Still Here: 200 Years on The Erie Canal

Come for the beautiful drone video, stay for a few bits of history.

Check out this short -- just five minutes -- documentary about the Erie Canal called Still Here: 200 Years on The Erie Canal. It was the winner of the New York State category in the first drone video competition at the State Fair.

The doc was produced by a Syracuse-area company called Call of the Loon Productions.

As you know, construction on the Erie Canal started 200 years ago this summer. It was an audacious idea at the time and it was hugely important in the history of New York. The canal helped make the state an economic powerhouse, and it influenced patterns of population and development from here far out into the west.

Earlier
+ Tracing the old canal
+ "Surely the water of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids..."

Comments

nice video. We definitely undervalue the Canal. The idea that GE was going to use the canal to float their generators from Schenectady to the Port of Albany, seemed novel only because the canal is so grossly underused.

jsc - canal became history once Seaway was built....

Mike- no argument over the facts about the Seaway and the practical effect on the commercial value of the canal for goods to/from the midwest. however, there are opportunities to use the canal rather than trucks to move goods and materials to port or to a rail head, etc. (Canals can't be the complete answer, but can support more than just the leisure boater)

jsc - good question. If we're talking about factory right next to the canal - maybe. Otherwise, that means load needs to be transferred twice - to the boat and from the boat - which would negate a lot of advantages. Maybe something like railroads are doing, where trailers are just rolled onto railway cars?
But then, how much of non-rush non-perishable cargo is actually moved between upstate regions?
And keep in mind, canal supports only small (by today standard) boats...

Barge traffic on the canal exists, but as jsc mentions it's underused. It's likely that rail is cheaper and more efficient for most loads, especially when you're talking intermodal shipping which I think is what Mike is getting toward (containers, essentially).

A study was done if you ever have trouble falling asleep.

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