Then Canada built her Welland Canal around Niagara and
made canals along the St. Lawrence and channels in the St. Lawrence past
the Lachine Rapids to Montreal, and even made the way from there to the
sea deeper that the growing ocean vessels might come to old Hochelaga. Now
New York has begun deepening the old and almost useless Erie Canal from
seven and nine feet to twelve feet, and to take barges one hundred and
fifty feet long and twenty-five feet beam, with a draught of ten feet, and
Canada is contemplating still deeper channels that will let the ocean
steamers into every port of the Great Lakes. She is even thinking of a
canal that will follow the path of Champlain, up the Ottawa and across the
old portage to Lake Nipissing and thence by the French River into Lake
Huron; and of an alternative course by another of Champlain's paths, from
Ontario across to Huron by way of Lake Simcoe and the Trent River, in
either route avoiding Niagara altogether, paths that would shorten the
water distance by hundreds of miles and bring Europe almost as near to the
shores where Le Caron ministered to the Hurons as to New York City.
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