Last year, shortly after we booked our reservation for Salten-Fjord, I purchased copies of J.M. Pearson & Son Ltd.’s “Canal Companion”s covering the routes that we intended to travel. Little did I know how valuable these compact guides would be. I had imagined that a canal was like a railroad, just travel where the tracks (or water) carry you. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Good fortune and unexpected insights have been found every day in these guides. Turn the page and there is charming narrative, such as, “The canal crosses the old Roman Road of Watling Street on a study yet elegant aqueduct o iron, brick, and stone construction”… or “Wrenbury Hall’s history goes back to Domesday but the present mock Elizabethan mansion dates from 1919. In living memory it has been used to rehabilitate tuberculosis sufferers…”.

Encouraged by these slices of local color we have moored for the express purpose of “smelling the roses”.

More practical are the detailed maps that dissect the canals into discreet sections that take 2-4 hours to travel. Each diagram includes a dizzying array of symbols that apprise one of everything from navigational challenges to farms where fresh eggs and home-made ice cream may be purchased.

There are precious few signs on the canals. However, every bridge (and there are literally hundreds of them) bears a number on each side. It is these numbers that keep one oriented to where you are, and where you are going. With the exception of the more daunting, locks are often nameless and numberless. Again, they are anticipated by reference to the nearest bridge number.

The Pearson Guides also advise as to the quality of the adjoining towpaths and whether they are suitable for man, beast, or bicycle. It is not uncommon for a crew member to hop off and walk the path, often faster than the vessel, in order to reconnoiter, get some exercise, or just secure some quiet personal time.

The guides are not perfect. One still must expect the unexpected such as a raised draw bridge that appeared to have become our responsibility to lower. Christine was deposited on shore and I proceeded at the helm to the other side where I believed that she would meet us after lowering and crossing the bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge was padlocked in the up position and since narrowboats are crap at backing up against a strong wind we (and she) feared that she was marooned on the side of the canal where there was nothing but mud and shoal-water. 15 minutes of effort seasoned liberally with a sailor’s vocabulary finally brought my “Bonny” back to me.

Another unexpected surprise suddenly appeared around a blind bend in the canal. 20+ children came darting toward us in miniature kayaks. Like so many little ducklings they darted helter-skelter across the canal in front of us. An adult leader in a canoe shouted to us, “Pay no mind, just go around them!” Apparently she believed that my 30,000 pound 61 foot long vessel was amphibious and just as maneuverable as her canoe. Incredible!

Our morning again broke to near freezing temperatures. Winds were light for the first 2 hours which made for good cruising. However the winds piped up to over 20 mph which made the afternoon hours very challenging. By 5 p.m. I was again ready for a proper mooring and a short walk along the canal to a pub, pint, and grub. Tonight it was the “Horse and Jockey”. This has become our routine but the enjoyment at the end of the day on the canal remains anything but routine.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS: Cell coverage has been very spotty along the circuitous and mostly rural canals we have traveled. Tonight I am playing “catch-up” with my posts as the cell signal at this mooring is fairly strong. It has also allowed me to check email, the weather, and of course social media. I also learned that our three days of cruising have placed us only 19 miles from our starting point (as the crow flies). If you have any ambition to canal boating then abandon all hope of getting from point A to point B in a hurry.

The mornings have begun with fog and heavy frost. We are hoping for warmer temperatures, but for now we will be thankful that it hasn’t rained.

Today presented new challenges in the form of some very narrow channels, blind tight radius turns, and side winds that conspired to push us off course.

There were other frustrations, but the worse was being wind pushed diagonally across a 50 foot wide section of canal in a 61 foot long boat. Do the math and you will correctly conclude that we had 11 feet of too much boat. We wedged fore and aft. 10 minutes of effort brought us back on course, but with the temporary loss of my dignity.

There were 9 locks today, including a flight of four that followed one immediately after the other.

Here is a link to a 15 second time-lapse video of our passage through a single canal boat lock: “15 Seconds in a Lock”

Dignity was restored at the next lock where we learned that the previous day an experienced skipper managed to wedge his boat in that lock. It took the canal authorities 16 hours to extricate his vessel and repair the damaged brickwork.

