August 11, 2008: Buckhorn, Ontario

This morning started with a visit by bicycle to the Peterborough Lift Lock, an amazing piece of engineering from 1898 – 1904. The pictures of the opening day in the visitor center show everyone came in their horse and buggy. This is the highest hydraulic lift lock in North America rising 65 feet to step over the rapid rise from Little Lake to the Otonobee River at Nassau Mills. This design is very different than the locks we have been through where the boat is lifted by raising the water level in the lock. This is a lift lock and includes two water filled lift chambers (sort of like driving your boat into a swimming pool and then having the swimming pool raised 65 feet). It works with a closed hydraulic system so that by filling the upper tub with an additional foot of water and increasing its weight pushes it down and counterlevers the other side up. It works sort of like a seesaw. Each of the chambers weighs around 117,000 tons!

The sun was still shining as we passed by Nassau Mills and Trent University there. We saw their crew club building and the long skiffs racked by the river that the crew teams race in. There was a “modern art” apartment complex with a wing that was built apparently intentionally to not be “square”. The campus was unique in it’s unusual buildings.

It is barely into August and the sugar maples are signaling fall. I thought I had noticed a patch of yellow or red leaves yesterday, but today I sought them out. There are just a few, but you could spot the trees that were already bringing out their color. You can definitely understand that they have a short summer.

It rained all afternoon as we traversed 8 more locks – a long day with not a lot of good opportunities to take pictures. The wonderful part was the full arch, double rainbow that emerged around 6:30 pm as we entered Buckhorn Lake our destination for tonight. I am sure that the photos do not capture how beautiful and majestic it was with such broad bands of color and a reflection so that you saw purple on both sides of the green. I have never seen anything like it before - such a sweet end to the soggy day.