• Happy International Mermaid Day! 🧜🏼‍♀️

Canals and specifically the Erie Canal

Joined
Feb 11, 2021
Messages
798
Reaction score
424
Location
Clayton NY
Anyone here paddled several days or more on Erie and/or Champlain Canals? I have maps and guidebooks (free but you pay shipping) and one session at Canoecopia on it. Thanks!
 
I don't know jack (other than that song ... "I gotta mule / her name is Sal ...") but I've always been curious, so I hope someone here has some experience. Seems like it could be a nice longer non-wilderness trip, like a hike through the English Lake District (i.e., from pub to pub).
 
bill - sorry...writing this w/ 1 finger due to hand surgery i've paddled the erie canal from east of utica, ny to fort plain, ny. in that stretch there are some private & pubic campsites along the way. as for stealth camping, i think the shorelines are way too open in most places to be able to get away with it. that said, i can think of a couple places where that might be possible.

until next time...be well.

snapper
 
Last edited:
I have paddled it some of the erie and find most of it it unappealing. Most of the time you are on endless straight stretches between high banks that block the view and the breeze. A friend paddled it from buffalo to the hudson. he camped at the locks and camp areas. he described it at a marathon. there is fastening history in lots of places ashore. i am a wilderness paddle camper, so I have a bias.
 
Turtle is correct. Long straight boring stretches, mostly uninteresting. With limited exceptions, little to offer in most places for a safe hidden overnight stealth camp. I have paddled long sections between locks in training with my voyageur and C4 canoe marathon race team, mostly in sections out and back from Rome west and Utica east) because it has multiple points of easy access and was more or less centrally located for team members to travel to.
 
A very boring paddle in my experience. ADK or bust in NY!
 
OT but somewhat relevant... if you like Great Lakes history, the old Welland canals near Niagara are worth a look in that area... there is a section that is promoted for paddling in the town of Welland but also boring from what I've been able to see online.

The more interesting sections of the third 1870 canal (the present one being used by Great Lakes shipping is the fourth) might possibly be paddled for short sections with the falls and rapids where locks were, being barriers. But probably better to see it on foot... I've walked one portion and the overgrown remnants and ruins do have an attraction.

Here's a short vid...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV99nenH9hg
 
A much shorter but more scenic canal paddle when theres enough water is the black river feeder from boonville to forestport in the adks.
 
I rather enjoyed Dave Ellingson's presentation on his paddle from Buffalo to Statue of Liberty. (Catch his Norway fijord presentation at this year's Canoecopia.). It would be a social trip, meeting people at a very leisurely pace. Was thinking Tonawonda to Rouses Point perhaps. Clearly not everyone's cup of tea. Or mug, since I'm trying to locate every brewery along the route.
 
I have always thought a leisurely houseboat trip on the Erie canal with bikes onboard for side exploring trips would be a great vacation. So many fascinating towns and attractions along it-but to paddle it-no.
 
A much shorter but more scenic canal paddle when theres enough water is the black river feeder from boonville to forestport in the adks.
Yeah, I've paddled on that 11 mile canal feeder many times. The "canal master" lets water in to raise the level usually in mid-May. Before then it is too shallow. Even when it has water there are places where you have to watch for a rock or two striking your paddle, and a few discarded tires, maybe a tree branch down, There is one very low surface level bridge and a nearby log jam to bypass. Otherwise the shoreline is mostly either wooded or mixed with open farm fields. All private land though.

During the Boonville Woodsmen's Field Days there's a (very amateur but still fun) 3 mile canoe/kayak race. Unfortunatly you can't really paddle any of it below Boonville. At the upper end in Forestport you can enter Kayuta Lake (lots of motor boats and jet skis, ugh), and 3 miles later paddle quietly up the slow moving Black River proper for another 3 miles before you will be stopped by rocky rapids.
 
Back
Top