#0134 "Fall River"

From 1984...

This is looking southeast along the Shubie Canal in the fall of 1983..from our backyard along Lockview Road in Fall River Nova Scotia. The canal system was supposed to link Dartmouth and the Atlantic to the Bay of Fundy. The canal was not very successful. The water way did provide some wonderful canoeing though. I would put the two small kids in the canoe after coming home from a night shift and paddle for a couple of hours into the adjoining lakes. Lake Thomas was upstream toward Halifax and Fletchers Lake was downstream.

The internet did not exist when I painted this in 1984 but a search for information now reveals a ton of information at a click of the keyboard. The Shubenacadie Canal was a Canadian canal in central Nova Scotia linking Halifax Harbour with the Bay of Fundy by way of the Shubenacadie River and Shubenacadie Grand Lake. Begun in 1826, it was not completed until 1861 and was closed in 1871. The canal enjoyed a few years of healthy traffic especially during the Waverley gold rushes of the 1860s. However the canal company showed little profit and experienced many problems relating to frigid winters which damaged the locks linking the freshwater lakes.

Our two tame ducks were rounding the rocks I had piled there. Annie and Jake would come for some bread from the hands of our children most days. I lost my finger nail moving those rocks which were supposed to help stop any erosion and provide a little pool for the kids to play. They were not in school yet.