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

Noon on Day 8

Al was at the first of the Ottawa locks (Carillon) waiting for Brian - he said that it is very industrial looking. They'd rowed 10 miles against a stiff headwind by noon. Mr. Frei was joined by a party of 15 kayakers for part of the row. 

The Carillon Canal, opened in 1833, bypasses the rapids of the Ottawa River, especially those at Long Sault. Originally built for military purposes, the canal was used for commerce from the outset.

Its location on the Ottawa River places it within the Montreal-Ottawa-Kingston inland shipping route. The present-day canal is used almost exclusively for pleasure boating, includes only one lock, which raises and lowers boats 20 m in a single operation.

Carillon Lock

Day 6 - Black Rapids, ON to Rockland, ON

Rockand, Ontario

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Mr. Frei and Brian did an amazing 33 miles today! There was no waiting at the series of locks in Ottawa, so they made it through all of them in 1 hour. Only two other boats were waiting.

Mr. Frei said that Ottawa was beautiful, but they did not stop at all. They entered the Ottawa River and continued 23 miles to a nice private marina in Rockland. Rockland is a bilingual community located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, part of the city of Clarence–Rockland. Rockland has a population of 9,210, The surroundings are very picturesque, but there are no restaurants near the marina, so they will be relying on their own provisions for dinner.

The plan for tomorrow is to row 38 miles to Hawkesbury.  

It sounded like a nice but uneventful day!

Kathy

Mr. Frei and Brian completed the entire Rideau Canal!

This just in!



Mr. Frei and Brian pass through Kingston Mills locks


Brian's sister Martha sent this photo today. It is Mr. Frei and Brian passing through the Kingston locks on June 21st. Martha's former boss was on a cycling trip there, and just happened to spot them.   Note that Al is in his friendly, but "keep rowing" mode, and Brian...well, not sure what he is doing (maybe taping sore hands?).

Looking forward to tonight's update!

Kathy



Looks like they may have been at lock #46 when the photo was taken



Game on!

Greetings, Gentle Reader, May 10, 2011
Game on!
That’s Canadian for “let’s get going!” right? Well, game on!

Read on for a bit more detail but if you’re in a rush, here are the headlines:

 Row Canada! starts on June 21st…the first day of summer. 5oo miles. Three weeks.
 Yes, I’ll look to raise money for financial aid at Boys’ Latin, where I teach. I took last summer off, and so did you. Let’s find our old rhythm, OK? I row, you write a nice check, and we both feel good. Row. Write. Row. Write. Easy, yes?
 My “brother from another mother,” Brian Rooney, may be rowing with me in his exquisite cedar Adirondack guide boat. A wingman! Woah!

“Row Canada!”, the title of this blog-book, is obviously an affectionate if transparent take-off on our northern neighbor’s national anthem, but it does convey the plan: to depart from Kingston, Ontario, on or about the first day of summer and row to Cleverdale, NY, by way of Ottawa, Montreal, Sorel, Lake Champlain, and Ticonderoga….precisely 500 miles of fresh water traversing two scenic canals, two mighty rivers, two lovely big lakes and entailing one two-mile portage. That will be ugly.

I expect that this journey will take three weeks or so to complete; the locks will take time and, more importantly, it’s been five years since The Big Row in 2006, which covered 452 miles. The Erie Canal in ’08 was 360 or so, and the ’09 Baltimore-to-DC adventure entailed a relatively modest 280. The key concern, of course, is not this year’s longer distance but, rather, the aging motor at the oars. I’ll be 60 in August and, truth be told, this will be a stretch for me. But as Warren Miller used to say, “If you don’t do it now, you’ll just be another year older when you do.”

So I’d better do it now.

If you run the math as I have, you’ll see that three weeks calls for a daily average of only 23.81 miles…nine or ten miles under my previous daily averages. My conservatism stems from these uncontrollable realities:

1. I’ll not be doing much on-the-water training before I depart. It’ll take time to get the hands and derriere in shape for a sustained effort, and this will take some time.
2. Wait. I gotta be honest. I’ll be doing NO on-the-water training before I depart. Sure, I’ll have spent some time in the gym, but there’s no substitute for the real thing.
3. The canals are rife with locks that will take significant time to transit. Locks are great for socializing and for building international relations, perhaps, but they’ll add significant time.
4. Champlain, the next-to-last puddle on the trip, is very big water. The headwind of an ill-timed lingering southern front could make that last stretch a real slog….or, of course, if the wind’s from the north, a sleigh-ride!

If I sustain a proven 30 to 32 miles each day, the elapsed time comes down to about 16 days. Big difference. We’ll see. It’s not a race. Much.

Those of you who have followed my blogs from earlier adventures know that I typically begin to write months in advance of the adventure, filling many pages with tedious ruminations and reflections on everything from preparing to row to teaching eighth grade boys to issues de jour regarding our ailing contemporary culture. Expect some of that in future installments, but not as much. After all, I’m on the water in only 42 days. Count it a simple blessing.

And finally, if I may, a word about fundraising? If you’ve read this far, keep going. This is important.

I’ll riff some other day about where financial aid funds go and to what use they are put but, for now, if you want to give my metaphorical boat a big, big early push -as I hope you will- simply go to the Boys’ Latin School website at www.boyslatinmd.com , click on “Support BL”, and follow the bouncing ball. Look, I can’t give you more than that; I’ve got to find my way home from Kingston, Ontario…I’m just asking you to navigate a few clicks. 

You see, we’ve helped many families and created wonderful opportunities for boys since The Big Row of ’06. I’ll get sappy later (graduation is on June 10th) but, for now, please know that the boys you have helped are terrific kids of enormously appreciative parents. I hope that much good can come from my labors at the oars because the kids are so well worth it. So if you think you’ll be writing a check somewhere along the way, help us establish some early momentum by pledging now, OK?

You rock.

Row Canada!

Mo’ latah!

Mr Frei