Lowell Canals

I didn’t discover the Northern Canal Walkway until nearly a week after moving in at UMass Lowell, and that was only because a friend of mine took it upon himself to wander around the area after dark. The first time I went down to the area, I ambled slowly, taking my time to observe the canal structure and surrounding nature, and reading the informational signs posted every few hundred yards. On one side of the walkway was the canal and on the other was a steep drop to the river below. 



Walkway with canal on one side and river below on the other side.

Apparently, chief engineer James B. Francis created the canal walkway specifically as a way to combine industry and nature to beautify the city, and that’s exactly what it did; in its entirety it only stretches about a third of a mile, but it’s possible to spend over an hour in the area relaxing and enjoying the scenery.

View of the river from the bridge.

According to one of the signs posted every few hundred yards along the pathway, the Northern Canal was built over the course of eighteen months and used over seventy tons of blasting powder to carve the canal. A ranger I met along the way then confirmed that the Northern Canal was the first and only canal in Lowell for which dynamite was used to clear the rock for the channel. When it was finished, it was used to power the Wannalancit and Lawrence Mills and flowed through inner channels before once again emptying into the Merrimack.

There's a chain link fence behind
the line of trees on the left from
where the river bank is accessible.



Daffy

In one place near the end of the walkway at the Pawtucket Bridge, there is a break in the chain link fence lining the path from where one can head down to the river bank itself and down there is the real bliss. Few people actually come down from the walkway and the view is beautiful, which provides for the best solitary time imaginable. My friend and I sat there on a rock for an hour, content with the view and quietness before we were approached by an extremely friendly duck who liked our company. 



Daffy trying to eat my
phone.

To my delight, she followed us as we walked along the bank and even quacked in dismay when we started to leave her. Of course, we had to name her; one cannot simply not name a friendly duck, so from then on she went by the name of Daffy. We actually did see her again the next day; if you’re wondering how we knew it was the same duck, well, we just knew.

After leaving Daffy, we made our way up the river to the Pawtucket Dam. Built in 1847, it can be seen from on top of the School Street Bridge, but an even better view is from under the bridge, which is accessible from the river bank we were on. If it weren’t for the wooden planks over which the river water was overflowing, it almost felt like we were looking at a miniature version of Niagara Falls.

Pawtucket Dam from under the School Street Bridge.

A point of confusion I encountered later was what the Pawtucket Falls are—the Pawtucket Falls do not refer to the water overflowing from the dam that happen to look like a series of waterfalls. After studying the maps and connecting dozens of dots in various pamphlets, I realized that they refer to the rapids part of the Merrimack River that is extremely rocky with a strong current where the water level drops over a gradual decline. A few days later when I asked another ranger about the dam, she explained how it was a self-sustaining mechanism consisting of a base of granite blocks and then a row of planks lined vertically along the top, held in place by iron pins.

A close look at the dam shows the wooden planks bending
under the pressure of the water as the water level of the
canal is maintained.

The beauty of these pins is that when a certain force is applied by the water behind the wooden planks, the pins bend under the pressure, allowing the water to flow over the planks and drop 32ft down to the river below. This way, the water level behind the dam never rises too high because its pressure automatically creates a means for the water to flow out, decreasing the water level and therefore decreasing the pressure on the planks which stops the flow of water.

We spent some time under the bridge by the falls enjoying the sound of water and the sunset. There were a few large birds, what looked like herons, perched on the far side of the planks, and it had me wishing I could go closer to get some nice pictures of them, but I obviously did not have a death wish. It was nearly dark when my friend and I headed back and all along the canal we could see tiny silver fish leaping at the surface of the water, most probably dining on the hordes of insects hovering just above. 

The beaver-like mammal in
 the canal.

We even spotted a beaver-like creature swimming around contently in the water, which was a complete surprise; I did not expect to find a large mammal in the middle of a canal. As we approached the Northern Canal Waste Gatehouse we stumbled upon a heron and startled it away, which was a shame as it would have made for some nice pictures. Crossing the bridge back to the entrance of the walkway, hundreds of large spiders hung in the middle of their webs, which could be seen in every corner and crevice of the ironworks, seeming to stare menacingly as though they would jump us at any moment, although they probably didn’t even spare us a second glance. When we reached the exit it was only to find the gate closed and locked from the outside.

Entrance to the Northern
Canal Walkway, which
brings to mind images
of the Iron Throne from
Game of Thrones.

Lucky for us, it was an easy climb, although we did get stares from a few people out for their evening stroll; they probably thought we were typical teenagers out to vandalize property, but it isn’t as though there was any other way out.

The next day it happened to be pouring—who doesn’t love walking in the rain?—So we went out again to the walkway. This time, after walking the whole canal, we headed further down Pawtucket Street and came upon the Francis Gate Park where the Merrimack River feeds into the Pawtucket Canal. As stated in one of the various pamphlets I received from the Lowell National Historic Park, this canal was built in 1796 to bypass the Pawtucket Falls, which were a rocky and treacherous route for loggers and shipbuilders trying to raft timber down the river. Later on, it was also exploited to power many of the mills in Lowell. A very detailed map informed me that the Francis Gate Park runs alongside the Pawtucket canal up until the Guard Locks, where the water level drops two feet, after which the canal continues for around a mile before three other canals split off of it:

Map of Lowell canals.

the Western, Merrimack, and Hamilton Canals. The Hamilton Canal feeds into the Appleton Mills and empties back into the Pawtucket Canal after a 13 foot drop. Both the Pawtucket Canal and Merrimack Canal meet at the Eastern Canal to go through the Boott Mills and drop 17 feet back into the Merrimack River. The Western Canal meets with the Northern Canal and after that point, it was “waste” water—it wasn’t being used for energy, therefore it was wasteful from the perspective of industrialists—until it reaches the Merrimack River. Two different sign post each located at the entrances of the Northern Canal and Pawtucket Canal gave the canal statistics for Lowell; by 1848, there were over six miles of canals that powered more than 10,000 homes and thousands of looms in the city. A new development from 1985, the Eldred L. Field hydroelectric plant, channels water from the Northern Canal and uses a more efficient version of the earlier turbines used by the Lowell mills. According to the second sign post by the Northern Canal, this plant now produce electricity to power 30,000 homes and could easily have powered all of Lowell’s mills in the late nineteenth century.

Before setting out to find information on the Northern Canal, I did not even know the full extent of the canal system in the city. My search started at the entrance to the Northern Canal Walkway and took me through the city along various paths. I believe it’s fair to say that Lowell’s foundation lies in its canal system and mills and to know how they function together is a large step towards getting to know the city.