Trent-Severn and The Big Chute

Monday July 9, 2018
Day 463
6,206 miles

We stayed at the Port of Orillia Marina both Friday and Saturday nights.  That is the first time we have stayed more than one night in a spot since back on the Erie Canal.  It was a welcome respite.
We worked on boat stuff all Saturday morning.  It was Mike's way of keeping me from the shops in downtown Orillia.   The generator impeller got changed and we took the dinghy off the swim platform so both could get a much needed cleaning.

I eventually got downtown.  Maple leaf sculptures lined the main street. There was also a free music festival going on.

Speaking of music - Orillia is the birthplace of Gordon Lightfoot.  We Michiganders have a connection with him through his mournful song - "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" - the freighter that sank in Lake Superior.

No fancy name like "bar" or "pub" or "grill". - Let's just call it what it is.  A Social Drinking House

We completely agree.  Their tarts got 3 thumbs up from us.  They were melt-in-your-mouth delicious!

Our excitement for the evening was when Mike was getting our portable grill set up and it fell off the back of the boat!  He and the dinghy stopped it from going in the water, but not before the lid opened and the 2 removable grates sunk to the bottom of our slip.  The awkward part was we had invited Kenny and Sherry from Blue Moon over for dinner! (Blue Moon is the boat we "kissed" when we had the trouble in the lock and we thought we owed them a meal. 😄)  The pork wings tasted just as good being cooked in our electric skillet.

Love the beauty

Just in case you didn't believe me about the adirondack chairs . . . 

I took this one because of the bears on the rocks.  But look what the people are sitting in . . .

We've come to the conclusion that at birth, every Canadian is given a butter tart in one hand and a deed to a cottage in the other.  There are SO MANY lakes and all of them have SO MANY cottages.

They are even on rocks!

The Big Chute - a highlight of the Trent-Severn Waterway.  One that puts a few butterflies inside every Looper.  A truly unique experience.  It is not a lock but a marine railway.  It works on an inclined plane to carry boats in individual cradles (slings) over a change of height of about 60 feet.  It is the only one of its kind in North America still in use.  The railway initially was a temporary solution when funds were not available to construct a lock.  After a sea lamprey was found at the bottom of the track, it was determined that stopping the flow of water was the way to prevent the sea lamprey from invading the entire Trent system.  So boats to this day continue to be lifted out of the water and transported over a hill and put back into the water.  The first Big Chute was completed in 1917.  The carriage in use today became operational in 1978.

Waiting our turn

Entering the Big Chute.  The yellow slings are waiting for us.  The person in charge (chute master?) gives explicit instructions on what to do and how far to go in.

The boat in front of us (preceding picture) - a local Canadian - offered to take pictures while in the chute and email them to us.  The kindness of strangers . . .

People watching from below

A fellow Looper on Kara Mia had stopped at the marina right before the railway.  When he saw us waiting on the wall, he walked to the Chute and took these pictures.  Priceless shots for us.  You have to be thankful for the little things . . . 

Near the bottom

I included the above pictures in case the video below that Kara took doesn't work on this post.

At the top, the cradle stopped for a few seconds as we were swaying a little.  We also knew the back 1/3 of the boat was hanging off the edge of the platform.  Hence the butterflies!

We spent Sunday night at Starpoint - Point Severn Marina.  The facility had grills to use and Kenny and Sherry joined us for dinner again as we compared notes on our Big Chute experience and the Trent in general.  I had to laugh when Sherry said, "Have you ever seen so many adirondack chairs?!"

Exiting the Port Severn Lock - Number 45 - our last lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway and our last lock on our Loop.  Port Severn is the end of the Waterway, which empties in the Georgian Bay.

We did a "hooray" because the novelty of the regular locks wears off after a while and we are glad to be done with them.

After this lock there was a swing bridge.  The one we really care about will be our next one - the Mackinac Bridge!

The top row were worn by Mike and I in the 28 locks we did on the inland rivers in the fall of 2016.

The bottom row are the ones we wore in 23 locks on the Erie Canal, 7 on the Oswego Canal, and 42 on the Trent-Severn Waterway in the spring and summer of 2018.

One last butter tart.  I'm taking it home for Karen.

While on the Trent-Severn we traveled on rivers, canals, locks and lakes.  We've shared the waterway with other pleasure boaters, jet skiers, kayakers, canoers, knee boarders, kids tubing, pontoons, fishing boats and houseboats.

The Canadian people could not have been nicer.  

On Tuesday we will cross from Midland, Ontario to Mackinaw City.  (254 miles).  We bought True North here in the Georgian Bay back in May of 2016.  So a few miles outside of Midland,  Mike, Greg and the boat will technically "crossed their wake".   Our official crossing (getting back to where we started) will be Saturday, July 14 when we pull into Harbor View Marina in Ludington.
We are getting pretty excited!


                                               Greg's Unique and Random Photo of the Day: