A Trip to the Erie Canal and Niagara Falls

 

I got a mule, her name is Sal

Fifteen years on the Erie Canal

…

And every inch of the way I know

From Albany to Buffalo.

I remember singing that song in elementary school.  Now, decades later, Joan and I decided to travel there and check out that famous waterway.  (But just for four days - not 15 years!)  And instead of being mule-powered, we would do it aboard a diesel-powered canal boat.  

And while there in upstate New York, we'd take a side trip over to Niagara Falls. 

The Erie Canal was first constructed 200 years ago for transporting cargo.  At over 300 miles long from east to west, it was a huge success.  Eventually, however, the railroads took over the task of moving freight, and the canal fell into disrepair.  The same thing was also happening to other commercial waterways all over North America. 

But then, starting around the mid-1900s, recreational boaters discovered these inland waterways.  The Erie and the others were refurbished, widened, and deepened, and businesses catering to these boaters sprang up all along the banks.  Today, there are thousands of miles of waterways that can take a boater to countless wonderful destinations all over the eastern US and Canada.  But the Erie is arguably the most famous.  

So we booked ourselves a 34-foot canal boat from an outfit in Macedon, NY called Erie Canal Adventures.  On June 5, 2025, we would head west and explore about 40 miles of this awesome waterway. 

Our boat was named Onondaga, after one of the lakes in the area.  Constructed of steel, it was roomy and comfortable, and painted a cheerful red and green on the outside.  It had a full galley, air conditioning, heat, a comfy bed, shower, toilet, and a shady canopy over the cockpit.  Two bicycles were also included.  Top speed was about 7 mph.  Steering was by tiller.  And, it had bow thrusters, which made maneuvering this bad-boy easy and fun!

 

 

Now the (shall we say) interesting aspect of navigating the Erie are the many locks, which raise and lower your boat as the terrain elevation changes.  So we had to learn the ropes.

Fran, our trainer, and absolutely the coolest dude you ever met, took us thru the steps of how to operate the boat and go thru a lock.  First, you contact the lockmaster on VHF radio and request passage.  When they give you the go, you enter and "park" along the lock wall, and secure your boat with ropes or cables.  They then close the gate you entered, fill or drain the lock, and eventually open the gate on the opposite side.  The vertical elevation change could be as much as 20 feet!  Not terribly complex, but it does take a bit of time.  

Oh and there are also drawbridges along the way, which much be raised at your request.  When you plan your journey, you gotta allow time for these obstacles.

 

Thursday afternoon, Fran was confident that we had it all down.  So he turned us loose, and off we went, on our westbound adventure!

 

Cruising the Erie at 7 mph is easy and quite relaxing, and the scenery was always lovely.  Most of it is fairly straight, thru uninhabited woodlands, dense forests, or farms out in the middle of nowhere.  We'd occasionally pass thru settlements of various sizes.  A few areas looked like waterside slums, with dilapidated homes and docks.  But most of the dwellings along the banks were big and gorgeous and very well-manicured. 

 

The nicer homes all had boat docks out back.  (We were instructed not to tie up to private docks, mainly because they were often in shallow water.)  Occasionally, we'd see something a little out of the ordinary - like some random dude sitting on a dock, playing the guitar.

 

In many ways, the Erie Canal reminded me of cruising along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) way down south.  The main differences were that the Erie was much narrower, and had a lot more bridges.  Also, unlike the ICW, which you had to share with huge barges, we pretty much had the Erie all to ourselves.  But, it had considerable logs and other debris in the water, which required diligence at the helm.

The entire length of the canal has trails along the banks for walking and bicycling.  There were always people on these trails, even in some very remote areas.  It was customary to wave a friendly hello.

 

Our short-term goal was to get a good distance to the west.  Along the way, we made mental notes of places that looked interesting and warranted some shore time on the way back. 

 

 

After about three hours of cruising, we called it a day at a little town called Bushnell's Basin.  Like many such towns, it had nice dock with power hookups and adequately deep water.  I pulled down one of the bikes and did a little exploring.