Sorry to be posting late – Doug and I were on a delightful road trip across upstate New York. We’ve often driven this route going east to visit family, but never had time to stop at any of the intriguing places along the way. This time we planned on it, and so last week made our way to  Lockport, on the Erie Canal near Buffalo.

At Lockport the canal meets the edge of the Niagara Escarpment at a place where the westbound canal has to rise 50 feet to meet Lake Erie. It does this with two locks in a row – called a “flight,” as in stairs – each lifting a boat 25 feet, or lowering it the same if eastbound. We boarded our canal boat and soon were sailing (well, motoring) into Lock 34. The concrete walls loomed over us as the gate closed behind us, and water flowed into the lock, bubbling up under us exuberantly.

I stood in the bow – behind that curved railing in the photo – to take pictures as the boat rose, the concrete wall appearing to get shorter and shorter as we bobbed like a bath toy, and the lower, dark section of the gate disappeared under a foamy froth. Then the gates ahead opened, we motored into Lock 35, and the process repeated.

And then we were out into the canal. Even though we were motoring it was very peaceful, calm, and quiet-seeming. Our captain narrated the history of the place, and played a song he said we would all know. We did: “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal.” How did we all know this song? We were a mostly older crowd, at mid-week after Labor Day – do people still know this song? Fifteen miles was the distance a mule could pull a canal boat along the towpath before needing to rest. Never thought about that before when I sang it. The boats, said our captain, carried another mule for swapping out. Mules traveled at the stern for esthetic reasons.

We didn’t know all the verses of the song – I didn’t even know it had all those verses – but we all knew the first verse, and we all knew the chorus. Low bridge, everybody down… It wasn’t necessary to duck for this particular bridge, but you sort of felt it was.

We came back through the locks again, then continued on down the canal, passing ducks, geese, bits of the towpath, and canoes and kayaks. The canal, said the captain, is free to pleasure boats, and kayaks and canoes can travel through the locks, no need to portage around them. “From Albany to Buffalo,” as the song says.