captured in the book’s additional information and pictures.

The 214-page book covers several themes of Kars history, ranging from the geological to the genealogical, and offers the reader insight into the residents’ feelings, attitudes and concerns of their time. For example when judged from the present, readers might conclude the early villagers – despite facing the vagaries of weather, wars, and an agrarian lifestyle – were much happier and satisfied with their lives than might be expected.