Erie Canal

A canal is a waterway that people dig for boats.

The Erie Canal crosses New York State. It joins the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, so boats can travel between them.

The Erie Canal crosses upstate New York, in the United States. The first canal ran 363 miles (about 584 km) from Albany, on the Hudson River, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes.

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor says that, when it opened, it was the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America. Today's Erie Canal runs 338 miles from Waterford, on the Hudson, to Lake Erie.

The original Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825, connected the Hudson River with the Great Lakes over 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo. The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor calls it, at the time, the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America.

Today it is part of the New York State Canal System, run by the New York State Canal Corporation, together with the Champlain, Oswego and Cayuga-Seneca canals. The present Erie Canal links the Hudson at Waterford with Lake Erie, 338 miles to the west, so boats can travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes.

Before the canal, a trip across New York took about two weeks by stagecoach.

On the canal, passenger boats did it in five days!

Passenger boats on the canal could travel from Albany to Buffalo in five days, less than half the time of a stagecoach. Shipping goods became 90 percent cheaper than hauling them by ox wagon.

So many cities, towns and villages grew up along it that it became known as the 'Mother of Cities'. The canal has been made bigger three times for larger boats, and the locks, lift bridges and aqueducts built from 1905 to 1918 are still in use.

Packet boats crossed from Albany to Buffalo in five days, under half a stagecoach's two weeks, and shipping costs fell 90 percent compared with ox-drawn wagons. Freight boats carried Midwestern produce from Buffalo to Albany, most of it continuing down the Hudson to New York City's harbor; the National Park Service notes that the populations of Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo quadrupled from 1830 to 1850.

Success brought enlargement: from 1836 to 1862 to 7 feet deep with locks 110 feet long, and from 1905 to 1918 into the Barge Canal, at least 12 feet deep, with electrically powered locks for boats 300 feet long. Its locks, lift bridges and aqueducts of 1905–1918 are still in use.

In the photo, a little white boat glides along the canal under a pink sunset sky.

Can you find the bridge and the path beside the water?

The photo was taken on 9 September 2012 at Gateway Harbor in North Tonawanda, about 1,500 feet from the canal's western end at the Niagara River. A small motorboat cruises on the canal in front of a low bridge, with a stone-edged walkway and brick buildings on the right.

Today pleasure boats, kayaks, canoes and work boats share the canal. The path where mules once walked beside it is now a 365-mile bike path.

The photograph (9 September 2012, titled 'Sunset over the Erie Canal') was taken at Gateway Harbor in North Tonawanda, about 1,500 feet from the canal's present western terminus at the Niagara River. A motorboat cruises in front of a low bridge, with a stone-walled promenade, lawns and brick buildings on the right bank.

The twin cities of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda face each other across the canal. The corridor's 2020 Heritage Award describes how decades of planning turned abandoned canal-front land there into a harbor with about 1,000 feet of boat docks, trails and a car-free green space.