The Welland Canals and their Communities: Engineering, Industrial, and Urban Transformation

For over 170 years the Welland Canals have been a major industrial catalyst and an important agent of urban evolution, spawning a series of distinct communities along the length of the canals between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Four Welland canals have crossed Southern Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula since 1829, and each update fostered a renewed economic expansion. The most recent change came in 1959, when the new St. Lawrence Seaway system opened the canal and the Niagara Peninsula to the Atlantic Ocean. The Welland Canals and Their Communities is an in-depth examination of the history and influence of each canal. It traces the changes over time in engineering elements such as the canal route, its water supply and flow, and its form, including locks, weirs, bridges, and other structures that have successively modified both the landscape and drainage pattern of its regional surroundings. In addition to these marine elements, John N. Jackson looks at the movements of vessels, the changing types of ships that have used the canal, and the economic character of trading flows within and through the canal to provide a detailed portrait of the interaction between transportation and land use at both the local and regional level. The changing canal scene and the evolution, form, and character of the canal communities provide the dual emphasis of Jackson’s narrative, which concludes with an appreciation of the canal system and its potential at a time when heritage and tourist concerns rise to the fore across the Niagara Peninsula.