Locks, Locks . . . . and More Locks

Wednesday (July 2) we began cruising Canada's Trent-Severn Waterway (TSW). The TSW is a 240-mile long waterway that connects two of the Great Lakes--Ontario and Huron--via rivers, lakes, and man-made canals. It also has 44 locks of various types to deal with the changes in elevation along the way. The TSW is a National Historic Site of Canada and its first lock was built in 1833. Formerly used for industrial and other commercial transportation, today the waterway is maintained for recreational boating and tourism.

One of the challenging aspects of planning our cruising days on the TSW has been trying to figure out how far we can reasonably travel each day, and whether we can find suitable accommodation when we get there. Because Lon is still working from the boat--and computer data in Canada is very pricey--suitable accommodation for us means a marina with wifi. Fifty miles a day on lock-free water is pretty easy to plan for; calculating time and distance when locks have to be taken into account is another matter entirely. We had the issue on the Erie Canal of course, but it is more complex on the TSW because of the many slow zones (6 mph max speed) and the fact that some of the Canadian lock keepers are responsible for more than one lock. Arrive at a lock at the wrong time and it can add hours to the day. 

We left Trenton with two other boats and made the first lift of the day in the lock 1. Then it was locks 2-6 in relatively quick succession, a chance to cruise a bit before we hit lock 7, and then another stretch of cruising before locks 8, 9, 10, and 11/12 (a double lock). We were pretty tired by the time we arrived at the Campbellford Municipal Dock at 5:30 p.m. Thirty-one miles with 12 locks made for a long day. 

Lock buddies on Wednesday: Charis and Adagio

Manually opening the lock gates

Pat on deck in double
lock 11/12

CARIB II (2nd from left) on the wall in Campbellford, Ontario

Campbellford is the hometown of the artist who designed the polar bear found on the Canadian two dollar coin, the "Toonie" (the one dollar coin is called the "Loonie".) A Toonie Monument is found in the city's Old Mill Park. It's a rather unusual bit of public art.

Toonie Monument in
 Campbellford

Thursday wasn't quite as strenuous.  Twenty miles and six locks meant that we were able to pull into the town of Hastings just after 2 p.m. Charis and Adagio were again our travelling companions, as was another Looper boat, Roundabout. It became quite a "ballet" to fit four relatively large boats into the locks, but after working out the proper loading order so that the smaller boats could "raft" (attach) to the larger boats, we entered and exited the locks very efficiently.

Ron Matuska on Adagio, rafting on CARIB II in the lock

Roundabout and Charis
 rafting in double lock 16/17

At dock (in distance) in Hastings

Conveniently close to the Hastings Marina

On Friday (July 4) we had lock-free cruising for over 35 miles, encompassing rivers and a relatively large lake, Rice Lake. Some of the waterways were lined with houses or cabins.  Some waterways were very natural. And sometimes we could see farms on the hillsides.

Houses and cabins along the waterway

Agricultural areas

Nothing but water, trees and other vegetation

Our one lock of the day came just prior to our arrival in Peterborough, our destination for the weekend. We are planning our days so that we can be in port over the weekends, leaving the TSW to the Canadians. Just as in the U.S., there is much less boat traffic during the week, meaning less stress for us and, theoretically, less wait times at the locks.

This morning we cycled up to Lock 21, a fantastic piece of 110-year old engineering called the Peterborough Lift Lock.  We will be going through this lift lock on Monday, and wanted to get a look at it beforehand. It is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world. It has two "buckets" that are used to raise and lower boats, and uses gravity, not motors, to move the buckets.

Lon in front of the Peterborough Lift Lock

We shot the video below while a tour boat was going up in the lock. (Try to overlook the blue tint-I'm not sure why it's there-I probably have a wrong setting somewhere. It also didn't move nearly as fast as it seems to here.)

The Peterborough Lift Lock in action

There are a lot of other Looper boats here, which made for a large gathering on the dock during "Happy Hour" this evening. The marina also has a lot of very nice resident boaters, and because the town of Peterborough has free Saturday evening concerts in the adjacent park, the marina was a busy place today and tonight. A local boater's dock decoration made us just a wee bit homesick for Florida.

The only palm tree we've seen in quite a few days

Tomorrow we will be joined by Lon's Canadian second cousin, Frank Cedar, and Roman Sokil, a young man from the Ukraine who is hoping to go to university in Canada and whose father is second cousin to both Lon and Frank. The plan is for them to cruise with us as far as Orillia. I'm estimating four cruising days. I've been told by others that my routing is reasonable, but we shall see.