Whoa! The extraordinary river flow of 2017 caused some pretty drastic long-term changes to the HydroElectric Plant route. Perhaps the most obvious is the change in the sluice gates. This is what they used to look like: But this is what they look like today! It appears I need to resketch my sketch! The boards …
Continue reading Hydroelectric Plant Sluice Gates: 2018
Quite the start to the 2018 dive season! Larry and I were awakened in the wee hours of a recent clear night by the sound of a long, loud foghorn, followed by the frantic grinding of an engine in reverse. We looked out into the night but could see nothing amiss. In the morning the …
Along with anyone living in southern Ontario and Quebec this spring, we've been watching carefully the weather reports and specifically rainfall statistics... and we've been driving up and down the shorelines to inspect areas we know. There has been flooding and damage to many, many riverside properties. Lake Ontario levels remain higher than at any …
When you reach the final cribbing of the tailrace described in this post, by whichever way you got there, you now have the opportunity to explore the municipal wharf footings and the ferry dock and road on your way back to shore.You can leave the locks from anywhere you wish, but the photo below shows the relative distances from …
Continue reading Leaving the Locks: the Wharf and Ferry Dock
The approach to the locks is described in this post. You want to arrive at either of position #2 or #3 described there. You'll pass over a tire (the only one in the entire site) and come upon a pile of bottles at the base of the lock's upstream gate. I'm calling it a "gate" …
When you reach the foundations of the hydroelectric plant itself, you'll find bricks: lots of red bricks piled at the bottom of the plant's concrete wall with a few still partially affixed at its top. Pay attention to your direction at the top of the wall. Moving east over it with the current will carry you through the area of …
Continue reading Inner Route: The Hydroelectric Plant – From Plant Foundation to Tailrace
In this photo, courtesy of stlawrencepiks.com, you can see the grassy section between the two locks. Starting upstream, note its important features: the initial curved approach wall, the dark rectangular and circular flower beds, the lock house in the centre, the position of the downstream Lock 23 gate, and the drop in depth where the wall curves inward, …
Continue reading Top o’ the Wall: Between the Old and New Locks
The innermost route (the one closest to shore) takes you through the Hydroelectric Plant built in the late 1800s. Water was directed from the canal into the plant's headpond, then funneled into the turbine to create electric current for nearby transformers. Here's a sketch of Morrisburg's plant with its inflow "headpond" and its outflow "tailrace" area. I …
Continue reading Inner Route: The Hydroelectric Plant – From Sluice Gates to Plant Foundation
The site is large and, since you're always drifting, you get to see only a portion of it each time you dive. It's nice to know which section you've arrived at when you reach the stone structures. Here's the direction from which you've come: Here are the primary landmarks when you get there (details below): Here are …
The route to the "new" lock is the farthest from shore but also the simplest. It's therefore the one that most divers take if they're new to the site. Instructions they'll have received might be... "Swim south until you hit the outer stone wall, drift downstream until it runs out, head back north to hit …
