Great Loop: Trenton – Trent-Severn Waterway: Lock 1

Days 181: July 17, 2023

Gateway to the Trent-Severn Waterway

It was time for more locks! And lots of them to come with the Trent-Severn canal system, which in its 386 km or ~240-mile waterway has 42 locks (Locks 1-45 though a few were combined/removed over the years) connecting Lake Ontario to the Georgian Bay. The locks and grounds that accompany them are all maintained by Canada’s parks system. They hire at least two summer staff members per lock, and they were all super friendly making for a fun and wonderful experience throughout the lock system.

Trent Severn Lock 1

We arrived at Lock 1 with absolutely no plan. Ok, we had a slight plan. Get there and see if we could stay on the lock wall. We pulled up and tied to the waiting area. At that time the lock called out and told us to go thru. We quickly ran up and chatted with the lockmasters. The plan changed to us going thru and mooring to the upper walls for the night.

Since Coda and Next Chapter (a mini-Coda, 34′ American Tug) were also there, they opted to go thru the first locking and Saga and Lil Sudden would catch the next. This allowed us to get the lay of the land and watch the process from the side, as well as participate! As mentioned above, the lock staff is amazing. We chatted with them, and they let us open the doors, a manual process that they kept for historical designation reasons. It was really fun and easy. You just turn the crank around once all the pressure was off the doors.

Boris and Matt opening the right-hand lock door for Coda. They let Michael take that on for future locks hoping to wear him out!

Bleasdell Boulder

The next morning, we decided to stretch the legs and jog over to the Bleasdell Boulder. The boulder boasts to be the largest known glacial erratic in North America, estimated to have been deposited 2.3 billion years old.

And along the way we saw some cow trucks!