Murray’s ditch

A Sunday morning and I walk the south bank of the Murray Canal. Moss of verdant green covers the slope to the water; from a bordering forest a mourning dove answers the call of a distant freight train. The abandoned rail swing bridge drifts in a mist that carries through the passage while the rustle of gravel underfoot awakens an atmosphere of yesterday; voices call from ship to shore; the ring of pick and shovel; the song of the steamboat whistle and laughter of Sunday picnickers; the march of oxen along the tow path hauling tall ships through the cut.

I near the swing bridge at Carrying Place as two cyclists pass; sailboats rest against cement piers; traffic hurries by in a rhythm marked by a click-clack as tires kiss the seam of asphalt and steel. From time to time, riffs from a blues harmonica can be heard spilling from the little Parks Canada cottage nearby. The grounds are tidy; rows of marigolds huddle against the clapboard building; sweet peas mount a string trellis. The ‘cottage’ is ‘home’ to Brin Mahaffy where from May to October, early morning until evening, he coordinates highway and water traffic at the second busiest gateway into the County. The harmonica is company when a periodic lull happens in a place where 1,200 highway vehicles per hour intersect with watercraft traveling the Trent-Severn system and Lake Ontario.

As Bridge Master at Carrying Place for 15 years, Brin has assisted boats and their crews from all over – Chile, Panama and Vancouver. “The most important thing is not to create gridlock, especially for emergency vehicles” he tells me as we move from the cottage to the control booth next to the bridge. Earlier, boaters radioed from Indian Island at the east entrance of the channel requesting passage. As we see them approach, Brin triggers a sequence into play—a bell clangs; the traffic light changes from amber to red; a barrier lowers as the 120-tonne steel bridge driven by a five horsepower motor pivots on its base with ease. A quiet descends as waiting vehicle engines are shut off and the rhythmic clickclack is temporarily subdued. We watch as the boats sail past with a calm that belies the back story of this historic waterway.

The setting is the era of the Barley Days; the time of the American Civil War and the years of Confederation. In the decade between 1863 and 1873 almost 2,000 men and women perished in shipping disasters on the Great Lakes. Two thirds of the shipwrecks on Lake Ontario happened in the ‘Marysburg Triangle’, a course of water between Point Petre and Main Duck Islands off of Prince Edward County. The risk to shipping moved the Montreal Board of Trade to press for safer routes as the lakes were critical to industry. Montreal was a seaport, a centre of trade and finance and players like the Molsons and the Redpaths carried weight. In the Board’s report of 1865, under the title of ‘improvements of inland Navigation’ a well known fact was reiterated: “that the stretch from Presqu’Isle harbour to Kingston is the most hazardous on Lake Ontario.” The paper stirred action; “had the little canal existed last year, a number of marine disasters might have been avoided.”

The “little canal” was imagined during the surveys of 1795 when 6,000 acres in Murray Township were reserved for a channel to join the Bay of Quinte, strategic for naval defence, with Presqu’Ile. The push from Montreal launched reviews, surveys and preparation until finally on September 1, 1882 the steamdredge shovel dug into the Murray Isthmus at Presqu’Ile. The canal’s path, a mile north of the shorter portage route of Carrying Place, avoided blasting through the limestone bedrock of the County. A stone-lined channel twelve and half feet deep gradually took shape with swing bridges to connect roads and to service the Central Ontario Railway. The five mile, 80-ft wide cut was almost finished at a cost of 2 million when an official celebration was announced. On October 6, 1886, a steamer sailed from the wharf at Brighton and passed the spot where I stand today. Among the passengers was our first Prime Minister, delegated to host a ceremony at nearby Twelve O’- Clock Point. At its peak in 1910, 1,308 vessels steered through the cut.

The boats have now cleared the span and Brin hits the button to restore the bridge into place. “I like to tell people I move a road on average 30 times a day” he says with a smile. “Originally it took a crew of four to stop traffic, let down barriers and hand-crank a one-lane wooden bridge.” He picks up the radio mic, “Brighton Bridge…I have two sail vessels coming through.” A voice confirms from the other end. Brin looks down the channel and awaits another boat that has called in. Meanwhile on the highway beside us, engines re-start and the hustle of traffic plays again. “It’s a great place to learn and to meet people” Brin says to me. “Boaters inspire me to travel the world in winter when the world of the Carrying Place Bridge is at rest.”