Very interesting. I think that we forget that most of the thing that were are use to, that are made from steel or concrete, started out being made from wood. Enjoy you vacation.
Not only clever, but ancient. The most common lock gate style, the "mitre" gate, was invented by Leonardo da Vinci. Records of other gate styles exist at least as far back as the 1300s. Regardless of the gate, the basic concept of shipping locks has been around for thousands of years. The Rideau Canal which Art is filming on terminates in a remarkable flight lock, in Ottawa. A flight lock is a string of sequential locks which feed directly into each other (i.e. the lower gate of one lock is the upper gate of the next one, with no stretch of river or canal between them). The Rideau flight locks in Ottawa step 24 meters (79 feet) down eight locks on a steep hill from the canal to the Ottawa River. The steepness of this flight of locks qualifies it as a "staircase lock". www.rideau-info.com/canal/locks/01-08-ottawa.html Now for a completely different style of shipping lock which requires more modern building materials Google "lift lock" (The Peterborough Ontario lift lock is a beautiful example, raising boats 20 meters in one go). Lift locks are also extremely clever since they require no power to raise the ships from the lower level. Instead, the upper side tub is filled about an inch higher than the lower side, which is enough extra water weight to force the upper side down (even if only the lower side has boats in it) which causes hydraulic pistons to push the lower side up to the top as the other side drops, like a see-saw. The water then drains the extra inch from the tub now at the bottom while the river/canal tops up the higher tub with that extra inch of water so the process can be repeated. Brilliant! The gates on lift locks are completely different. The one in Peterborough lays down flat onto the canal bottom so the boats can sail over it before it is raised again to seal the tub for the trip up or down.
Nice vid. A couple of points... what you are calling a lock "door" is actually a lock gate. Also, several times you refer to the gate as the "lock". A shipping lock is actually the whole area between the upper and lower gates where the water can be raised and lowered.
It's always interesting to see the perspective of someone new to thing that seem normal to me. I grew up and live near this canal an every single lock along the way is like this. There is a large cascading one at the far end in Ottawa that is right next to Parliament. It just seemed normal to me. They are all great places to visit, with green spaces, trails and picnic spaces at many of them.
I grew up next to the Welland Canal, so canals are not new. But the general public is not allowed ANYWHERE near the working aspects of that canal and the sides are even all fenced off now.
Hey Art, while most of the Welland Canal locks are off limits to the public, they do still have a public viewing platform and museum at lock three. In a previous life I fixed RADAR and navigation equipment on "lakers" and "salties" and had occasion to cross over the tops of some of the huge steel lock gates a few times to board or disembark as a ship was raised or lowered. My father was a Naval Architect at Port Weller Dry Docks in St. Catharines, so our family probably had more exposure and access to the Welland Canal than most, and I've traversed it's length a few times (sometimes at the top of a radar mast with a belt full of tools). At the Lake Ontario end of the canal there are remains of all three of the earlier iterations of the Welland Canal, with the #2 and #3 version remains accessible from the Seaway service road just east of Port Weller Dry Dock (officially private property but AFAIK they've never policed it, and we used to explore it all the time years ago when I was a teenager). The old wooden gates are long gone and the water just rushes down between the old lock walls like a cascade. It's fascinating, but I find it rather spooky and oddly scary. In Port Dalhousie on the west end of St. Catharines there is an abandoned lock and spillway, and if you look at the edge of Lake Ontario just offshore from Lakeside Park on Google Satellite View (yes, the Rush song Lakeside Park) you can see the shadow of the old entrance piers to the first Welland Canal from 200 years ago just under the surface and only really visible from the air. (I just looked again and Google has unfortunately updated the image with photos taken when the beach sand was stirred up and obscuring the bottom some distance out into the lake so you can't see the old piers right now, but those images get updated every so often so I'm sure they will show up again at some point)
Martin, I drove the seaway road many times in the 70s and I had no idea what you are talking about... The area east of the Dry Docks is just farmland, to my recollection. I had a close look at the satellite and I can see some evidence far south of there near Glendale Ave by the GM factory. Is that where you meant? I don't see anything up north by the Dry Docks. Either way, thanks for the detailed response. I was always curious about life on a laker and a few years ago was able to tour one at Cleveland. They have one set up as a museum there beside the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock+Roll Hall of Fame
