Hi Everyone- I hope you enjoy this 2nd installment of the soundtrack to the independent documentary, “Origins of the Erie Canal.”
Last week I received a rare privilege to be on board the Erie Canal boat the Seneca Chief from Herkimer, NY to Little Falls, NY last Saturday on the Erie Canal!
I have photos and will post some, but in the meantime I want to offer my observations about the nature of this trip, a recreation of the one that officially opened the Erie Canal back in October, 1825.
Today’s voyage in October 2025, now 200 years later, is not a celebration of that event, but rather a recognition of its continued success as an enterprise that still exists…
What exists today was begun way back then. Now it is a canal system that has, over time, evolved into 4 interconnected canals!
Back in 1825, it was just the one main Erie Canal mainline. Its opening in 1825 allowed a fledging United States of America the right to exist.
It required sacrifice and risk for those who under took its’ construction, plus the sacrifice of those Native Americans that were being displaced.
Both of those are recognized on this contemporary voyage. A voyage starting in Buffalo, NY and the journey will end in New York City on October 26, 2025, with the planting of a White Birch Tree in Central Park.
The bravery of those mariners from the Buffalo Maritime Center as they ply the inner sea and then the Hudson River in the Seneca Chief, which is a replica built by 200 volunteers over a 4 year period, is extremely dramatic and difficult.
Yet these volunteers on this 33 day journey are doing more than making history come alive. They are pilgrims in their own right. By this, I mean they are creating an awareness of the vast beauty that runs across New York State.
Also in their literal wake, they are offering hope in the future of these lands.
A hope tempered with 200 years of humanities evolving solutions to the issues caused by the gains earned and a closer relationship with nature and with God.
And for the history of the Virgin Mary since she passed on.
Nikos Steves