It’s our first morning on the Erie Canal, a waterway slicing through the countryside of upstate New York, from Lake Erie to the Hudson River, for nearly 600 kilometres. My wife and I stroll across a pedestrian bridge spanning the mirrored waters in Palmyra, billed as “Queen of the Canal Towns.”
The peace is interrupted by the calls of birds, and the plaintive whistle of a nearby train. We climb a gentle hill toward the town itself. Here is a place called “Bloody Corners,” so named because carousing “canawlers” once fought for berths as crew on the boats that passed by. Here is a bygone depot where travellers booked passage on canal boats headed west.
Today, vacationers can travel the length of the Erie Canal aboard their own self-drive boats — as we’re doing on this trip — to appreciate first-hand the significance of this waterway, which will celebrate its 200th birthday next year. Beyond being a tourism destination, it’s recognized as a National Heritage Corridor for its transformative role in American history.
A view from the writer’s canal boat journey.
“The Erie Canal revolutionized both settlement and commerce, but it’s particularly unique because it’s still in use,” explains curator Dan Wiles, when we meet later at the interpretive centre of the Port Byron Old Erie Canal Heritage Park, just one of the numerous canal-related museums or heritage sites along the waterway. “Even today, you can experience it by car, bike or boat.”
Before the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, travelling across New York state by stagecoach could easily take two weeks, and transporting freight by ox-drawn wagon much longer. After the canal, which was an engineering feat of channel digging and lock building to bypass the waterfalls blocking passage to the west, boat passengers could go from Albany to Buffalo in as little as five days.
The Erie Canal runs for nearly 600 kilometres, passing lush settings like this one.
For four days, we pilot our little 32-foot red and green canal boat, a vessel purpose-built for these waters, and part of the fleet offered by Erie Canal Adventures. Travellers don’t have to be experienced boaters to rent — the company will run through a comprehensive lesson and on-water tutorial before sending you off.
The Erie Canal links 200 communities, but on this journey we only have time to explore a handful. In the historic village of Pittsford, we dine on beef tenderloin and shrimp scampi at Richardson’s Canal House, located in a tavern built in 1818, then indulge in ice cream made from scratch at Pittsford Farms Dairy & Bakery, whose setting is even older, dating back to 1814.
In Fairport, we create our own personalized pizza at at Compané Trattoria, sample drinks at multiple breweries, including a New England IPA at Preservation Beer Co., and take in one of the village’s gazebo concerts by the canal, held weekly for much of the summer.
We motor west through park-like settings, beneath modern highways, the rumble of trucks overhead, through shallow canyons, carved out by engineers two centuries ago, past little waterfalls. We spend hours on the water, seeing more wildlife than people, more birds than boats.
Travellers can also pedal the Erie Canalway Trail, which hugs the waterway’s banks.
Travellers can also pedal the Erie Canalway Trail, which hugs the waterway’s banks, on a leisurely ride or self-guided, multi-day inn-to-inn excursion. One morning, my wife and I mount our bikes dockside in Pittsford and head west. Finding a side trail leading into the Erie Canal Nature Preserve, we turn off to follow this path past wetlands, through dense forest.
Rounding a bend, I encounter a deer, standing in a sunlit glade three metres away, which stares at me before bounding into the forest. It’s just one of the many indelible memories I take away from my time here, a place rich with natural beauty, quaint communities and foundational American history.
Mark Stevens travelled as a guest of Erie Canal Adventures and Travel Alliance Partnership, which did not review or approve this article.