Sounds like you were tooling around on the Seaway road about the same time I was. I vividly remember nearly rolling over my first car, a 1972 Toyota Corolla, on the Seaway road just south of the Dry Docks sometime around 1975. I spun out on the oil spray the Seaway used to keep the dust down on the service road, and slid backwards down into one of the deep ditches beside the road, then sliding along on my roof crease for about 20 feet before luckily tipping back down onto my wheels. My buddy in the passenger seat was white as a sheet. LOL One of the farmers you mentioned was kind enough to tow me out of the ditch with his tractor, and he laughed as he told me he had to do it all the time. It's been years since I drove that road, but I think you are right, the remains of the old versions of the Welland Canal are up at least past Lock 3, and you can actually get onto the Seaway road from farther south than we used to, but I lived north of Lakeshore so I usually started off from the northern end next to Port Weller Dry Dock. Perusing Google Satellite View I spotted one of the ruins I remember just east of the Homer Bridge on Glendale Avenue. You can see the old stone lock walls in the satellite image... bit.ly/2Q17OAM It appears they built Glendale Avenue right over the northern end of that lock, with two big steel culverts under the bridge between the old lock walls to pass the water which still flows down the old waterway. Now if you keep following the old canal route southward there is another abandoned lock just a bit south of Glendale right next to the golf course, and another just a bit more south than that. Keep going toward Lake Erie and you can see another one right after the railway bridge... bit.ly/2MNksVY ...and yet another one just around the next bend in the canal. The 40 small locks on the original canal were much closer together than the current eight huge ones so you don't have to travel far downcanal to get to the next one, and the next one... Although my mother still lives in that same house north of Lakeshore, I moved from St. Catharines in 1979 so it has been years since I last visited these relics. I think I might need to do a bit of reminiscent tourism the next time I visit there. P.S. If you switch Google Satellite View to 3D mode you can really spin around the old locks and clearly see the stone lock walls, the notches at both ends of the lock where the wooden gates used to be, and the changes in elevation at the top end of each lock, which now result in little waterfalls. P.P.S. Something about this spot used to terrify me back then and I decided to stay very clear of it. If I go exploring there again I think I'll heed my own advice. LOL bit.ly/2NIbMN3
I guess Canada missed out on the Canal Age. There are hundreds if not thousands of locks across Europe in daily use. Being able to walk over the gates and not having fences are just practical features that are necessary to making locks usable
I guess that's true, if you consider having one of the World's most famous big ship canals (the Welland Canal, bypassing Niagara Falls, which currently has 8 huge concrete and steel locks including a massive triple flight lock, but which in three earlier versions had as many as 40 wooden locks between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and St. Catharines on Lake Ontario) as "missing out on the Canal Age". In Ontario we also have the beautiful Rideau river/canal system shown in Art's video, and the wonderful Trent Severn canal system from Georgian Bay and through Lake Simcoe to the St. Lawrence River, and which not only includes the famous Peterborough lift locks, but also the Big Chute Marine Railway (a kind of shipping escalator) which lifts boats right out of the water up a hill. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Chute_Marine_Railway Trust me... Canada took full advantage of canals and locks throughout it's relatively young history.
Nice one Art. We have a few of those working locks here is the UK, as part of the canal structure from years gone by bringing in goods via the Manchester Ship Canal. Google it as it's a good read for an Historian. Barry (ENG)
Did you get a chance to talk to any of the personnel working the locks? Are they manned 24/7? How does a boat contact them to open it? Is there a fee? Most fascinating! We drove through Ontario in July from Niagara-on-the-Lake and entered back through the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit but never got off 401. Something for our next trip
There is, in fact, a fee for traversing the locks. Generally, a boat owner buys a one-way, six-day, or seasonal permit priced on the length of said boat (currently ranging from $4.65 to $8.80 per foot). Moorage costs along the route are additional.
Being dutch this is nothing special for me. I cross one every day going to the store. Well they put a bridge next to it but you can still cross it if you want. static.panoramio.com.storage.googleapis.com/photos/original/4670002.jpg But i's nice to see we aren't the only ones keeping old ones in use. Mos
I grew up next to the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, and my parents are dutch, so canals are nothing new to me either. But I've never seen a wooden one before. And in this modern world where everyone is afraid of being sued, and we protect everything from any possible risk.... it is amazing to be able to walk right up to the canal like that without a fence. I was in Den Hague last year and I was amazed also at how open and accessible your canals are. I think parking the car right beside the canal would make me more than a little nervous!
Wooden ones are still used in the smaller channels and rivers here. Most of them are monuments and get maintained to keep them in working order. Last year they replaced the wooden doors on the one in the picture. Big massive wooden beams cut, shaped and painted as the originals. Good for another 30 years.
You're so totally having fun. I would too if I were you!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing, amazing they are still in use.
A neat part of Canada. Thanks for showing it Art.
That's really cool. Thanks for sharing this.
Very interesting. I think that we forget that most of the thing that were are use to, that are made from steel or concrete, started out being made from wood. Enjoy you vacation.
