Sunday Snippet: The Canal Boat Edition

Husband and I are on a new kick–canal boats and narrow boating. No, we’re not doing it (although I’ve added it to my bucket list!), but we’re totally hooked on watching shows about canals and narrow boats on Prime. We started with Great Canal Journeys, which we found while wandering around on Prime one night. Two episodes and we were enthralled. Timothy West and Prunella Scales were darling together. To watch two people in their late seventies and eighties, married 60 years, travel the canals of Great Britain together is just delightful. (If you’re an All Creatures Great and Small on PBS fan, you’ll recognize Samuel West when he shows up to cruise with his parents. Siegfried!)

Then we found Robbie Cumming’s Canal Boat Diaries and once again were totally hooked. We’re now into David Johns’s Cruising the Cut. David is a hoot and we are totally addicted to his videos. Yesterday, we had a chance to experience a moment of canal boating when we took a ride on the last few miles left of the Wabash & Erie Canal. It was delightful!

The day was gray and cloudy but our spirits were high as we boarded the Delphi, a packet boat built in 2009 specifically for the Wabash & Erie Canal Park. Granted it wasn’t anything like the narrow boats we’d been watching on TV, but it was a canal boat and it was on a historic canal, and we both enjoyed the ride thoroughly. (History+Canal Boats–Husband was all in!) The interpreter did a fabulous job talking about the history of the canal and how commerce and passengers depended on the boats once upon a time. We all even joined in on a chorus of “Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal.”  Remember Pete Seeger singing that old song written in 1905 by Thomas Allen? 

From 1843 to 1874, canal travel could take you from Evansville to Buffalo, New York with just a few boat changes along the way. The Wabash & Erie Canal extended from the eastern state line near Fort Wayne to Evansville at the Ohio River. The Wabash & Erie connected with canals in northern Ohio, which then joined the Erie Canal at Buffalo, New York. At 468 miles in length from Toledo to Evansville, it was the largest fabricated structure in the United States. Back then, mules on a towpath pulled the canal boats along, but now the Delphi travels under it’s own battery-powered engine. It amazed to think about all the men who labored to dig the canal system in America–wow!

When railroads began with faster transportation, canal life ended, but it warmed my heart to remember quieter times as we drifted along. I recommend googling to find a historic canal site near you and checking out the canal boat shows on Prime and other streaming channels like YouTube. It’ll warm your heart to spend a little time on a canal journey.

Gratitude for This Week: A canal boat date with Husband. I’m almost done with book 2 and Bo and Cassie’s story seems to be working. Spending time with Mo. A morning thunderstorm while we’re in our cozy cottage. Son is safely home from overseas travel. 

Stay well, speak out when you can, always choose kindness, and most of all, mes amis, stay grateful,