Day 9 - Saint-Placide, QC to Montreal, QC

Lock 1 on the Lachine Canal

For those of you who guessed Wednesday in the poll, pat yourselves on the back, as Brian and Mr. Frei have made it to the first lock on the Lachine Canal in southwest Montreal.  They are camping in a park by the lock, and will be ready to go at 9 AM when the lock opens tomorrow.


They were on the St. Lawrence for a while today and said that it was a roaring current. In fact, they were stopped by the Canadian Coast Guard, who wanted to make sure that they were okay. Brian (Felix) was wearing a life jacket and Mr. Frei (Oscar) wasn't!  Where the Ottawa River hit the St. Lawrence the water was "confused" as Mr. Frei put it, but it added some excitement to the row.


Tomorrow they will do the rest of the canal, and be on the St. Lawrence again, with the expectation of reaching the Richelieu Canal on Saturday.


Brian was given the access code for the wifi, so hopefully he will write a blog tonight!


Lachine Canal Information from Wikipedia

The Lachine Canal (Canal de Lachine in French) is a canal passing through the southwestern part of the Island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, running 14.5 kilometres from the Old Port of Montreal to Lake Saint-Louis, through the boroughs of Lachine, Lasalle and Sud-Ouest.

The canal gets its name from the French word for China (La Chine). The European explorers dreamt of finding a route from New France to the Western Sea and there on to China and hence auspiciously the region where the canal was built was named Lachine.

The canal is situated on land originally granted by the King of France to the Sulpician Order. Beginning in 1689, attempts were made by the French Colonial government and several other groups to build a canal that would allow ships to bypass the treacherous Lachine Rapids. After more than 130 years of failure, a consortium that included the young Scottish immigrant John Redpath was successful. John Richardson was Chairman of the Committee of Management of the canal project and its chief engineer was Thomas Brunett. The contractors were Thomas McKay and John Redpath, plus the firms ofThomas Phillips & Andrew White and Abner Bagg & Oliver Wait.

Since 1848, the canal has had 5 locks: Lachine, Côte-Saint-Paul, Saint-Gabriel and 2 locks at Old Port of Montreal. But initially it had seven locks:

• Lachine (1 lock),
• Côte-Saint-Paul (2 lock in 1825, 1 since 1848)
• Saint-Gabriel (1 lock)
• Old Port of Montreal (3 locks in 1825, 2 since 1848).

The lovely Lachine Canal in Montreal