The government of Nova Scotia commissioned Owen to follow the Shubenacadie waterway from the Atlantic Ocean to Cobequid Bay.

The Shubenacadie Canal was envisioned to facilitate transportation between Halifax and the agricultural, timber and coal producing areas of northern Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley.

The new company altered the original British stonework lock designs to use more inexpensive North American stone and wooden construction.

[2] However the canal company showed little profit and experienced many problems relating to frigid winters which damaged the locks linking the freshwater lakes.

The Shubenacadie Canal Commission was established to stabilize the deterioration of the remaining locks and attempt to restore some of them to working order.

An interpretive site for the canal is located in the Fairbanks Centre in Dartmouth's Shubie Park, along the shores of Lake Micmac.

that large[quantify] amounts of silt were flowing off the Dartmouth Crossing mall project construction site and into the canal.