Trent - Severn Waterway

We left the Erie Canal system and traveled the Oswego Channel which is 24 miles long.  Here is a picture of the bridge across the canal.  You can only pull into the lock part way until the water goes down, then you can clear the fixed bridge!

Well we have had a wonderful time exploring on the Trent - Severn Waterway.  It was a lot of work because it has 45 locks.  Some of them are hydraulic, but the majority of them are run manually.  The lock staff are super and help with anything you need.  It kept us really busy on some of the days because we would go through 6 to 8 locks in one day.  You don't travel a lot of miles, but you are busy.  The locks are open from 9 to 4 so you have to plan around that also. 

At the end of the day, you can pay a camping fee to tie on the wall either above or below the lock.  It really is a great system.

As your boat travels from the USA into Canada or visa versa, you have to check in with customs.  The boat arrives at a designated marina and the captain takes all of the necessary items like passports, boat registration, insurance documentation, etc. with him to check in.  We checked in at Kingston, Ontario.  Here is a picture of Erwin calling in our information.

While the captain is calling in to report, the boat flies a yellow quarantine flag.  Then after you receive a clearance with customs, then the US boats fly a courtesy flag with the familiar maple leaf.  Here is our flags before and after.

We stayed at Fraser Marine in Trent to get our provisions and we had a lovely free concert in the park.  Here in Canada they have free concerts by local musicians just about every week.

We were greeted as all boaters by this welcome sign at the beginning of the Trent-Severn waterway.

The lock systems are for the most part manually operated.  They do have some that are hydraulic, but this is a picture of the lock man opening the lock gates.  They push this and it reminds you of when you pushed a merry-go-round as a kid.  It keeps the lock personnel busy all day.

One of the interesting features of this waterway is that you pay a fee to use the lock system and then if you want to you pay a camping fee and stay on the wall at the locks.  Here is our boat at Campleford.

We traveled on to Peterborough and anchored at Little Lake.  Our cruising guide gave us the spot and told us to anchor clear of the spray from the waterfall.  It actually was over 70 feet high and all lite up at night in multi-colors.  It was beautiful and a nice surprise.

There are two lift locks in this system, one in Peterborough and one at Kirkfield.  There are two large pans and they are counter-balanced.  You drive the boat into the pan and the hydraulic lift then moves the pans in opposite positions.  So your boat goes up or down just like a lock.  It is like a giant bathtub.  It is also kind of scary with all that water and the boat at a high level and moving to the low level.

Here is Erwin talking to one of the other boats in the bathtub.  Look over his shoulder and see how high up we are!

We also met some great folks from Canada.  As we traveled through locks we talk to the other boats while the lock is moving you up or down.  We met Dave and Julie and talked with them through several locks.  We then stayed on the wall in Bobcaygeon and they had a few friends that joined them as well.  We stayed a couple of days and they were so kind to invite us over and have a few drinks and some food.  It was such fun getting to know all of them.  So here are our new Canada friends - Dave and Julie, Mark and Tammie, and Bill and Deb.

As we travel further north, the wildlife changes.  Here are a pair of loons with their young ones.

One of the places we stopped was Kirkfield.  Here is our boat on the wall there.

One of the most exciting locks was the "Big Chute"  It is a railway system that moves your boat out of the water and over the land, then back to the water again.  Can you imagine?  We thought it would be scary, but it was really cool.  The lock staff are so well trained that they make it easy.  Here is a picture of the boat as they are about to pick us up out of the water and then a shot of the rail system as we left.  The boat is carried on the yellow slings that you see.

We then traveled through one of the interesting bridges.  This one is called the Hole in the Wall.  It is like threading a needle.

The scenery changed again.  Now the markers are on the rocks, really.  The channels are narrow and you looked for those big, hard, rocks under the water and stay clear of them.

OK, that is it for now.  We are headed to the Georgian Bay and then the North Channel.