Three proposed routes for a short canal connecting the Bay of Quinte with Lake Ontario, 1868

Steamer Varuna transits the the Murray Canal, in 1910

The Murray Canal is a canal in the municipalities of

Quinte West Quinte West is a city, geographically located in but administratively separated from Hastings County, in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located on the western end of the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario. The Lake Ontario terminus of the Trent–Sev ...

and

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and runs from the western end of the

Bay of Quinte The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...

to Presqu'ile Bay on

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

. It is approximately in length and has maximum depth of . The canal shortens the trip for boats wishing to access Lake Ontario from the central and western Bay of Quinte by avoiding having to go around the whole peninsula of Prince Edward County. The canal was proposed as early as 1796 and land was set aside by the government of

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...

. However, the

Welland Canal The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller in St. Catharines t ...

and the

Rideau Canal The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston. It is 202 kilometres long. The name ''Rideau'', French for "curtain", ...

were seen as more important and construction was delayed. Construction was begun in 1882 and because of problems with unstable banks it took until 1889 to complete the canal. The canal is crossed by two swing bridges (

Ontario Highway 33 King's Highway 33, commonly referred to as Highway 33 or Loyalist Parkway, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The route begins at Highway 62 in Bloomfield and travels east to the Collins Bay Road ju ...

and County Rd 64). An unused railway bridge is kept permanently open but the former

CN Rail The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

tracks have since been removed with the creation of the Millennium Trail. A swing bridge at Hutchison Road has been removed with only the bridge footings remaining. The canal saw many years of use with coal and other commercial boats, but after the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, the traffic declined. Since then there has been a steady rise in recreational use and today the Murray Canal is used by boaters who visit the

Trent–Severn Waterway The Trent–Severn Waterway is a canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. Its major natural waterways include the Trent River, Otonabee River, Kawartha Lakes, Lake Simcoe, Lake Couchiching ...

References

External links

* Powles, Colin. Canadian Parks Service. ''A Construction, Operations and Maintenance History of the Murray Canal''. 1991. * {{coord, 44, 02, 49, N, 77, 37, 39, W, region:CA-ON_type:landmark_scale:100000_source:GeographicalNamesBoardofCanada, display=title Canals in Ontario Canals opened in 1889