A ship transits the Welland Canal, with the Homer Lift Bridge and
Garden City Skyway in background.
The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through a series of eight locks, allowing ships to avoid the 51 meter high Niagara Falls.
The 'Welland Canal' is a
ship canal that runs 42
km (27.0
miles) from
Port Colborne, Ontario on
Lake Erie to
Port Weller, Ontario on
Lake Ontario. As part of the
St. Lawrence Seaway, the canal allows ships to avoid
Niagara Falls by traversing the
Niagara Escarpment.
Approximately 40,000,000
tonnes of cargo is carried through the Welland Canal annually by over 3,000 ocean and lake vessels. It was a major factor in the growth of the city of
Montreal. The original canal and its successors allowed goods from
Detroit, Michigan,
Cleveland, Ohio and other heavily industrialized areas of the
United States and
Ontario to be shipped to the port of Montreal where they were reloaded onto ocean-going vessels for international shipping.
The completion of the Welland Canal made the
Trent-Severn Waterway (which links
Lake Ontario with
Lake Huron) all but obsolete as a commercial traffic route for Great Lakes navigation.
The canal's
Lake Erie (southern) terminus, at Port Colborne, is 99.5
m (326.5
feet) higher in
elevation than the
Lake Ontario (northern) terminus at Port Weller. The canal comprises eight lift
locks, each 24.4 m (80 feet) wide by 233.5 m (766 feet) long. Due to the
Garden City Skyway, the maximum ship height allowed is 35.5 m (116.5 feet). All other crossings are
lift bridges or
tunnels. The maximum permissible vessel length is 225.5 m (740 feet). It takes ships an average of 11 hours to traverse the canal's length.
History
A lock of the second Welland Canal
Prior to the building of the canal, traffic between
Lake Ontario and
Lake Erie used a
portage road between
Chippawa and
Queenston, both points on the
Niagara River above and below
Niagara Falls, respectively.
First Welland Canal
Main articles: First Welland Canal
The
Welland Canal Company was incorporated in
1824 by
William Hamilton Merritt , in part to provide a regular flow of water for his
mills. Construction began at
Allanburg on
November 30, at a point now marked as such on the west end of Bridge #11 (formerly
Highway 20). It opened for a trial run on November 30,
1829 (exactly 5 years, to the day, after the 1824 sod turning). After a short ceremony at Lock One, in Port Dalhousie, the schooner ''Annie & Jane'' made the first transit, upbound to
Buffalo, N.Y.; with Merritt a passenger on her decks. The first canal ran from
Port Dalhousie on Lake Ontario south along Twelve Mile Creek to
St. Catharines. From there it took a winding route up the
Niagara Escarpment through
Merritton to
Thorold, where it continued south via Allanburg to
Port Robinson on the
Welland River. Ships went east (downstream) on the Welland River to Chippawa, at the south (upper) end of the old portage road.
A southern extension from Port Robinson opened in
1833. This extension followed the Welland River south to
Welland (known then as the settlement of Aqueduct, for the wooden
aqueduct that carried the canal over the Welland River at that point), and then split to run south to
Port Colborne on Lake Erie. A feeder canal ran southwest from Welland to another point on Lake Erie, just west of
Rock Point. With the opening of the extension, the canal stretched 44 km (27 mi) between the two lakes, with 40 wooden locks. The minimum lock size was 33.5 m by 6.7 m (110 feet by 22 feet), with a minimum canal depth of 2.4 m (8 feet).
Abandoned locks of the third canal
Second Welland Canal
In
1839 the government of
Upper Canada approved the purchase of
shares in the canal company in response to the company's continuing financial problems in the face of the continental financial
panic of 1837. The buyout was completed in
1841, and work began to deepen the canal and to reduce the number of locks to 27, each 45.7 m (150 feet) by 8.1 m (26.5 feet). By
1848, a 2.7 m (9 feet) deep path was completed, not only through the Welland Canal but also the rest of the way to the
Atlantic Ocean via the
St. Lawrence Seaway.
Competition came in
1854 with the opening of the
Erie and Ontario Railway, running parallel to the original portage road. In
1859, the
Welland Railway opened, parallel to the canal and with the same endpoints. But this railway was affiliated with the canal, and was actually used to help transfer cargoes from the lake ships, which were too large for the small canal locks, to the other end of the canal. Smaller ships called "canallers" also took a part of these loads. Due to this problem, it was soon apparent that the canal would have to be enlarged again.
Third Welland Canal
In
1887, a new shorter alignment was completed between St. Catharines and Port Dalhousie. One of the most interesting features of this third Welland Canal, was the
Merritton Tunnel on the
Grand Trunk Railway line that ran under the canal at Lock 18. Another tunnel, nearby, carried the canal over a sunken section of the
St David's Road. The new route had a minimum depth of 4.3 m (14 feet) with 26 stone locks, each 82.3 m (270 feet) long by 13.7 m (45 feet) wide. Even so, the canal was still too small for many boats.
