rway and one night anchored in Burrison's Bay in Rice Lake. I'll have to admit that some of the lock moorings and anchorages are starting to blend together in my memory so that I can't remember anything significant about them. But I do remember this picture taken by a lock worker at Lock 19 just before we got to Little Lake and the town of Peterborough and the Peterborough Marina.(That glow around my head is not my angelic disposition showing. It is actually the Satellite TV antenna dome.)
We reached Peterborough on Friday and took a walk downtown for some shopping. There was a long main street with interesting old buildings and more used book stores than I have ever seen in my life. There must have been six in a three square block area. Since Kaye bought me at sweatshirt for Christmas that said "Deliver me from temptation.....especially bookstores", I have been trying to stay away, but this was too tempting. I'll admit I succumbed.
We started Saturday with a bike/scooter ride to the Peterborough Canoe Museum which was housed in the ex-Peterborough Canoe Company building. At one time there were many major canoe manufacturers in Peterborough. The excellent museum had many examples of current, recent, and native Indian (First Nation) canoes. It was interesting that as the chart shows different regions had distinctive bows on their canoes partly to match the type of water encountered in their area and partly to best match the available natural materials.
Later in the day I bicycled out to the Peterborough city museum, which was near the Peterborough Lift lock. The lock has the highest lift (65 feet) of any hydraulic lift lock in North American. An hydraulic lift lock is two basins that can be closed off at each end to make a tub. The upper tub is filled with one foot more height of water than the lower which makes it weigh about 144,000 pounds more. This force is channeled to the ram on the lower chamber which lifts the lower chamber up to the top (and lowers the upper chamber down to the bottom.) The rate of rise (and fall) is controlled by a valve. The lock is massive and was completed in 1904. The design was inspired by hydraulic lift locks in Belgium and France.
The structure is so massive that the road from downtown Peterborough actually passes under the lift lock although its only a one lane road.
Our water basin is now at the top of the lift. The picture is from the stern of our boat looking back at where we had come from. You get some perspective of how high above the road and waterway we are.
This is from our boat at the top of the lift looking out over the bow of our boat. The "wall" at the front of the basin will be lowered to allow us to go out into the canal. I mounted a video camera on a tripod on the front topside of the boat to record most of the locking procedure.
We reached Peterborough on Friday and took a walk downtown for some shopping. There was a long main street with interesting old buildings and more used book stores than I have ever seen in my life. There must have been six in a three square block area. Since Kaye bought me at sweatshirt for Christmas that said "Deliver me from temptation.....especially bookstores", I have been trying to stay away, but this was too tempting. I'll admit I succumbed.
We started Saturday with a bike/scooter ride to the Peterborough Canoe Museum which was housed in the ex-Peterborough Canoe Company building. At one time there were many major canoe manufacturers in Peterborough. The excellent museum had many examples of current, recent, and native Indian (First Nation) canoes. It was interesting that as the chart shows different regions had distinctive bows on their canoes partly to match the type of water encountered in their area and partly to best match the available natural materials.
Later in the day I bicycled out to the Peterborough city museum, which was near the Peterborough Lift lock. The lock has the highest lift (65 feet) of any hydraulic lift lock in North American. An hydraulic lift lock is two basins that can be closed off at each end to make a tub. The upper tub is filled with one foot more height of water than the lower which makes it weigh about 144,000 pounds more. This force is channeled to the ram on the lower chamber which lifts the lower chamber up to the top (and lowers the upper chamber down to the bottom.) The rate of rise (and fall) is controlled by a valve. The lock is massive and was completed in 1904. The design was inspired by hydraulic lift locks in Belgium and France.
The picture of the diagram unfortunately did not capture all the description on the left but you get a basic idea of the operation.
The structure is so massive that the road from downtown Peterborough actually passes under the lift lock although its only a one lane road.
Saturday afternoon, right after I returned from buying carry-out Indian food for dinner it started to rain. This unfortunately caused the cancellation of a concert by a young Canadian country star that was to be right next to the marina. On Sunday we walked a rather long distance downtown to St. Paul's Presbyterian Church for their morning service. The Reverend George Turner had come from Scotland in about 1979 and he still had a strong Scottish Brogue. I was interested to read that he had served as a minister in the town of Cranstoun, Scotland before immigrating to Canada. The Cranston family comes from Scotland.
We left the Peterborough Marina about 12:30 and immediately went through a regular lock. There was a large boat in front of us and a tour boat beside us so that we just barely fit. I had to keep pushing the tour boat away from us as we locked up. I handed my camera over to one of the passengers on the tour boat and she took my picture. It had started to rain just before we entered the lock and stopped just after we exited so we got wet.
We left the Peterborough Marina about 12:30 and immediately went through a regular lock. There was a large boat in front of us and a tour boat beside us so that we just barely fit. I had to keep pushing the tour boat away from us as we locked up. I handed my camera over to one of the passengers on the tour boat and she took my picture. It had started to rain just before we entered the lock and stopped just after we exited so we got wet.
The tour boat is entering the lift lock. I tied up on the canal wall to allow Kaye to go through the excellent visitors center there (and to give me time to watch the Formula 1 race on TV.) After an 1 1/2 hours, we were ready to go up in the lock.
Our water basin is now at the top of the lift. The picture is from the stern of our boat looking back at where we had come from. You get some perspective of how high above the road and waterway we are.
This is from our boat at the top of the lift looking out over the bow of our boat. The "wall" at the front of the basin will be lowered to allow us to go out into the canal. I mounted a video camera on a tripod on the front topside of the boat to record most of the locking procedure.
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