A Ride on the Erie Canal

We went back to church at Holy Cross Lutheran in Clarence. The discussion of our tourist activities with some of the parishioners led to the Anchor Bar where Buffalo Wings were created. Sue McNerny, whose husband grew up in Buffalo, had recommended we make a stop there, and we now have directions. I guess since we’ve tried all the other “local” specialties we need to go there before we leave. Now that we have another week here, that will work.

After church we drove 15 miles north to Lockport for a ride on the Erie Canal. Our captain gave a very interesting travelogue as we went through Locks 34 and 35;
under two lift bridges; an “upside down” railroad bridge and back again. John and I learned the song “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal” when we were in elementary school. It was fun to see a piece of “Clinton’s Folly” ditch built between Albany and Buffalo. Completed in 1825, 363 miles long, dug by hand to be four feet deep and forty feet wide, including locks to level out the elevation changes. The captain noted that without the locks, the speed of water falling east to west from Lake Erie to the Hudson River would be tremendous and prohibit all boat travel.


The original locks were replaced with “modern” locks early in the 1900s and the number was reduced. For example, Locks 34 and 35 that we traveled through replaced 5 locks. The new locks raise or lower you 25 feet each. At Lockport the old locks are still there beside the new ones. In other places you see remains of the old ones. The Canal was also widened to about eighty feet and deepened. Easy to do when you have mechanical means.

Today there is no commercial traffic on the canal except for tour boats. The Erie Canal opened up the country because people could travel by barge to Buffalo, then west by ship on the Great Lakes to Minnesota. Goods could come the reverse and Buffalo became a large grain port and North Tonawanda (where we are staying) became a large lumber port.

The Canal is drained every November and refilled in April. It takes seven days to drain. Early on they realized the damage done to the sides of the Canal when it froze and expanded.

From Lockport we drove west and ended up in Niagara Falls. I was hoping to find a farm stand with fresh peaches for sale, but no luck. We ate dinner at the Red Coach Inn beside the Niagara River.