Don’t have a clue how old it is, but it appears to have been forgotten about long ago.

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People who grew up in the Niagara Region take the Welland Canal for granted. Some even see it as an eye-sore. Personally, I find it to be a cache of forgotten treasures waiting to be rediscovered. It amazes me how I can drive by a spot every day for a year and not notice an ancient treasure hiding in the trees as I pass it by, all it takes is the one day where you catch something out of the corner of your eye and do a double take. And that is exactly how I discovered this gem.

As I passed what I had always thought was just a river I noticed that a couple hundred meters from the bridge there was an old stone wall crumbling into the river. So I pulled over and found a path way that took me down to the water. From there I was able to see that this was not just a river, but an abandoned section of the canal.

After taking a few pictures from water level I managed to find a path up through the bush which took me to the top of the wall. From there I was able to follow a path down to the other end of the lock, which had collapsed due to errosion. Despite the unbelievable craftsmanship of the lock walls they could not hold up to the relentless force of water, in less than 100 years the walls were being consumed by nature.

From this point the canal openned up into a larger body of water that is known as the Welland Canal Parklands. When this section of the canal was in use the land looked much different, where as now it has been flooded by the lake. Off in the distance to the north-west I could see another lock which appeared to be between what is now an island and another thin strip of land. This is Lock 11 of the third Welland Canal, and beside it is an old weir. Unfortunately my camera failed to capture this beautiful view.

After climbing my way back out to the main road I peered over the other side of the bridge and was happy to see that much more of the canal was still intact, however I decided to save that section for another day. After returning home and doing some research to determine the history of what I had discovered, I found that not only were there several more sections of the old canals to explore but also a few old tunnels. Plans have already been made to explore them this summer.

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