Lance & Brenda's Loop + Exploring Others' Planning Stories
I’ve been interested in the Erie Canal since grade school when we sang “Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, for we’re comin’ to a town”. The whole idea of mules and towpaths was intriguing. We got a taste of that when we did a narrowboat charter in the Midlands of England in 2005. There was a walking trail along the canal where the towpath used to be.
The boat entered Canada on July 5, 2023 and left on September 15, 2023. Lance and Brenda made a trip home mid August, but the boat was there for, what, 72 days?
Our last few nights in Canada included a lock wall with electricity (Frankford), a marina with free laundry (Trent Port in Trenton) and an anchorage that turned out to not be very protected from the way the wind blew in the middle of the night (Witlow Pt in Hay Bay).
The locking systems on the Trent Severn are really amazing! Lots of good ingenuity and engineering went into them.
The busier locks and those with long drops use hydraulic pumps to raise and lower the boats. The less busy locks with shorter rises/drops still use manual methods to open valves and to open the gates.
We left Orillia the Thursday before the last weekend of summer, Labour Day weekend.
It is a huge deal in Ontario, Canada because it really does mark the end of summer. Schools all start up the day after Labour Day, so kids and teachers and everyone are back to the grind.
It turned out to be a really good weather weekend, so there were a ton of people out enjoying the water.
Continue reading “Orillia to Lakefield – Lock 26 – Labour Day Weekend”