Generation Clay
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Blog from The Beach II
A Visit to Big Chute
| Posted on August 30, 2008 at 10:31 PM |
On the third day of our holiday, we took a day trip to Big Chute, the famous marine railway on the Trent Severn Waterway. The Waterway in its entirety is a National Historic Site of Canada. (Try googling it.) This is the water route from Lake Huron's Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, a "small" boater's paradise. It takes one week for a boat to travel this route from one end to the other. Besides being a scenic route, it is also a short cut, saving boaters the time and trouble of doing the Detroit River, Lake St Clair, Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, and the entire western end of Lake Ontario. (This is not a lake freighter route, as you will soon see.) The Trent Severn Waterway has many locks on its route, plus this one marine railway which hauls boats up and down a steep bluff between Lake Huron and the Severn River. We can only imagine how the settlers and the voyageurs portaged over this route.
Georgian Bay and Lake Huron are on the left side of this map.
Honey Harbour is marked by the red star. Big Chute is located just to the right of the red star on this map.
Toronto is on the Lake Ontario shore, at the bottom right. (90-100 minutes to the south.)
The Shield country begins roughly at Severn Bridge, and is marked by huge granite outcroppings everywhere. It covers more than a 1/3 of Canada.
Big Chute is a place that I had always wanted to see, as it is unique. For the first time ever I was only 20 minutes away from it by car. Just had to go see it!
Interestingly Big Chute is also the location of the very first hydro-electric power plant in Ontario. No wonder it is so historic.
Our visit took place at midday on a gorgeous, sunny August day, and we got lucky, as a couple of boats arrived for their trip just as we got there. We got to see the marine railway in use, as it took the two boats down to the lower level, and watched as the empty carriage was brought back up to the upper level. Then we packed up and took Lily to lunch.
There were so many photos that I could not put them in this blog, but you can look at the whole series (I hope you will find the photos interesting) at this URL.
http://gallery.me.com/ebream#100231
Here's a teaser from the series of photos I took. The two boats are getting settled in the railway carriage, preparing to be moved down the bluff.
Georgian Bay and Lake Huron are on the left side of this map.
Honey Harbour is marked by the red star. Big Chute is located just to the right of the red star on this map.
Toronto is on the Lake Ontario shore, at the bottom right. (90-100 minutes to the south.)
The Shield country begins roughly at Severn Bridge, and is marked by huge granite outcroppings everywhere. It covers more than a 1/3 of Canada.
Big Chute is a place that I had always wanted to see, as it is unique. For the first time ever I was only 20 minutes away from it by car. Just had to go see it!
Interestingly Big Chute is also the location of the very first hydro-electric power plant in Ontario. No wonder it is so historic.
Our visit took place at midday on a gorgeous, sunny August day, and we got lucky, as a couple of boats arrived for their trip just as we got there. We got to see the marine railway in use, as it took the two boats down to the lower level, and watched as the empty carriage was brought back up to the upper level. Then we packed up and took Lily to lunch.
There were so many photos that I could not put them in this blog, but you can look at the whole series (I hope you will find the photos interesting) at this URL.
http://gallery.me.com/ebream#100231
Here's a teaser from the series of photos I took. The two boats are getting settled in the railway carriage, preparing to be moved down the bluff.
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