A History of the Murray Canal - Hardcoverby Dan Buchanan (Author), Sean Scally (Photographer) During the 1790s, Upper Canada's first lieutenant governor, John Graves Simcoe, promoted the idea of a canal in the area between the Bay of Quinte and Presqu'ile Bay on Lake Ontario, but his idea did not come into fruition until decades later. Why did it take so long? In A History of the Murray Canal, historian Dan Buchanan provides a detailed account of the building of the Murray Canal and how