HIGHWAY HEYDAY
Within 15 years of its opening, the Erie Canal made New York City one of the busiest ports in America. By 1845, there were 4,000 boats on the canal run by 25,000 men, women, and children, most of whom lived aboard. The nomadic life wasn’t glamorous and precluded children from attending school. Those not tethered to lines sometimes fell overboard, never to be seen again. Once these boats reached the Hudson they rafted together and were pulled by tugboats to stops along the river, an often precarious situation. In addition to the mass commerce, countless runaway slaves would escape to Canada using the canal as a guiding light for part of the Underground Railroad.
Today, we found ourselves cruising through a flat-calm world where trees that fence in the sides of the landscape are reflected onto the waters of the Genesee River that merges with the Erie Canal. Although the original Erie was a man-made ditch, it now consists of stretches of naturalized waterways linked by canal sections. Goose points Cayuga’s gleaming brass tiller straight ahead as we pass under aging rusty bridges that have survived demolition.
We spent our last night in Pittsford. A grain elevator converted to offices—as an exercise in adaptive use—stands tall along the landscaped waterfront at Schoen Landing. Wooden bollards topped with copper line the town landing, looking like chess pieces. Overlooking the water, Lock 32 Brewing Company serves craft beer and cider. We were told that Hicks & McCarthy on South Main Street serves up a good breakfast.
By Thursday morning it was time to turn around and head back to Macedon. Our canal boat plowed through flat water that mirrored the trees along its edge as we headed back east, re-tracing our route. After passing under Mitchell Road Bridge we tied up for lunch alongside the town dock in Bushnell’s Basin—one of Money magazine’s Top 100 Best Places To Live in America. We hadn’t traveled far over four days, but it seemed like we stepped back in time. And yes, maybe we even slowed down.
On Cayuga, I thumbed through entries left behind by visitors in her logbook. One visitor wrote on September 11, 2001, after learning about the collapse of the World Trade Center:
“I am trying not be morbid but I know I am not the only one who is torn between continuing our vacation and going back to NYC. It is impossible to look out from our boat, seeing the beautiful scene before us and not wonder how so much beauty and so much grief, violence, and destruction also come on this day.”
“The Erie Canal is infectious,” Wiles Jr. told me on our return to Macedon. “You get devoted to it. The canal has been my family’s lifelong cause. It’s in our blood. The biggest thing I would recommend to boaters is not to rush; among the beauties of the canal are the small towns. If you do 40 to 50 miles in a day, you’re going to miss them.”
Perhaps the lesson left to all cruisers of the canal, one we can all take away from choosing the power-cruising lifestyle, Wiles pauses for a moment before adding: “Take your time.”
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