June 7-9 NY Canal System

Above Troy at Waterford NY there is a decision to make. Either go west on the Erie Canal or head north on the Champlain Canal. We are going North to Canada via the Champlain Canal, Lake Champlain and the Richelieu Canal. This is a typical lock. The ropes hang down about every 20 feet. They have white/blue floats at the top. The side wall indentations contain a pipe or cable that is fixed and used to tie your boat to. The line then slides up or down the pipe/cable as the boat is raised up or down.

The Fort Edward area is the site of serious dredging. This is due to PCB's from a GE transformer factory that were released in the 1970's when a dam that previously contained them was removed. Several miles of the river bottom are now being dredged up and disposed.
Also, at Fort Edwards we met Fred Wehner who has a 34' American Tug and a web site Tug44. Fred met us at Lock 7, helped us tie up at the floating dock just south of Lock 7, gave us a tour of the old Champlain Canal locks located there, and took us to dinner at the Anvil restaurant where we had an excellent meal in this old blacksmith shop from the mid-1700's. Then it was located just outside the Ft. Edward walls.

On June 8, we stopped at Whitehall, NY. Whitehall claims to be the birthplace of the US Navy since in 1776, Benedict Arnold built a fleet of ships to fight the British in Lake Champlain.

This is our boat at the Town Dock wall looking east towards Skene Manor up on the Hill. This stone house built late in the 1800's has a panoramic view of the valley. I walked up there to see the house close up and view the town.

This view of downtown Whitehall was taken from the Skenes Manor. In the middle you can see our boat tied up at the free town wall which had electric and water and was right next to a neat museum of Whitehall history. Whitehall was originally called Skenesville for a Mr.Skenes who was a Tory in the Revolutionary War. His holdings were taken over and he fled the area after the war. Subsequently, the town name changed.

The last lock on the Champlain Canal (NY Canal System) is lock 12 at Whitehall. The last three take you down if you are North bound. The first nine we went through take you up about 16-20 feet each.