Back to Civilization

Written August 6, 2019, by Annie.

On Thursday August 1, 2019, we shoved off from Queen’s Cove marina (where we had the mast taken down), and headed for Port Severn, the start of the Trent-Severn waterway.  This is a series of lakes, rivers, canals, and locks, and the whole system is a Canadian national historic site.  Most of the locks are hand-operated; the attendants turn cranks to open and close the gates.  On the first day, we did two locks:  one was a standard lock, and the second was a lock known as the marine railway.  It is basically a large elevator that takes your boat fully out of the water over the hill to the higher lake.  We got a little nervous when the attendant asked us to all move to the front of the boat since the stern was tilting backwards, especially since they assume no responsibility for any damage.  

Someone else’s sailboat on the marine railway.  We didn’t get good pictures of ours since we were manning the boat.

View from the crest of the marine railway.

Picture from the top of the Swift Rapids lock – the tallest conventional (not hydraulic) lock in the system.  We are the only one tied up here for the night.

The first few locks felt novel.  They were not quite as exciting after the fifteenth, especially on a 90 degree day in the sun.

This segment of the trip on the Trent-Severn is much different than what has come before.  For most of July, we were in remote places, many of which you could only get to by boat.  In the North Channel, there weren’t even many cabins – it was just all wild islands and beautiful hidden bays.  Georgian Bay had lots of cabins, but it was still sparsely populated.  We would occasionally stop at a small town, where we would get provisions and maybe a night at a marina.  I started looking up the population of the towns to try to anticipate if they would have a real grocery store or not – 1000 people seemed big by the end of this time. 

So now, on the Trent-Severn, we are moving much closer to Toronto and the lakes in this area are highly populated with cabins and boats everywhere.  Each of the locks we go through is like a mini-campground.  Boats will tie up for the night before or after the lock, there are nice public washrooms, and picnic benches with a lawn area.  Because of this, we are meeting lots of people, and getting more of a feel for Canadian culture.    Canadians are living up to their reputation of being very nice, and they are for the most part very similar to Americans.  A lot of them talk about healthcare when they find out we are from the U.S., and they all think that it is really nice to not worry about healthcare.  They can’t believe what we pay in premiums each month for a high deductible plan; $500 per year buys their supplemental health insurance (which covers things like healthcare in a foreign country, and some other odds and ends).  So far, no consensus on Trump from the folks we have met.  I did also meet a family from Wales – we both had existential angst about the politics of our nations, and they were convinced they would move to Canada when Brexit finally happens.  The other cultural differences are minor – they say washrooms instead of restrooms, have $1 and $2 coins, round up on all purchases since they have no pennies, and they don’t have any Hershey’s milk chocolate bars in packages of six (only Hershey’s with almonds – how is one to make smores?).  AND they sell milk in plastic bags – who knew?

Bolsover lock that we stayed at on a Saturday night - every space taken, lots of socializing.

One last thought just for fun:  we are collecting bad boat names.  For some reason, boaters think it is hilarious to name their boats with nautical puns.  Here is one of the boats making the list.  I am in the foreground because it seemed that the owners noted we were taking a picture as we passed, so taking a picture of me was a cover.