HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRENT-SEVERN WATERWAY

MIDLAND, ONTARIO
29 AUGUST 2022

Peoples of what Canadians call the “First Nations” traveled the original route of the Trent-Severn Waterway more than 3,000 years ago. It was first built for commercial and military purposes and took almost 90 years to build. The first lock was built in 1833; the last lock was completed in 1920. It is now a paradise for recreation and pleasure boating that extends 240 miles (twice as long as the Rideau) from Trenton (where the Gateway Bridge above is located) to Port Severn, Ontario—the entrance to Georgian Bay. It includes a series of narrow canals…some of them VERY narrow…together with 44 locks that connect many rivers and lakes (large and small) through beautiful countryside and charming little towns. There are also over 150 dams and dozens of bridges of all kinds. The “swing bridges” are particularly fascinating as they swing open to let boaters through. Some are very old (below left–all the way open); some relatively new (right, just beginning to open). If a swing bridge is closed, boaters are asked to give three short blasts of their horn to request an opening. We rarely had to wait very long, which was nice.

The first thing we think of when we look back on this segment of our America’s Great Loop Adventure is its natural beauty almost everywhere. Many of the narrow passages (below) remind us of Virginia’s Dismal Swamp with its unspoiled, lush green foliage and crystal clean waters (although there is lots of “seaweed” in some places).

As we got closer to the end of this Waterway, deciduous maples and cottonwoods gave way to lovely white pines (right, above). And in between all of it were an amazing variety of “cottages”…homes of all sizes along the water, with docks and slides, and often an abundance of water toys. Some of the most intriguing cottages are called “island homes”—homes atop their own small island (below). Our favorite place for these was stunning Stoney Lake, and many of the island homes were quite stately and beautiful. There was even an Island Church, only accessible by boat (below right)!

          

So many homes we saw had at least two Adirondack chairs facing the water…and most of them were red. And we finally solved “The Mystery of the Red Chairs!” A few years ago Parks Canada began a program of placing a set of red chairs in their parks AND “these chairs are always placed at a point where there is a great view.” The tradition obviously caught on as, ever since we entered Canada, we’ve spotted hundreds of cottages with these Adirondack chairs…and most of them are red, but not all of them. We loved the grouping in the third photo below!

    

As we cruised by (always S.L.O.-ly in populated areas), it felt like every family living on the water was enjoying their own little piece of paradise.

Two other things we’ve noticed: (1) About 60% of all waterfront properties fly at least one Canadian flag. AND (2) (after passing so many cottages and boats) You don’t have to have a giant cottage or a giant boat to have a lot of fun! What a joy to see so many people enjoying this beautiful Waterway. There’s a very playful but peaceful energy in these small cottage communities.

The variety of boats we saw was also fascinating—slow boats and fast boats (some way too fast, including lots of wave-runners who loved to jump our wake!)…also small boats, medium boats (like ours) and large boats. In the middle part of this Waterway we saw dozens of houseboats—mostly rentals–so we were told to keep a keen eye out for these as many had inexperienced captains. We only saw two that we gave a wide berth. The largest boat we saw was a tour boat called the “Kawartha Voyageur” which we passed on both the Trent-Severn and Rideau waterways. It is 24’ wide and 108’ long (and the locks are only 110’). The lockmasters are really good at coordinating its passage. In fact, it was getting ready to come into the locks at Lake Simcoe just as we were coming out, and it waited for us!

As with the Rideau Canal, many of the locks on the Trent-Severn are still hand-operated by Parks Canada personnel, using gears, chains and levers that open the wooden gates. Some of the locks have larger gates that now use hydraulics to operate. There were three locks that were truly spectacular. Two of them (at Peterborough and Kirkfield below) were “lift locks” whereby boaters slowly enter one of two water-filled chambers called “pans.” A gate closes on each pan and, as one pan goes up (powered by gravity), the other goes down, counter-balancing the other. Peterborough (top 2 photos) gets the most attention because it is the world’s highest hydraulic lift–it took us up over 65′ in just two minutes! However, we were more exhilarated by the lift lock at Kirkfield, (the second set of photos) perhaps because, for the first time, we were going down instead of up. We proceeded into a pan suspended nearly 5 stories in the air. It was fun to stand on the bow and look way down on the water below us and watch our descent!

The most unusual of all the “locks” is called The Big Chute (4 photos below) where Parks Canada helped us pilot our boat onto a large, partially submerged “railway lift,” supported our boat with huge yellow hydraulic “slings” and then took us in that railway cart (via two railroad tracks and a series of huge cables) from a pool of water at one level of the Severn River (where the Big Chute Marina is) over a highway (yes, over land!!!) into another pool 58’ below where we could then continue on the Severn River to Port Severn and beyond. Quite the adventure! And yes, it’s really fun to stand on the bow! (Smaller boats don’t need the slings so they only show in photo #3 below, taken from S.L.O. Dancer.) There have been several “mechanical problems” with the Big Chute this summer including one just before we were to arrive there, but Parks Canada managed to find and install a new hydraulic pump and threats of delays or even “closed for the season” were immediately lifted. Whew!

