O' Canada... 

June 26, 2023

Traveling the Richelieu River & Chambly Canal

We moved through the short distance from Rouse Point to the Canadian Border Office.  This was uneventful process.  I had mentioned previously all the things we could not take into Canada.  We went into their office and did the paperwork.  They did not board the boat to investigate but we did everything correctly in their view.
Prior to our arrival into Canada, we passed Fort Montgomery.  The fort was built during the War of 1812 to provide defense against the British.  Unfortunately, the fort was not built well nor funded well and later became known as "Fort Blunder."  In addition to its poor construction, it was determined that it was also built on Canadian soil instead of American soil.  It is currently overseen by the state of New York.  We also saw an interesting lighthouse- Ash Island Lighthouse.





 In Canada, we travelled up the Richelieu River to the Chambly Canal and returned to the Richelieu River.  The canal was put in place in 1843 to assist in transportation of goods from Canada to the St Lawrence Seaway north or Lake Champlain south bypassing the rapids on the Richelieu River.  Interestingly, the canal was proposed in 1785, began in 1831 but not completed until 1843.  Beside the length of the canal, you can still see the towpath where the horses would pull the items on boats and barges through the locks.  It is the last Canadian canal where you can see the towpath.  It is used as a walking, running, and biking path.  Today, the canal is not used for commercial use and if you saw the width, you would understand. The canal consist of 9 hand operated locks.  Usually, PARC Canada hire college students to do this work as the canal is only open in the summer.  Beach House and The Other Woman travelled together and brought water for those working as well as chocolates and tootsie pops.  They were very appreciative! We purchased a locking pass and a mooring pass that allows us to stay at "walls" overnight instead of a marina.  These are located in the middle of the small towns and are considered safe.  Some walls have power, water, both or none so we need to make sure our batteries and generator remain charged and we use our water wisely!   Danny would always be checking on the generator.  Again, I don't understand, I just hand him the tool!  


             

    • Saint- Jean- de- Richelieu was the first town we came to and stayed overnight on the wall.


    As you can see, unless the lock doors are opened, people walk/run through or ride bikes.  You can also see our boat tied up for the night and a path on the other side.  We found a store with specialty for beer and wine.  I bought nothing and Danny found 3 new beers all made in Canada.  Later in the evening, we went to Captain Pouf outside across from the canal and had fish and chips which were good and chilled shrimp.   Beautiful Saint-Athanase Church was across the river and the first bridge on the canal we had to have lifted for The Other Woman.

    • Traveling from St Jean-de- Richelieu to Chambly was in rain part of the time and you can appreciate the narrowness of the canal.



    We met little boy with his older brother and Mom while they were riding bikes down the path and stopping to watch us through a few locks.  The older brother said they needed to go home, I gave them tootsie pops and said Goodbye.  The little boy wanted to see us again and followed us down one more lock.

    • Chambly- the next town we stopped appeared to be a larger city.  Parks to walk and a fort to explore when we got here.  There was quite a bit of rain starting out the day so we all agreed to stay 3 nights as we moved from the wall to a wall with power!  Big grocery store with a very large craft beer collection both Danny and David were impressed.  David sent Danny a video as he walked through the area so we had to go!


    Fort Chambly was built as a wooden structure on 3 occasions and ultimately stone was used in 1709.  Initially in 1665, the wooden fort was built to provide defensive forces for New France against the Iroquois Indians under the direction of Captain Jacques de Chambly. After that time, Britain and France would fight over this area in the mid 1700's.  The British took control in 1760. During the American Revolution, American troops came in and took over the fort.  When they were being over run by the British, they attempted to burn down the fort as they left to return south.  This stone marker stands near the fort for one officer who died and other American soldiers that perished.  Next to the fort are the rapids on the Richelieu River which is why the canals were built.  I would not want to even attempt taking The Other Woman over this area!








    A church we saw in the distance, captured our attention and we walked to find it.  On the way we found beautiful condos and a little library within a British phone booth.





    We really enjoyed our time here and probably could have stayed another day but our 48 hrs on the wall were up so we left moving further north.



     

    • St Marc-de-Richelieu- we could have travelled further to another wall but decided to stop at a marina.  We had a pool, hot tub, and decent restaurant not to mention we could do laundry for free!  We stayed here for 2 days.

    Many of the churches looked very similar, the one in this town was before 1900.  There were a number of homes along the road by the water built in the 1700's of stone-beautiful.  The lawns and landscaping were beautiful.  Danny and I also took advantage of the hot tub and pool!
    The four of us took a taxi to the town of Beloeil about 15 miles away. Nice area, it was a shame that the pier they had was closed but we enjoyed lunch at Le Cracheur De Feu.  They were preparing for their dinner crowds with the chickens when we left.  While enjoying our lunch, we could sit out and see Mont Saint-Hilaire in the distance.


    • Saint Ours Lock and Saint Lawrence Seaway to Contrecouer- as we left the marina, we were excited to experience a lock with a floating dock and were also anxious about hitting the St Lawrence Seaway.  The floating dock would allow us to tie up and not have to hold lines as well as get out of the boat.  Again, the group working the locks were very nice.  The St Lawrence stories were filled with stories of many freighters to dodge and some very stiff currents.  So on both we didn't know what to expect.  We got off in the lock and also got to see another family wishing us well as we left! There were a number of car ferries we saw going back and forth.  All of these were cables but lucked out that they were at the end delivering cars when we came by so we had no worries.  Also saw a number of farms on the river with grain silo and a nice home with what looked like a GREAT treehouse😊.

                          


                 


    Once we got to the St Lawrence Seaway, Beach House went towards Quebec City to the "right" and we went "left" to Montreal.  You could definitely see the difference in the visibility from the fires outside of Quebec City.  Beach House said it was so bad, they ended up turning on their radar to be safe.  We came into the small town called Contrecoeur which would make our trip to Montreal the next day only 3 hours.  We did see a couple freighters but nothing we could not handle.  We understand as we get closer to Montreal, the current against us becomes worse and there are numerous small islands scattered throughout the seaway so limited places to move.  


    As we left the inlet of the marina this morning, we were lucky to witness a Bald Eagle eating a large fish up in a tree.  The captain was even nice enough to circle back so I could try to get better pictures!  While difficult to see you can see that beautiful white head with the fish draped over the tree limb.



    We had been doing 8MPH when we originally got on the St Lawrence but today that rapidly decreased.  At 2 hrs to go we were down to 6.6MPH and then with 30 minutes to go, we were down to 3.2 MPH at 2200 RPMs.  I was getting the boat fenders ready for us to go into the marina and I felt like all that was happening was a bunch of water gushing up and us not going anywhere.  As we approached Montreal you could see churches and freighters on all sides.




    We will be in Montreal for a couple weeks, so will do a posting of our stay soon after!

    35 Locks 
    18 Bridge Openings


    TOTAL MILES TRAVELLED  3673.20 miles
    TOTAL DAYS 234








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