Speeds on the canals are not to exceed 4 miles per hour, a very fast walk or slow jogging pace. One might scoff at the notion that such a snail’s pace could cause anxiety, let alone fear. However, Salten-Fjord and most of the other vessels it encounters weigh over 30,000 pounds… have imprecise steering and really lousy brakes. What’s more, some of the fancier canal boats sport custom paint jobs costing over 15,000 Pounds (about $20,000.00)! It’s little wonder that we as novices have white knuckles and tension headaches at the end of the day. A pint of real English Bitter (ale) is the prescribed cure at a pub (The Farmer’s Arms) that also serves an amazing shank of lamb!

Our progress is slow but steady as we approach our first experience operating drawbridges, crossing aqueducts, and navigating pitch dark tunnels. Stay tuned!

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. Today is Kris Ashton’s Birthday. Happy Birthday… we are honored that she chose to spend it with us.

Answer: Pints at the Badger Pub.

After breakfast, our Boar’s Head hostess Liz drove us to the local market where we bought provisions. Mostly breakfast and lunch fixing as our plan is to conclude each day with a pint and meal at some canal-side pub. Shopping accomplished, Liz then took us to the Andersen Boat yard where we loaded our belongings and supplies aboard Salten-Fjord, our 61×8 foot “home” for the next 3 weeks.

Items stowed, Ryan and Pauline conducted our vessel and lock orientation. We all received the overview of vessel systems and safety. Thereafter, Chris and Kris received training on operating the canal locks and I attended to my crash (no pun intended) course on piloting the narrowboat. These instructions required our absolute attention, so sorry but no pictures. The entire orientation took an hour after which the vessel was ours!

I remember the day my father “taught” me how to drive. I was 14, the car was a manual shift 1961 Plymouth Valiant, and he handed me the keys and said “drive”. It was a solo experience on the rural roads as he merely walked away and left it for me to figure out the details.

Today Ryan handed me the keys and helm of Salten-Fjord. His instructions were infinitely more compete than those provided by my father 53 years ago. Also, I was sharing the responsibility with 2 very competent women. Nevertheless, that old conjured memory hints at the insecurity that I was feeling. We survived the initial locks and navigational challenges, quickly acquiring confidence.

The newness of the experiences kept us on our toes, but we were able to relax enough to gain awareness of the extraordinary sights that were unfolding before our eyes.

Kris had the presence of mind to take a 3 minute video from the bow that gives some sense of the experience. Here is a link to the video: 3 Minutes on the Shropshire Union Canal

Over the course of 3 hours we successfully navigated 5 locks and 16 bridges. We arrived and made our mooring near the town of Church Minshull, home of the highly regarded Badger Inn and Pub. No sooner than we had securely tied up and Christine and Kris were pouring over the charts for tomorrow’s passage.

The Badger was reached by a perilous walk quarter mile down a narrow country lane. The road was without a shoulder, often presenting blind turns, and the cars approached fast and heedless of our presence. A pint and an excellent Steak and Ale Pie were my reward for a day well and safely done. This is a 45 year dream realized. Although the dream has been mine, the enthusiasm and wonder are shared equally among the 3 of us.

I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the interior and exterior of Salten-Fjord. They appear at the end of this post. We are traversing a rural landscape and finding that internet service comes and goes. These posts my be delayed for that reason.

Tomorrow we continue on towards Llangollen in Wales and the world renown canal aqueduct.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Omitting the British canals of the Roman era and those of the Middle Ages associated with the construction and support of castles and monasteries, the dawn of the “modern” UK canal system dates to the mid 1700’s. It coincided with the Industrial Revolution, but whether the Industrial Revolution gave birth to the canals or the canals were the progenitor of the IR is in the realm of what came first, chickens or eggs.

By the end of the 18th Century construction of a remarkable system of connected waterways was well underway. It was the 18th and 19th Century equivalent of the United States Interstate Highway system. At its zenith the canal network of the United Kingdom extended to over 2,000 miles of inland waterways providing the efficient transport of coal, raw materials, and manufactured goods throughout the realm. It was a technological tour-de-force in its day and remains a marvel in the 21st Century with parts of the system declared as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Steam rail service in the late 19th and early 20th Century became the chief rival of the canal system. Train operators undertook to purchase segments of the canals and then raised canal fees to a level that made them uncompetitive. The death knell for the canals was struck in the Great Winter Freeze of 1962-63 when the entire system closed due to ice. Rail service had won its century long battle for supremacy.