Fourth (present) Welland Canal
(Officially known as the Welland Ship Canal)
Construction on the present canal began in
1913 and was completed in
1932. The route was again changed north of St. Catharines, now running directly north to
Port Weller. In this configuration, there are eight locks, seven at the
Niagara Escarpment and the eighth, a
control lock, at Port Colborne to control the depth of the canal. The depth was now 7.6 m (25 feet), with locks 233.5 m (766 feet) long by 24.4 m (80 feet) wide.
Fifth (proposed but uncompleted) Welland Canal
In the
1950s, with the building of the present
St. Lawrence Seaway, a standard depth of 8.2 m (27 feet) was adopted. The 13.4 km (8.3 mile) long
Welland By-pass, built between
1967 and
1972, opened for the
1973 shipping season, providing a new and shorter alignment between Port Robinson and Port Colborne and by-passing downtown
Welland. All three crossings of the new alignment — one an
aqueduct for the Welland River — were built as tunnels. Around the same time, the
Thorold Tunnel was built at Thorold and several bridges were removed. These projects were to be tied into a proposed new canal, titled the 'Fifth Welland Canal', which was planned to by-pass most of the existing canal to the east and to cross the Niagara Escarpment in one large ''superlock''. While land for the project was
expropriated and the design finalized, the project never got past the initial construction stages and has since been shelved. The present (4th) canal is scheduled to be replaced by
2030, almost exactly 100 years after it first opened, and 200 years since the first full shipping season, in
1830, of the original canal.
1974 accident
Main articles: Port Robinson, Ontario#The demise of Bridge 12
On
August 25,
1974, the northbound ore-carrier ''Steelton'' struck
Bridge 12 in
Port Robinson, Ontario. The bridge was rising and the impact knocked the bridge over, destroying it. No one was killed. The bridge has not been replaced and the inhabitants of Port Robinson have been served by a ferry for many years. The Welland Public Library archive has images of the aftermath.
2001 accident
On
August 11,
2001, the
bulk carrier ''
Windoc'' collided with Bridge 11 in
Allanburg, Ontario, closing vessel traffic on the Welland Canal for two days. The accident destroyed the ship's
wheelhouse and funnel (chimney), ignited a large fire on board, and caused minor damage to the vertical lift bridge. The accident and portions of its aftermath were captured on amateur video (see "Windoc Bridge Accident" in "
External links"). The vessel was a total loss, but there were no reported injuries, and no pollution to the waterway. The Marine Investigation Report concluded "it is likely that the [vertical lift bridge] operator's performance was impaired while the bridge span was lowered onto the Windoc."
[1]
Shipping season
The Welland Canal closes in winter when ice or weather conditions become a hazard to navigation. The shipping season re-opens in spring when the waters are once more safe. In 2007, the season opened on the earliest date ever,
March 20, just hours ahead of the
vernal equinox. The Welland Public Library archive has images.
Facts and figures
Lock 3 Observation Centre of the current Welland Canal (facing North).
Current canal
★ Maximum vessel length: 225.5 m
★ Maximum draft: 8.2 m
★ Maximum above-water clearance: 35.5 m
★ Elevation change between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie: 99.5 m
★ Average transit time between the lakes: 11 hours
★ Length of canal: 43.5 km
Increasing lock size
| Canal |
|---|
| First (1829) | Second (1848) | Third (1887) | Fourth (1932) |
| Locks | 40 | 27 | 26 | 8 |
| Width (metres) | 6.7 | 8.1 | 13.7 | 24.4 |
| Length (metres) | 33.5 | 45.7 | 82.3 | 261.8 |
| Depth (metres) | 2.4 | 2.7 | 4.3 | 8.2 |
List of locks and crossings
Locks and crossings are numbered from north to south.
Old alignment prior to
Welland By-pass relocation
† If assigned by the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority. The original bridges across the fourth canal were numbered in order. Numbering was not changed as bridges were removed.
See also
Merritton Tunnel
Notes
1. "Marine Investigation Report #M01C0054: Striking and Subsequent Fire on Board Bridge 11, Welland Canal and Bulk Carrier Windoc, Welland Canal, Allanburg, Ontario, 11 August 2001." Transportation Safety Board of Canada, 2005-07-05. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
External links
★
Welland Canal Information Site
★
Boat Traffic Site
★
Another Welland Canal Information Site
★
Railway Maps (includes details of the Welland Realignment)
★
The Welland Canal Section of the St. Lawrence Seaway (
PDF)
★
Has information about Niagara Region bridges, including many Welland Canal Bridges.
★
Welland Public Library archive of canal history images & clippings
★
Images from the Historic Niagara Digital Collections
★
Art works from the collection of the Niagara Falls Public Library
★
"Windoc Bridge Accident." ''Youtube'',
2006-
09-30.
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