Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Mountain Lock Park


Grandma came by to visit during the March Break, and we went exploring! I had talked to Grandma in the past about finding this park, and looking around, and before she came I did a little Internet research to find out where it was - to my surprise we drive by one corner of it regularly!

If you are a St. Catharine's person, you probably already know (though I seem to have missed this for 13 years!) that Mountain Locks Park is just behind the Keg around Glendale! The City of St. Catharines even has a walking tour of this park, that we printed off and took with us!

Mountain Locks Park has the ruins and remains of locks from the first and second Welland Canals. Here is the group at what is left of one of the old wooden locks from the first canal. Part of the lock was rebuilt about 30 years ago, and even that part is falling apart now, the rest is just lines on the ground.


There are some really fun parts where you can climb on old parts of locks and weirs, if you are so inclined!


Or race along the top of an old lock, now filled in with brush. Some of these empty locks give you a feeling of how big they were, and these were all dug out by hand! Some of the locks have water passing through them still (see top photo), and there are also a few nearby buildings noted on the tour that played a role in early canal life.


I think Emmi sums up our trip to the park! Now we know where it is, I am sure we will be back, and there were a couple of stops on the walking tour we missed, so I would like to go back and find them!



1 comment:

Wen said...

What a great day! I would love to go there sometime with you and the kids. Amazing to think they dug out the locks by hand. We went to a lock last summer up by Fairhavens and watched the boats go through. What an amazing sight.
Let's see if we could go this summer!