PA Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal: Lock 13

 

Ice begins to form on the Lower Susquehanna

Rambling down the Mason Dixon Trail, following the blue blazes south from the well preserved Lock 12 along the old Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, Lock 13 is ready for another exploration. With the leaves down and the woods bare and open all around, the huge walls and 170' foot-long lock are easy to spot. The river has not been kind to these ruins which even if they were protected by any park regulations or historical society (they are not) it will, flood by flood, pull it all down. 

Beam slots that held vertical timbers

Tree growth dismantles the integrity of the heavy stacked stones, their roots and massive trunks leaning into and prying apart the work of hundreds of immigrant stonecutters and builders. Freeze and thaw accelerates the work of tree roots while the downslope creep of steep river hills soils move the walls incrementally towards the river. 

Exploring the bottom of the lock.

The most recent round of spray paint vandalism, courtesy of  "Randi John Jesse Mason 2022," left me pitying those who do not have the decency to respect the beauty and history here. They've left their names (as well as numerous insults) for nearly a mile along the trail. Covered in bright neon green and hot pink is the sturdy bench built by a volunteer trail maintainer. The massive tollhouse bridge abutment is tagged in bright yellow. An archeological site nearby is overspread with their names and total disrespect. It sickens me every time and the graffiti problem especially since the Covid years has only gotten worse.

Lock post timber from the 1840s still stand

A natural prop to hold a leaning wall

Tree buckling a towpath wall

Massive abutment of a former bridge over the towpath and canal

Wandering in and around these old canal ruins makes me appreciate the changes that the seasons bring. In late fall and early winter I can finally see into the woods enough to discover the old cellar holes, springheads, mill races, and canal ditches. Even an old tavern foundation is easy to find and I think about the canal boat crews and company men enjoying a hot meal and drink here. This time of year, as we approach Winter Solstice, is particularly meaningful. It signifies our need to be reminded that nature is in a constant state of change and that no matter how epic or lasting the works of man seem to be initially, how durable and well-built they seem at the time, nature will reclaim it and return all of it to herself. 

Drill (star-bit hand hammered) holes for blasting

To me these places are not full of ghosts or wistful remembrances of the past but are visible and tactile proof that there is always something new and unproven yet to come. Nothing lasts but what is constant is change. Even the hardest rock like the great outcrops of metamorphic gneiss (which was once ancient sea bottom) is wearing away grain by grain to be carried to the sea by the Susquehanna. This time of year reminds me most of how transient everything is. 

Rock shelter defaced by Randi, Mason, Jesse, and John.

This place is full of natural symbols that carry down from the time people made stone tools here, when the melting glaciers  had long before finished scouring the river bed with its silty milk-water. Fire - built by people in the lee of the rock shelter for warmth, cooking, and storytelling. Water - full of fish to sustain them. Earth - the fertile river silts that made for excellent farming. Wind - that carried the songs of migrating swans, geese, ducks, and shorebirds as they returned for the winter from the north.  For those who still celebrate these things at Winter Solstice, these symbols are still important in recognizing the turn of seasons. 

In case you need their names...

Ice is forming on the river, another sign and symbol of the change of seasons. Ice has shaped these river islands. It has scoured and pruned the forests that attempt to grow out here. Not a single tree close to the river can be found without ice wounds, scars, and gouges. The great ice floes of the 1870s destroyed so much of the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal that it remained in a constant state of rebuilding until canals were replaced by the railroads, thus ending the age of canal technology for transportation and trade. By 1904, the last standing vestiges of the canal days were ripped away by an historic ice flow and flood. The flow took out entire villages and towns, carried off and crushed the taverns, lockhouses, hotels, collapsed lock walls, drowned the towpath. 

Ancient metaschists and gneiss conglomerates - very old stuff!

On the way back I wander off trail to investigate what remains of the canal below Lock 13 and it a vast plain of destroyed canal wall, something almost glorious to see how the river has reclaimed this spot of human ingenuity.  I try to balance on the tipsy slabs of rock that splay out like giant scales of some mythical creature and Amos, who is four-footed and much more sure-footed, seems amused at my drunken walk. But hey, isn't a difficult path now and then important for a full life? 

Appalachian Rockcap Fern, Polypodium appalachianum

I pulled a garbage bag out of my backpack and picked up all the trash I could reach as I returned through Lock 13. A few shards of liquor bottles (rum). Three plastic soda bottles. Several assorted wrappers. Cigarette butts. A spent spray paint can.  A pair of muddy jeans (heavy!) and a single sock. A lighter. An empty pack of L&M cigarettes. These few things were recently thrown down here so it looks a lot better but I can't reach a bright blue plastic bag which bothers me. Trash attracts trash, I reason, so someone will see that there and figure "what the heck, it's already trashed' and add the next round of refuse to the lock.  

Timeless landscape - Bear Islands, Lower Susquehanna River

Before I left the site, I sat on the high wall of the lock and pulled out my little notebook. I add a winged poem (a poem written on the move) on how much I love this place for reminding me that nothing stays the same, everything changes, and everything has the promise to be be something completely unimaginable from its past. On the high modern Norman Wood Bbridge nearby, the roar of a logging truck crossing over is countered by the slow clip-clop of horses pulling an Amish buggy over one of the oldest rivers in the nation. 

Ice Floe and Flood of 1904 wiped the S&T Canal off the map for good. (Safe Harbor)

Notes:

The authority on the Pennsylvania Canal Era, W.H. Shank still has the most useful guide to all the canals (there were a lot!) that were built in PA. Amazing Pennsylvania Canals (1997) can be found on Amazon, a must have for environmental historians who hike around looking for old locks, taverns, lockhouses, and canal ditches. There are quite a few of us in PA, actually. I am not alone in this quirky quest.