Visionaries and conservationists believed that the Canals might again find relevance… not as networks of commerce but purposed as a recreational windfall. In the 1960’s the Inland Waterways Association was founded to restore the canals. This effort was later passed to the management of British Waterways. Finally, an act of Parliament placed the ownership and management of the canal system into the hands of the newly formed Canal and River Trust, a not-for-profit that has been responsible for the restoration and maintenance of the system since 2012.

On April 12th Christine and I will take the tiller of a 61 foot long, 8 foot wide “Narrowboat”, the Salten-Fjord. She will be our personal magic carpet upon the waterways of England for three weeks. During the first portion of the journey we will be joined by friend Kris Ashton of Denver. The final days will be with our Canadian friends Tom Shillington and his wife Nanci Burns.

Narrowboats are… NARROW! Here is a diagram of the Salten Fjord’s interior:

I have borrowed liberally from internet images to present an overview of the canal experience that we hope to embrace.

The interiors of the vessels provide accommodations for sleeping, cooking, bathing, and relaxation. These boats are powered by small inboard diesel engines that are designed to propel the narrowboat at the canal speed limit of 4 mph. Interiors are comfortable if not spacious.

The canals wander across country, connecting villages and cities alike. England is not flat. In order to accommodate the undulating landscape engineers of the 18th and 19th Centuries had to devise systems of locks to climb hills and descend valleys, hundreds of locks. Most are human powered by the narrowboat operators (us!). In some locations there are “flights” of locks, as many as 21 in a 3 mile stretch! There will be no lack of exercise for any of us.

Where the hills were too daunting tunnels were dug, the longest of these being over 3 miles long, pitch dark, and taking over 3 hours to transit from end to end.

In the pre-diesel days of the 1800’s men would hire themselves out as “canal walkers” to propel the vessels through these tunnels using their feet against the tunnel walls and ceiling!

The Anderton Boat Lift, constructed in 1875, still lifts narrowboats 50 feet from one waterway to another. Its 21st Century equivalent, the Falkirk Wheel, looks like a huge Ferris Wheel and lifts boats nearly 80 feet to the connected canal.

Finally, there are the cast iron aqueducts that carry narrowboats in 200 year old cast iron troughs 175 feet above the valley floor below.

Travel upon the canals of the United Kingdom is essentially safe, but not entirely free of peril.

We are counting down the days to departure in earnest. We hope you will travel along with us through my “Thoughts”.

Peace Everyone. Pete

(Note: Most of the preceding post was first published by me in August, 2018.)

How I came to read the July 1974 issue of National Geographic is lost to me. Perhaps it was in a barbershop chair. Perhaps it was in a dentist’s waiting room. How is not so important as the context of the time. July 7th I had arrived in Kansas City a recent graduate of Southern Illinois University. I was scrambling to rent an apartment and making preparations to report for work on the 15th as a newly hired Missouri State Parole Officer. A few weeks later I would meet a young lady named Christine. 3 years later we would be married. Our relationship has since flourished for more than 45 years, as has the dream sparked by an article in that issue of National Geographic; “Exploring England’s Canals”.

The story described a vast network of canals in England dating back hundreds of years. These canals had fallen into ruin but were slowly being restored and repurposed for recreational exploration. The self-powered barges, known as “Narrow Boats”, were similarly being restored. Holds and bilges that once carried coal and commerce were being outfitted with galleys, berths, and heads. For the uninitiated that translates into kitchens, beds, and toilets. The photographs of the verdant English countryside, meandering waterways, and the intrepid navigators piloting these craft became images burned into the retina of my imagination. I have held preciously to my love of Christine, and I have held tenaciously to the dream of one day becoming one of those canal boat pilots.

In 3 weeks at a dock in Middlewich England I will be handed the keys to the Salten-Fjord, a 61-foot-long 8-foot-wide diesel-powered canal boat. It will be entrusted to us for 3 weeks. We will be joined for the first half of the charter by our good friend and Camino companion from 2013, Kris Ashton. The second half of the charter will be shared with our “doppelganger” friends from the 2018 Camino, Tom Shillington and his wife Nanci Burns. It is our hope that over the course of 3 weeks we will traverse 200 miles of canals, navigating scores of locks, water viaducts, tunnels and drawbridges. Countless pubs and backwater dives will beckon, and I pray we will be up to the challenge.

It is my intention over the next week to post information about this upcoming “adventure”, so please “stay tuned”!
Peace Everyone. Pete

(Pictured below on the far side of the canal lies the Salten-Fjord)