The last few miles of the canal uses the Niagara River to make the connection with Lake Erie at the city of Buffalo NY. There is one last lock parallel the river that lifted us about 15ft, the fall of the river for the final 8-mile run. From the top of the lock there is a dike to separate us from the raging Niagara which was flowing at 12kts! We would have gone over the falls had we traveled the river. The dike didn’t look very substantial as shown in the picture but it worked.
How appropriate that General Mills has a plant in Buffalo that waffles the smell of fresh baked Cheerios. And how sweet to see the mast back where it belongs, yeah! What an amazing waterway full of history and surprise. So glad we did the full length, the best towns are west of the Oswego exit to Lake Ontario. It’s glory years have passed and it’s no longer commercial but it is a wonderful opportunity for those with a boat to explore some history and to dream of what it was like. Brian’s highlight was traces of the old canal, the locks and swimming in the lakes. Lucy loved the villages on the western end, the scenery of the eastern, and the battlefields. As for me, I marveled at the engineering and how it evolved, the dying towns and the people who live there, and the beauty of the Mohawk River. My imagination was charged with the thoughts of settlers and Indians making the best of the wilderness and why it was the British saw it as so important to holding the colonies.
Thank you New York and Fed’s for keeping this treasure alive, it was a privilege to be one of the few to experience it. Cheerio!
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