Bonding With the Erie Canal.
Nerves jangling, I reverse Onondaga off a dock on the Erie Canal. I’m hoping to skipper this purpose-built canal boat through these waters for the next four days.
But first I need to prove myself.
Brian Kennan, the owner of Erie Canal Adventures, the company that charters these boats, is aboard and he’s watching my every move to ascertain my skill level.
I execute several maneuvers and we make for Lock 30, dead ahead. We affix Onondaga’s docklines to cables attached to the wall as the gates close behind us and millions of gallons of water fill the chamber.
We successfully negotiate the locks and cruise back to the Erie Canal Adventures docks. Keenan steps ashore.
“Enjoy the canal,” he yells as I shift into reverse.
History’s canal.
Clinton’s Folly
I’m both a boater and a history buff, so the Erie Canal has long been on my radar. When I discover a company called Erie Canal Adventures, I almost immediately book a charter. Thanks to them, I’d be able to explore the canal in comfort.
For years, I’ve replayed that seminal folk song, “Low Bridge, Everybody Down,” in my head. This week, I learn the backstory.
When the railroad came through, they built bridges spanning the canal. Barges piled high with cargo were in competition with the railroad so the latter kept their bridges low, limiting the boats’ cargo capacity. This meant more business — and money — for the railroad.
In addition to this bridge history, I would learn even more Erie Canal history.
In 1816, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton shared his vision of a waterway joining the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Many of his contemporaries laughed at him.
No graders, no bulldozers, no power tools, a landmass of more than 300 miles and an elevation differential of more than 500 feet separating both waypoints, necessitating the construction of 83 locks and 18 aqueducts.
No wonder they called it “Clinton’s Folly.”
But build it they did, and the canal opened 200 years ago this October.
According to Dan Wiles, director of the Port Byron Erie Canal Heritage Park, “the canal transformed trade and settlement.”
During a stop at this historic site after leaving Onondaga behind, we did a deep-dive into canal history thanks to Wiles.
“It opened the west to immigrants,” he tells us, escorting us through the site, “and lowered freight costs by up to 90%.”
A stagecoach from Albany to Buffalo took two weeks, but “Packet boats covered that distance in five days,” he says. No one’s laughing at Clinton now.
Bonding with the canal
During our pre-trip briefing, Keenan suggests a float plan.
“If you want to do your meals onboard and really get away from it all, go east,” he says. “Go west for that European canal feeling. Think microbreweries, wineries, great restaurants right on the canal.”
We take his advice heading west, but after a mere half-hour off the dock I feel like we’ve already gotten away from it all. A blanket of green nuzzles that first section of the canal. Think pines and cedars, think towering trees clad in hanging emerald vines.
Trembling aspen with glittering silver dollar leaves line the starboard shore. A collection of rudimentary cottages and rickety deserted docks, some barely standing, lounge off our port beam. We could be on a Louisiana bayou.
Even before achieving landfall at day’s end, we see four or five great blue herons, deer on three different occasions and two other boats.
When we cross the Genesee River, steering against a strong current, we enter a shallow canyon of limestone — the same landform that forms the Niagara Escarpment. We pass the occasional tiny waterfall.
We negotiate Locks 32 and 33, the first nervously, the next with panache.
Now we’re “canawlers.”
Our passage leads us through miles of parkland. Sometimes we share the water with kayakers. Sometimes we watch bikers zipping along the omnipresent towpath where mules once towed barges.
Even as we watch, I replay that song’s lyrics in my head: “I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal, 15 years on the Erie Canal.”
Without a doubt, we’re cruising history’s canal. But for hours at a time, we feel like we’re cruising paradise. We’ve begun to bond with the canal. And that’s not counting the allure of some irresistible waypoints along the way.
(Main photo) Prepping for departure on a canal charter
The lift bridge at Fairport
Port Byron Erie Canal Heritage Park
Biking the towpath near Pittsford
A live concert canal-side at Fairport
Learning to negotiate the locks during a pre-departure check
Mark Stevens at the helm of Onondaga
A sculpture dedicated to the role of mules in canal transport
The view from the dock at Pittsford
Learning about canal history at Palmyra
Irresistible waypoints
Moments after tying up to the dock a Pittsford, just past a collection of weatherbeaten historic buildings off our starboard beam, I look across the water at a congregation of buildings hugging the shore: Aladdin’s Natural Eatery with its rambling shoreside two-story porch, a couple of boutiques and a microbrewery named Lock 32.
I’m really starting to bond with the canal.
First thing next morning, my wife, Sharon, and I climb the steps leading up from a pier-side bandstand to stroll the village.
We pass a brick building, once a hotel, that was built in 1812. We walk to the Phoenix building, an early 18th century hallmark of Federal-style architecture. This port is recognized as New York State’s oldest incorporated village.
Next, we opt for some exercise, making use of the bikes provided by Erie Canal Adventures. We trace the route of the towpath, biking into the forest at Erie Canal Nature Preserve. I round a corner and come face-to-face with a deer 10 feet away.
I savor that magical moment even as we make our way back to town, stopping for a well-deserved ice cream at Pittsford Farms and Dairy, yet one more historic building.
Pittsford is, in short, an irresistible waypoint.
The next night finds us tied up alongside a tiny but attractive park at Spencerport. We arrive too late to explore the Spencerport Depot Museum and too early for the weekend’s annual German Fest, but we do discover an appealing dinner spot, dining waterside at Clutch on the Canal.
Fairport, in contrast to the soporific charm of Spencerport, is downright hopping. Restaurants hug the shore hard by a bunting-decorated lift bridge; shops in period buildings abound.
Dinner tonight is a stroll up from the canal, in a development called the Cannery, boasting a delightful restaurant called Compané Trattoria (don’t miss the pizza), three breweries and even a distillery. After dinner, we stop to enjoy the riffs of a live jazz band playing in a canal-side park.
That’s when I have my epiphany.
Roughly 200 villages and towns are scattered along the waterway and we’ve visited only four. But each has been unique, appealing and welcoming, so it’s hardly a big leap to assume the other settlements here are equally worth a visit.
I’ve truly begun to bond with the Erie Canal.
History’s canal
On the night before we boarded Onondaga, we stayed in a nearby village called Palmyra. Early the next morning, we strolled the historic town, billed as “Queen of the Erie Canal Towns.”
We visited the nearby Erie Canal Depot museum, we paused to reflect at a place called “Bloody Corners,” so named because “canawlers” once fought here, battling for coveted jobs on the boats that passed by so long ago.
We approached a pedestrian bridge, stopping halfway across, serenaded by a choir of birds and the plaintive call of a train horn.
Reflecting on the history we were about to experience first-hand, the 200 years of stories we couldn’t wait to hear, my wife and I gazed at the waters flowing below the bridge.
The waters of history’s canal.
Float Plan
The Erie Canal, an integral part of the Great Loop for many boaters, forms part of the New York State Canals System, which also includes the Oswego, Champlain and Cayuga-Seneca canals. Its website offers important boating information, from canal “rules of the road” to Notices to Mariners. Visit CANALS.NY.GOV.
Given the fact that the canal opened 200 years ago this October, visit this summer and expect a wealth of related celebrations and festivals. For updates — or just a great history lesson thanks to the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor — check out ERIECANALWAY.ORG/BICENTENNIAL.
Erie Canal Adventures offers a fleet of 11 canal boats — some perfect for families, some better suited to couples. You can charter for two to three nights or bond with the canal with a seven-night adventure. For rates and availability, view ERIECANALADVENTURES.COM.
PHOTO COURTESY ERIE CANAL ADVENTURES FACEBOOK
