Two Hundred Miles on the Erie Canal

Cruising through the waterways of upstate New York is cruising through some of the early history of the United States. Follow the Hudson River up to Albany and the Erie Canal, across Lake Ontario to the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River – and you are going back through the centuries.

Before there were interstate highways, before there were railroads, canals carried the commerce of the country. With mule-drawn barges and canal boats, these aquatic ribbons of transport made it possible for Midwest farmers to ship their produce to the east coast population centers and contributed greatly to opening up and developing the interior of the continent.

The Erie Canal, cutting through the Adirondack Mountains and connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, was the most famous of the United States canals, one of the great civil engineering feats of the republic. For a hundred years after it opened in 1825, it was a major economic artery.

Rail transport, trucking on smooth paved roads, and ships on the St. Lawrence Seaway ended the commercial importance of the Erie Canal and brought an end to its historic era, the legends and folk songs. But the canal remains, used today primarily by recreational boaters, still connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to New York City and the eastern seaboard. 

In the second half of September, we took a 48-ft. motor yacht up the Hudson River to Albany and Troy and then headed west up the Erie Canal. Our destination was Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York, positioning the ship, brother Kirk’s M/V At Last, for cruising the lakes next summer. Leaves on the trees lining the canal were starting to turn, and numerous people pointed out to us that we were apparently heading in the wrong direction. Along with numerous V’s of Canada geese, every Canadian “rag bagger” and most U.S. boaters seemed to be heading south. Passing the southbound vessels was the only time we felt any wave motion on the hull – canal cruising, even more than river cruising, is the ideal solution for anyone who loves boating but gets seasick. 

 With some of the largest vertical lifts of any locks in any of the world’s canals, “locking through” the canal is fun, but fun you have to work at. The canal climbs 565 feet in elevation, including 169 ft. within one and a half miles of length in the five locks of the Waterford Flight, the first locks we encountered entering the Erie Canal from the eastern Hudson River end.

Aided by Captain Kirk with twin-screw Diesels and a bow thruster, the two deckhands (my daughter and I) had to hold the boat close enough to the lock walls to keep control but not allow the slimy, rough walls to scrape the pristine hull. Boats transiting the canal sport a generous array of fenders and locking through calls for a stout pair of gloves and a boathook. 

The locks tower over the vessel when you enter, and sounds are amplified within what is basically an enormous, dirty bathtub. The grinding of machinery as the massive doors swing shut is superseded by the whoosh of millions of gallons of water filling the lock, sluiced in through valves that make the surface of the water boil and eddy. With 100,000 gallons of (fresh) water for every foot the lock rises, the taller locks use nearly four million gallons per locking. And all for us – in almost every one of the 31 locks we traversed, we were the only boat going through. 

The New York State Canal System costs over $120 million per year to operate, paid for by the tolls on the New York State Thruway. And the cost for boaters to use this pricey facility? Nothing, nada, zero – for which the mariners are grateful and happy to support businesses and towns along the way. The canal system provides continual maintenance and tries to keep the antique mechanisms of the historic locks operating. 

Much of the Erie Canal has been rebuilt and, in many cases, relocated since the canal opened in 1825. Today’s canal takes advantage of lakes along the path and is essentially the Mohawk River for 100 miles of its length. When it was built, running the canal through a lake wasn’t feasible, as the barges depended on mules for propulsion, and the mules depended on a towpath along the canal. 

Cruising the Erie Canal is low risk, but one hazard should have special resonance for Floridians. The canal was once a hub of industry and manufacture, and decade after decade of decay to docks and waterside facilities has caused pilings and logs to break loose and drift nearly submerged along the canal, many of them large enough to hole the hull of a vessel. These are known to mariners traversing the waterway as “canalagators,” except inside a lock they become “lockadiles.” 

The Mohawk Valley featured in American history even before the canal was dug, with the novel and film “Drums Along the Mohawk” telling the story of when the area was the country’s western frontier. After passing through Oneida Lake, while the Erie Canal continues west to Buffalo and Lake Erie, the Oswego Canal offers a shortcut to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Fort Ontario in the town of Oswego, where the Oswego River and canal meet Lake Ontario, became the backdrop for a series of battles during the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The fort also served as a military hospital in World War I, and a shelter/internment camp for Jewish refugees during World War II. 

Today, Oswego is a quaint waterfront town and the jumping off point for the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River, separating the U.S. and Canada. While Southwest Florida’s 10,000 Islands can perhaps never be definitively counted, Wikipedia says the Thousand Islands actually consists of 1,864 islands, and further states that “to count as one of the Thousand Islands, emergent land within the river channel must have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round, and support at least two living trees.” 

Many of the islands also support elegant summer homes, often one per island, many dating back to the area’s heyday 100 years ago when rail service made it possible for businessmen to board a train in Manhattan on a Friday evening and wake up in the Thousand Islands and breakfast with their vacationing families on Saturday morning. 

The most spectacular of these homes was never lived in. Boldt Castle, taking up all of Heart Island across from Alexandria Bay, was built by a wealthy hotelier as a gift for his wife. When in 1904 she fell ill and died before the work was complete, he halted construction and never visited the island again. It has been mostly restored to what it – probably – would have been and is a popular tourist attraction. 

In riverside towns like Clayton, historic buildings such as the Hops Spot restaurant and the 1904 Clayton Opera House give the waterfront a distinctive period charm, and look out over the river, where a parade of oceangoing ships glide by along the St. Lawrence Seaway, connecting the interior of the continent with the rest of the world, just as the Erie Canal once did.

All tourist activity in the Thousand Islands is highly seasonal, and near the end of September, many businesses in Clayton and “A-Bay” had already closed for the season. One notable exception still open was the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, home to dozens of vintage wooden boats, from classic birchbark canoes to “old Elco” cabin cruisers and brightly varnished Chris Craft runabouts. 

The Thousand Islands were clearly preparing to go into hibernation for the winter – even the Erie Canal itself was scheduled to close for the winter on October 11 – but the towns and anchorages were uncrowded and the evenings delightfully crisp, especially for those who had been sweltering through the seemingly endless hot, muggy days of a Southwest Florida summer. If you think of New York as synonymous with New York City, a trip along the waterways will update your view of upstate.