That is some clever engineering. Thanks for sharing it
Not only clever, but ancient. The most common lock gate style, the "mitre" gate, was invented by Leonardo da Vinci. Records of other gate styles exist at least as far back as the 1300s. Regardless of the gate, the basic concept of shipping locks has been around for thousands of years.
The Rideau Canal which Art is filming on terminates in a remarkable flight lock, in Ottawa. A flight lock is a string of sequential locks which feed directly into each other (i.e. the lower gate of one lock is the upper gate of the next one, with no stretch of river or canal between them). The Rideau flight locks in Ottawa step 24 meters (79 feet) down eight locks on a steep hill from the canal to the Ottawa River. The steepness of this flight of locks qualifies it as a "staircase lock".
www.rideau-info.com/canal/locks/01-08-ottawa.html
Now for a completely different style of shipping lock which requires more modern building materials Google "lift lock" (The Peterborough Ontario lift lock is a beautiful example, raising boats 20 meters in one go). Lift locks are also extremely clever since they require no power to raise the ships from the lower level. Instead, the upper side tub is filled about an inch higher than the lower side, which is enough extra water weight to force the upper side down (even if only the lower side has boats in it) which causes hydraulic pistons to push the lower side up to the top as the other side drops, like a see-saw. The water then drains the extra inch from the tub now at the bottom while the river/canal tops up the higher tub with that extra inch of water so the process can be repeated. Brilliant! The gates on lift locks are completely different. The one in Peterborough lays down flat onto the canal bottom so the boats can sail over it before it is raised again to seal the tub for the trip up or down.
Love it. I remember visiting something like that in PA as a child. I think in Bucks County somewhere.
pretty cool---
Otimo video.
Cell phone footage is acceptable... but thanks for not making it vertical.
Nice vid. A couple of points... what you are calling a lock "door" is actually a lock gate. Also, several times you refer to the gate as the "lock". A shipping lock is actually the whole area between the upper and lower gates where the water can be raised and lowered.
It's always interesting to see the perspective of someone new to thing that seem normal to me. I grew up and live near this canal an every single lock along the way is like this. There is a large cascading one at the far end in Ottawa that is right next to Parliament. It just seemed normal to me.
They are all great places to visit, with green spaces, trails and picnic spaces at many of them.
I grew up next to the Welland Canal, so canals are not new. But the general public is not allowed ANYWHERE near the working aspects of that canal and the sides are even all fenced off now.
Hey Art, while most of the Welland Canal locks are off limits to the public, they do still have a public viewing platform and museum at lock three. In a previous life I fixed RADAR and navigation equipment on "lakers" and "salties" and had occasion to cross over the tops of some of the huge steel lock gates a few times to board or disembark as a ship was raised or lowered. My father was a Naval Architect at Port Weller Dry Docks in St. Catharines, so our family probably had more exposure and access to the Welland Canal than most, and I've traversed it's length a few times (sometimes at the top of a radar mast with a belt full of tools). At the Lake Ontario end of the canal there are remains of all three of the earlier iterations of the Welland Canal, with the #2 and #3 version remains accessible from the Seaway service road just east of Port Weller Dry Dock (officially private property but AFAIK they've never policed it, and we used to explore it all the time years ago when I was a teenager). The old wooden gates are long gone and the water just rushes down between the old lock walls like a cascade. It's fascinating, but I find it rather spooky and oddly scary. In Port Dalhousie on the west end of St. Catharines there is an abandoned lock and spillway, and if you look at the edge of Lake Ontario just offshore from Lakeside Park on Google Satellite View (yes, the Rush song Lakeside Park) you can see the shadow of the old entrance piers to the first Welland Canal from 200 years ago just under the surface and only really visible from the air. (I just looked again and Google has unfortunately updated the image with photos taken when the beach sand was stirred up and obscuring the bottom some distance out into the lake so you can't see the old piers right now, but those images get updated every so often so I'm sure they will show up again at some point)
Martin, I drove the seaway road many times in the 70s and I had no idea what you are talking about... The area east of the Dry Docks is just farmland, to my recollection. I had a close look at the satellite and I can see some evidence far south of there near Glendale Ave by the GM factory. Is that where you meant? I don't see anything up north by the Dry Docks.
Either way, thanks for the detailed response. I was always curious about life on a laker and a few years ago was able to tour one at Cleveland. They have one set up as a museum there beside the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock+Roll Hall of Fame
Sounds like you were tooling around on the Seaway road about the same time I was. I vividly remember nearly rolling over my first car, a 1972 Toyota Corolla, on the Seaway road just south of the Dry Docks sometime around 1975. I spun out on the oil spray the Seaway used to keep the dust down on the service road, and slid backwards down into one of the deep ditches beside the road, then sliding along on my roof crease for about 20 feet before luckily tipping back down onto my wheels. My buddy in the passenger seat was white as a sheet. LOL One of the farmers you mentioned was kind enough to tow me out of the ditch with his tractor, and he laughed as he told me he had to do it all the time.