We have now gone through our final lock on this journey—a total of 153—50 in the USA and 103 in Canada. Two things we’ve especially liked about most of the locks in Canada is that they are (a) very easy to tie up to inside the lock, and (b) there’s a very good “wait in line” system before entering a lock.

(a) There are rubber-coated cables attached to the lock walls at both the top and bottom (see below), so you just thread one end of the line around the cable, pull it through and bring it back to cleat off on the boat—one a little behind the bow (#2 cleat) and one at the stern. This required a bit of dexterity on my part because, while Captain Gary was maneuvering the boat to make it easy to catch the cables and tie a line off (first up front and then in the back), I would zip from front to back, go down the 5 steps on the stern and get the stern line around another cable and tie that off. Then Gary would cut the engines and tend the stern line while I went back to the bow. This worked really well, but was a bit wearing when we had to go through up to 8 locks in a row! (I’m glad I have very strong legs!!!) Fortunately, lock attendants sometimes help facilitate this process by either taking a line or extending the cables toward the boat. This is especially helpful when entering the lock going downstream; the locks are filled to the top and the cables are down at the waterline.

(b) At each end of almost every lock there are cement walls with large cleats that allow boats to tie up/moor. Sometimes we’ve stayed overnight at these walls. AND, the best part is that on these designated walls there is a “blue line.” If your boat is on the blue line, then you are telling the lockmaster that you are ready to enter the lock. After hours (most locks close at 5pm), boats can moor overnight on the blue line only if they intend to enter the lock first thing in the morning (all locks open at 9am).

So if we come to a lock that we want to go through and the gates are closed (and sometimes there is a red light telling us to stop (as in the photo on the right), we tie up at the blue line until the gates open and the light turns green (or we are beckoned by one of the Parks Canada lock attendants). Unlike locks in the USA that monitor and communicate via VHF Channel 16, Canadian locks do not use VHF radios. Most instructions are given by hand or by yelling. Occasionally a lock attendant will walk down the blue line to give specific instructions. Attendants are also very good about assigning you to a specific wall and specific cable in the lock. All in all, once we mastered “the Canadian way,” locking through made for many easy, stress-free days! Thank you, Parks Canada!

Another fun thing: A lot of the small towns we’ve cruised through have fascinating names…many of them with First Nation origins. Our favorite was the town of Bobcaygeon. (This is where the first lock on the Trent-Severn was built, and where we stayed at a Marina that opened in 1909!) We thought it was named after someone named Bob, but later found it came from the Ojibwa words “bob cajwin,” meaning, “narrow place between two rocks where water washes through.” Who’d a thought!

And another: Have you ever heard of “butter tarts?” People have been raving about them ever since we entered Canada, so we finally bought some at an upscale bakery in Peterborough. They’re about 4” across and come plain, with pecans or with raisins. Neither one of us thought they were that good—way too doughy with not much flavor; we much preferred the lemon bars and the fresh-out-of-the-oven sourdough bread!

And finally, our “Wildlife Report.” We continue to see lots of seagulls, cormorants and families of Canada geese (who parked themselves overnight on the dock next to ours one night and were way too chatty!). In addition, we’ve loved seeing more swans and loons, as well as an occasional eagle and kingfisher. We also saw a turtle basking on one of the many rocks that lurk just outside the very well-marked channels. (We sure do love the markers that tell us exactly where the channel is! Yes, indeed!)

While checking out the Big Chute we saw a sign that said, “Warning, Bears in the Area,” but we didn’t see any. Chipmunks and black squirrels danced around nearby while we ate our breakfast one morning on a restaurant patio. And that’s the end of our Wildlife Report…Oh wait! How about a photo of Captain Gary with a beer? How about that year-long beard? Pretty wild, don’t you think?!?

          

This blog is a bit longer than most, but the Trent-Severn was a bit longer than most. So there! Now we’re at the east end of Georgian Bay and from here we’ll go across to the North Channel (both above Lake Huron) where we’ll then drop back down into the USA at Drummond Island and go another 50 miles to Mackinac Island (where we complete our Loop aka “cross our wake”). After that, we’ll head to Traverse City, Michigan, where our awesome broker who found our boat will find the perfect buyer. We plan to fly back to California somewhere around September 25.

We continue to have a glorious time and really look forward to our final weeks on the Loop. We send blessings to anyone cruising along with us and look forward to sharing a bit more about this amazing adventure…maybe even a few “afterthoughts.” Stay tuned!