by Kristina Gabalski
The Erie Canal is getting some national attention thanks to a feature-length article in the October/November issue of “Boat U.S. Magazine.”
Jean Mackay, Director of Communications and Outreach for the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor, says the magazine is an award-winning flagship publication of the Boat Owners’ Association of the United States and reaches an estimated 900,000 readers.
She says officials are thrilled and “very happy” with the attention the article brings to the canal. The article features many photographs including historic pictures as well as information for boaters on negotiating a lock and festivals along the canal including Spencerport Canal Days. The history of the canal is interwoven with the unique experience of boating the waterway today.
Tom Blanchard, Board Chair of the Erie Canalway Heritage Fund, pitched the story idea to the magazine during the 2010 World Canal Conference in Rochester, Mackay says.
Earlier this year, writer Pat Piper joined Blanchard on his boat, the Stasia Louise, for a trip from Brewerton to Buffalo along the canal.
Mackay says the article reflects Piper’s “surprise” at the history, friendly people, charming towns and beautiful vistas he experienced on the journey.
The exposure generated by such an article is great and definitely brings more people into the area to enjoy the canal, Mackay says. “Each piece helps the whole,” she notes. For example, last year the canal was featured as part of a travel article in “Country Living” magazine.
“There was a boat that came through Lyons and the people were asked, ‘What made you decide to come to the Erie Canal?’ ” Mackay says. “They said, ‘We saw it in ‘Country Living.’ ”
“Boat U.S.” has a greater potential to bring boaters from other areas to the Erie Canal, Mackay says, because it is read by people who already have an interest in boating.
“Really fascinating people from all over the world come to visit the canal,” she notes and points to recent tourists from Australia who loved their experience, calling the canal and its accompanying trails, villages and scenery “world class.”
“Sometimes when we live in a place, we don’t see it the same way as people coming from the outside see it,” she explains. Outsiders help us to see the canal in a new way and to grow in appreciation of it, Mackay adds.
“It’s an awesome thing and we can take it for granted,” she says, but with the canal’s unique history and fun to explore villages, it’s something that “doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