It's been years since I drove that road, but I think you are right, the remains of the old versions of the Welland Canal are up at least past Lock 3, and you can actually get onto the Seaway road from farther south than we used to, but I lived north of Lakeshore so I usually started off from the northern end next to Port Weller Dry Dock. Perusing Google Satellite View I spotted one of the ruins I remember just east of the Homer Bridge on Glendale Avenue. You can see the old stone lock walls in the satellite image...
bit.ly/2Q17OAM
It appears they built Glendale Avenue right over the northern end of that lock, with two big steel culverts under the bridge between the old lock walls to pass the water which still flows down the old waterway. Now if you keep following the old canal route southward there is another abandoned lock just a bit south of Glendale right next to the golf course, and another just a bit more south than that. Keep going toward Lake Erie and you can see another one right after the railway bridge...
bit.ly/2MNksVY
...and yet another one just around the next bend in the canal. The 40 small locks on the original canal were much closer together than the current eight huge ones so you don't have to travel far downcanal to get to the next one, and the next one...
Although my mother still lives in that same house north of Lakeshore, I moved from St. Catharines in 1979 so it has been years since I last visited these relics. I think I might need to do a bit of reminiscent tourism the next time I visit there.
P.S. If you switch Google Satellite View to 3D mode you can really spin around the old locks and clearly see the stone lock walls, the notches at both ends of the lock where the wooden gates used to be, and the changes in elevation at the top end of each lock, which now result in little waterfalls.
P.P.S. Something about this spot used to terrify me back then and I decided to stay very clear of it. If I go exploring there again I think I'll heed my own advice. LOL
bit.ly/2NIbMN3
I guess Canada missed out on the Canal Age. There are hundreds if not thousands of locks across Europe in daily use. Being able to walk over the gates and not having fences are just practical features that are necessary to making locks usable
I guess that's true, if you consider having one of the World's most famous big ship canals (the Welland Canal, bypassing Niagara Falls, which currently has 8 huge concrete and steel locks including a massive triple flight lock, but which in three earlier versions had as many as 40 wooden locks between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and St. Catharines on Lake Ontario) as "missing out on the Canal Age". In Ontario we also have the beautiful Rideau river/canal system shown in Art's video, and the wonderful Trent Severn canal system from Georgian Bay and through Lake Simcoe to the St. Lawrence River, and which not only includes the famous Peterborough lift locks, but also the Big Chute Marine Railway (a kind of shipping escalator) which lifts boats right out of the water up a hill.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Chute_Marine_Railway
Trust me... Canada took full advantage of canals and locks throughout it's relatively young history.
I was just there 2 weeks ago.
Nice one Art. We have a few of those working locks here is the UK, as part of the canal structure from years gone by bringing in goods via the Manchester Ship Canal. Google it as it's a good read for an Historian.
Barry (ENG)
There is also quite a few in Yorkshire. At least there was 10 years ago. I loved them.
Did you get a chance to talk to any of the personnel working the locks? Are they manned 24/7? How does a boat contact them to open it? Is there a fee? Most fascinating! We drove through Ontario in July from Niagara-on-the-Lake and entered back through the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit but never got off 401. Something for our next trip
I have been there once before and spoke a bit with the staff then. They are operated by Parks Canada.
www.rideau-info.com/canal/rideau-faq.html
That would be fenced and gaurded and the boats would probably have to pay a toll if it were here in the states...
There is, in fact, a fee for traversing the locks. Generally, a boat owner buys a one-way, six-day, or seasonal permit priced on the length of said boat (currently ranging from $4.65 to $8.80 per foot). Moorage costs along the route are additional.
Being dutch this is nothing special for me. I cross one every day going to the store.
Well they put a bridge next to it but you can still cross it if you want.
static.panoramio.com.storage.googleapis.com/photos/original/4670002.jpg
But i's nice to see we aren't the only ones keeping old ones in use. Mos
I grew up next to the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, and my parents are dutch, so canals are nothing new to me either. But I've never seen a wooden one before. And in this modern world where everyone is afraid of being sued, and we protect everything from any possible risk.... it is amazing to be able to walk right up to the canal like that without a fence.
I was in Den Hague last year and I was amazed also at how open and accessible your canals are. I think parking the car right beside the canal would make me more than a little nervous!
Wooden ones are still used in the smaller channels and rivers here. Most of them are monuments and get maintained to keep them in working order. Last year they replaced the wooden doors on the one in the picture. Big massive wooden beams cut, shaped and painted as the originals. Good for another 30 years.