Cruising Ontario’s Trent Severn WaterwayBy Jamie RossI attempt to push out the night’s cobwebs with a cup of coffee, while watching the sunrise over the Severn River. Wispy mist rises from the warm water like dragon’s breath; it swirls and drifts. The haunting call of a distant loon echoes across the smoky river surface. The silhouette of a man can be seen by the upper lock gates, fishing rod in hand.
The 250 mile Trent Severn Waterway between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario includes 36 conventional boat locks, two twin level locks, and 40 miles of excavated canals connecting existing lakes and rivers. Boaters-only camping is offered at most of the locks. A weekend escape will allow my family and me to explore the system’s north-west leg, what has been called the wild end of the waterway. The day before, we had dropped our small runabout into Georgian Bay, just below Lock 45 at Port Severn, and travelled across Little Lake and Gloucester Pool before ascending the Marine Railway at Big Chute. The route is carefully marked with regulatory red and green buoys, though it is still possible to get off track and turned around in the many bays and channels.
Navigating the beautiful clear water from Port Severn to Lake Simcoe through the hidden shoals, pre-Cambrian granite gorges, and rocky channels, is a journey amid scenery that is delectably Canadian. One also enjoys an amazing cross section of cottage life, with every type of recreational home, bungalow and cabin on display. Cottages hug the shore line and cling to every craggy knoll, rock outcrop, and ragged cliff top, much like the towering elegant pines and bizarrely twisted conifer trunks and root systems that cling precariously to the minutest amounts of fertile soil. Children swim off docks, or daringly leap off towering cliffs. Some are pulled around on bouncing tubes, or ski in nearby bays. Adults relax with a fishing line in the water, or lounge in their waterside Muskoka chair. While we admire their cottages, they seem entranced by the seemingly endless array of water craft drifting past, from canoes and rowboats, fishing skiffs, jet skis and runabouts, to huge sailboats and yachts. All the boaters seem friendly and the majority are courteous. There is a shared camaraderie prevalent during the wait at each lock. Our journey continued eastward along the deeply gorged Severn River, past Severn Falls and Severn Rapids and into Sparrow Lake, where subtler beauties of marsh and meadows appeared. A gentler Severn led us through Lock 42, and then into the shallow expanses of Lake Couchiching, with its reedy shores and willows, and further to the vast waters of Lake Simcoe. The completion of the Trent Severn Waterway in 1920, after 87 years of sporadic construction, marked the realization of a century and a half-year-old dream, born out of a Canadian fear of American expansionist interests, and spurred along by commercial transport desires. However, by the time the motor launch Irene made the first passage of the system that summer, logging was in decline and railways were burgeoning as an economical means of moving goods. By the 1940's there was not enough traffic on the waterway to warrant keeping it open. The post-war economy saved the system, as people found they had the time and money for pleasure boating. Locks which handled some 2,000 vessels in the early 1950's, now see over 250,000. The guardian of the waterway is Parks Canada, and we find their lock operators amazingly friendly considering the organizational mayhem that they must face each day. Perhaps it is early season, but with a smile they deal with private boaters, cottagers, and tour boats, and with lock fishing, swimming, and the lock rats who simply seem to hang out.
Our weekend trip is not anything so grand. In spite of our relaxed pace, we easily reached Orillia by late afternoon. Our one way trip was so magnificent that we have already decided to make a return journey west, with an overnight camp-out at Swift Rapids Lock. We turned north again, racing across Lake Chouchiching on one of the few parts of the waterway which can be tackled at speed, and managed to just make the 6:45 pm deadline to get through Lock 42 below Port Stanton, which allows us to continue on to Lock 43 for the night. We meandered down the Severn River as the sun sunk lower in the sky. Pink and golden hues played on the water contrasting the dark silhouettes of the islands. Around every bend, new life emerged; beavers diving with a slap of their tail, muskrats slinking across the darkening river surface, geese scurrying to safety with brood in tow, and Great Blue herons roosting on mid-channel rocks.
We heard horror stories of boaters who had tied their crafts solid to the upper rings of Lock 43, and then struggled in panic as the water dropped beneath them, the irreversible mechanics of the lock set in motion. Boats dangled at precarious angles before cleats tore loose from haul, or ropes were cut. Another story had the cables letting loose on the Big Chute, sending a bevy of boaters on a roller coaster free-fall into Gloucester Pool 18 metres below. Perhaps these were mere lock myths, but the images were fresh in our minds as we descended the system the following day. My first inclination was to call my journey “Shortcut Across the Shield,” a snappy catch-phrase I had heard about the waterway. A shortcut, however, connotes being in a hurry, and although some boaters save five or six days on a journey to the St. Lawrence by plying the canal system, what we discovered in our brief travels was a desire to slow down, to essentially get lost in the locks. If You Go: Visit the Parks Canada Web Site: http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/trentsevern/ For information on boat and houseboat rentals, and restaurants and Inns on route visit: www.trentsevern.com Images by Jamie Ross |
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I have always been excited by the mysteries of river travel. Having read Mark Twain, what youngster has not dreamt of being Huck Finn, navigating a waterway’s wide expanse by raft or boat, new adventures around each bend? The changing scenery, passing boats, bustle of activity, the characters, and the campfire on river’s edge, make it a trip of the imagination. Now, I’m not comparing Twain’s mighty Mississippi with Ontario’s Trent Severn Waterway, but much of the same magic is at work. At least these are my groggy, early-morning thoughts.
The Marine Railway is one in a series of engineering marvels along a system that also includes the world’s highest hydraulic boat lift in Peterborough, and the slightly smaller Kirkfield Lift Lock near Canal Lake. The Railway is a virtual roller coaster for boats, wheeling vessels up or down an 18 metre slope between the Severn River and Gloucester Pool.
“Love the job,” say Amanda Thorpe and Ryan Stitt, Lock 45 operators, as they attempt to garner control of a huge yacht that bounces into the smallest lock on the whole system. Thorpe says they see many early season yachts from the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., this one from Virginia. “They do a huge circuit that takes them down the St. Lawrence, our waterway, through the Great Lakes, and eventually out the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and from there back home. They’re on the water for six months or so.”
We arrived at dusk and pitched our tents on a secluded, grassy patch above the still waters of the lock, grilled steaks over a fire, and then sat into the night sharing travel tales with a group of fellow boaters. We got tips from the waterway’s frequent explorers about the best place to get a riverside breakfast of back bacon and eggs, at the Waubic Restaurant Inn; the best campsites, right here at the boater access only Swift Rapids Lock or at Georgian Bay Islands National Park; and the best riverside accommodations.