It was only a 7-mile run from Gasport to Lockport. This is the LAST lift bridge on the Canal heading west. This is the view of the Exchange St. Bridge in Lockport in the raised position.
The LAST two locks, Lock 34 and 35, are “staircase” locks; they are adjacent to each other with no space between them. Here you can see the two 25-ft. locks with a R.R. bridge is in the foreground.
We may be in somebody’s home videos; we went through both locks with this tour boat and the cameras were trained on us!
There’s a steep rise to get to the top of the Niagara Escarpment here. Originally there was a double set of five locks, one set for eastbound traffic, the other for westbound. It was quite an engineering marvel when it was completed in 1825. You can walk along the site of the original eastbound section which is now the spillway.
The locks were enlarged in 1862, you can see how narrow they were originally. Then the double set of locks was replaced with the present system in 1910. It was kind of fun to view the locking process from on land instead of in a boat.
Here’s another tour boat locking through then leaving the lock .
There wasn’t much of a place to dock here.
They put us on the wall opposite the lock. This is actually the top of the spillway where all the debris collects (old tires, brush and trash). That crane on the dock collects it periodically I guess. I thought Paul did a great job getting us around that tight turn then backing us out again. We were only there long enough to tour the little Canal museum and look around a little. Then on we went to Tonawanda. Really getting close now!
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