Canal Stories

Canal Stories

Hear echoes of the past and find out what it's like to live and work on the canal today.

Jump onboard a canal boat with Albert Gayer (c1898-1976), who grew up alongside the Erie Canal in the early 1900s.

Bootleg on a canal boat! Evamay Wilkins shares her family's secret for transporting whiskey on the canal in the 1920s.

As a young girl, Catherine Charron spent hours listening to her grandfathers tell stories about their canal boat family on the Champlain Canal.

After twenty-odd years on the Erie Canal, Engineer Dave Gower has a few words of advice and more than a few stories to tell.

Childhood labor may be a thing of the past, but the daily chores of a nine year old mule driver are still remembered by Jesse Wimett.

Buffalo resident and architect Robert Coles recalls how ethnic tensions influenced access to the canal and shaped a city.

Robert Montross' grandfather was no stranger to trouble along the Old Erie Canal...or to starting that trouble!

Take a nostalgic journey with Don Meixner, who has lived all his life in and around the Erie Canal.

Tugboat Captain Steve Wunder shares his passion for working on the canal through stories and poetry.