Richelieu River and Chambly Canal

The Richelieu River flows from Lake Champlain north to the St. Lawrence River.  A portion of the river was made navigable in the early 19th century by the construction of the Chambly Canal, which parallels the Richelieu River rapids.  Last Dance's journey was upstream, south on the river heading toward Lake Champlain.

The ride up the Richelieu revealed that one portion is also used as an airport runway.  In the northern waters, it is somewhat common that the waterways are shared with aircraft.

After the planes land, they are pulled ashore onto the airport property by a towmotor.  The use of the river as a runway saves a lot of paving of wooded property.

About halfway up the river lies the town of Chambly, the beginning of the Chambly Canal.  The first lock is actually two locks, constructed in a stepped fashion.  This image is looking into the first lock chamber, which is currently empty, sitting at the river level.  Boats are raised to the top of this chamber, then the doors open to the upper chamber, where they are again lifted to the height of the upper doors.  The Chambly Canal is the smallest of any of the canals.  The lock chambers can only fit two boats of the size of Last Dance.  The entire canal is 7.5 miles long with 9 locks.

The upper chamber of Lock 1, looking north at the river.

The Chambly Canal was completed in 1843, about a decade later than the Rideau Canal.  It is also a hand operated system requiring lockstaff to hand crank the gates that allow water into and out of the lock chambers, and opening the large wooden lock doors.  The difference a decade makes with better tooling producing higher quality and more modern machinery is apparent.

The Chambly Lock system is operated by Parks Canada, which achieves their goal of maintaining the locks and surrounding property as an accurate historic park.  This is the lockmaster's station, where they would maintain watch.  All of the lock property is manicured and complimented with trees and landscaping.  The lockstaff are most welcoming, helpful, and friendly.  The beautiful surroundings and quality staff make the transit of the Chambly Canal a pleasurable adventure.

Just above Lock 1, the park along the lock wall provides a quiet setting between the 18th century town and the 17th century French fort.  A couple days were spent here, providing a convenient spot to explore the history of the area and sample a few of the quality restaurants.

In the old downtown, many historic houses have been renovated and maintained as residences.  A walk through town is an exhibit of historic architecture.

A new condo project in town has been designed in keeping with the architectural style found in many of the historic homes.

On the other side of the canal lies Fort Chambly, built by the French in 1711 to provide protection to the French Canada settlement.  It is right along the edge of the Richelieu River at the Richelieu Rapids.  It is operated by Parks Canada as a historic site.

When the French built Fort Chambly, they also built quarters for the officers stationed there.  A couple of the officers' quarters have gone to private hands and been renovated into magnificent homes.

Behind the houses along this street lie the Richelieuu Rapids, which in this image are somewhat calm.  Large rain events and high waters bring steeper and raging waters.  The need for a canal to make these waters navigable, particularly in an upstream direction, become obvious when looking at the rapids.

The land between the Chambly Canal and the Richelieu River near the fort is filled with beautiful, old homes sited in luscious, mature landscapes.

At some points along the canal, the land separating the Chambly from the Richelieu is only a thin strip.  At other locations, the land is wide enough for neighborhoods of homes.  The length of the canal has a popular walking/biking trail.

The narrowness of the canal can be seen in this image of a swing bridge.  Parks Canada, in keeping with the historic nature of the canal, does not use radios for communication.  Boats pull up to the swing bridge, talk(in a projected voice) to the staff member on the bridge, and he/she then opens the bridge.  The small operator's station can be seen in the third image.

Another of the bridges along the canal was a hinged lift bridge of a quite different design.  The floating dock was needed to moor the boat while waiting for the staff member to come from a different location to operate the bridge.  The pace along the canal is leisurely.

Photo (c) marinas.com

Lock 9, the southern terminus of the Chambly Canal, is located in the middle of the town of St.-Jean-Sur-Richelieu.  St. Jean is an active little town, undergoing a rebuilding effort, with many restaurants and an amazing French Bakery.

The newest building project in St. Jean was a central downtown park.  The sculptor was finishing the installation of his contribution to the park.

Religious Architecture

Towns developed along the water because the waterways were the transportation highways.  Many of the towns along the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Richelieu Rivers in Canada have not grown to more than a few blocks long right next to the river.  No matter how small, a good-sized church was among the buildings and, by far, the tallest building in town.  Seeing the many variations of architecture as one travels is one of the interesting aspects.  Shared here are some examples of the architecture of church steeples along these three Canadian Rivers.

St Lawrence Seaway

The St. Lawrence River begins by emptying Lake Ontario at its eastern end, flowing east between New York and Ontario, through Quebec, and emptying into the North Atlantic Ocean north of Nova Scotia.  Locks have been added to the river providing deep water for shipping, making it known as the St. Lawrence Seaway.  The large schooner above is the first boat the Last Dance crew encountered, but not typical of this waterway.

This is the type of watercraft most seen on the seaway, what today would be known as small freighters, but huge ships in comparison to Last Dance.  The freighters are built to fit the locks.  One ship completely fills the lock.  How do you pilot a large, heavy boat into a lock only a few feet to spare?  You lay it along the lock wall and just slide into the lock.  The concrete wall extending out from the lock can be seen on the port side of this ship.  It is lined with large timbers to create a surface with less friction.  As can be seen on the starboard side of this ship, it has leaned against many a lock wall.

The tight squeeze into the lock can be seen in this image.  The ship's flybridge is just past the opened bridge.

This shot shows the stern of the ship as it moves past the lock doors, again illustrating the tight squeeze necessary to fit the ships into the locks.  The freighters have stern anchors to allow them to anchor in the river bow and stern, so they do not swing while awaiting space at a loading dock.

As Last Dance enters that same lock much maneuvering space is available.  The ships, of course, have priority for the locks, sometimes creating long wait times before recreational craft can be locked through.

Another ship, this one heading up river to the west, exits the second lock south of Montreal.

The aft half of the ship is pictured, since it was too long for the whole length to be seen at once.  This lock had a unique arrangement for the auto roadway that crossed the lock and the river.  There are two bridges at either end of the lock linked to one roadway with a "Y" at each side.  As a ship enters the lock, the traffic is shifted to the bridge at the other end of the lock.  When the ship is in the lock, the first bridge is closed, traffic shifted again so the second bridge can be opened when the ship leaves the lock.  The second bridge is raised, barely high enough for the flybridge of this ship to clear, as it exits the lock.

Downriver from the locks the shipping traffic becomes heavy as there are many shipping terminals along the Seaway.  Behind this freighter is a long loading dock.

These two freighters are anchored in the river waiting for space on the docks so they can unload.

An image of the chartplotter aboard Last Dance.  The red triangles are locations of ships provided through the AIS (Automatic Information System) transponders required on commercial vessels.  The signals from the vessels are received via the ship VF radio and the data transmitted to the chart plotter for display.  The gray image toward the bottom locates Last Dance on the chart and has a crumb trail denoting the path taken.  Much information can be quickly gleaned looking at this image.  The two freighters at anchor in the previous image are the two red triangles near the middle of the river.  There are a lot of ships in this area, most at docks.  It is obvious that Last Dance is heading downstream as the speed at this time is 10 mph, flying for a displacement hull trawler.  Actually, Last Dance is only traveling through the water at 7.5 mph, the current speed of 2.5 mph makes for a speed over ground of 10 mph.  The river to the right is the Richleau.  Last Dance will be turning to starboard and begin heading south on the Richeau River toward Lake Champlain.