Day 20 -Welland Canal

On Wednesday, June 18th, we drove along part of the Welland Ship Canal, which connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The current canal is the fourth one, built in the 1930s, and has 8 locks, one at the Lake Erie end, and seven near St Catharines to take the ships over the Niagara Escarpment.

We arrived at Lock 1 in time to see one of the lake freighters (known as Lakers) in the lock -

and to see Baby Gosling with its mum and dad.

We then drove along to Lock 7, which has a small information centre, a white polar bear statue,

and the kissing stone. There is a legend that, in the early days of the Welland Canal, Charlie Snelgrove would bring his lady love to the Rock in Thorold for a goodbye kiss or two before boarding ship.  This soon became common practice among sailors, and they took to chipping a piece off the rock, pocketing it for good luck, for a safe journey.

At the Visitor Centre, at Lock 3, there is a model of the lock, which shows how the huge Lakers only just fit!

On the way back to St Catharines we saw the Laker (that we'd seen earlier at Lock 1) now heading north towards Lake Ontario.