Some images from my recent visit to my old hometown featuring West Street which borders the Welland Canal. West Street was once on my paper route. I recall back in the day giving a friendly reciprocal wave to the deck crews of the passing lake freighters such as the Edmund Fitzgerald. Who knows, maybe that’s how I ended up sailing for nearly a decade with the Canadian navy.
Canal Days, West Street, Port Colborne, Ontario
Canal Days is an annual summer festival celebrating the town’s important function as a strategic port on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Featured above is the triple masted schooner Empire Sandy and an American replica of a war of 1812 naval frigate from the days when Lake Erie was on the front lines of the Seven Years war.
Heritage architecture on West Street
VIKING POLARIS
Moden tour ships now ply the waters of the Great Lakes duing the summer months. Port Colborne is now a mandatory stop for passenges who wish to visit Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and the vineyards of the Niagara peninsula in luxury buses. Quite a change from the old days when steam driven, smoke belching, lake freighters would dock here to buy Pennsylvania coal from my uncle’s old coal dock!!
Modern Condos
Port Colborne real estate has exploded in the aftermath of Covid as Toronto pandemic refugees found that they could work from home and avoid the daily hassle of Toronto traffic. Penthouse condos with canal views go for more than $1million.
CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS
West Street’s oldest house dating from the 1830s now a comfortable inn.
SMALL TOWN
(Turn up the volume and go full screen!!)