By now, a real travel blogger would have given you a complete history of the Erie Canal. You’d know when construction began, when it was completed, how much it cost, and how many miles long the canal is. Your trivia bins would be overflowing with at least one fascinating infobit from every village we’ve passed through.
By now, a real travel blogger would have you singing along with every Erie Canal song that Pete Seeger ever wrote. Back when he was a young deckhand on a canal barge.
Back in the ’30s.
The 1830s.
Alas, I’m not a real travel blogger. I’m just a guy traveling through. Plus, I have a reputation for … umm, let’s just say creative embellishment.In other words, you’ve got no reason to believe me when I tell you the Erie Canal was built by shave labor (but it’s true. Look at the old pictures: not a single laborer is wearing a beard). Or that Fort Plain was named after an Army officer who used to introduce himself as Plain Joe until some overly zealous company clerk inserted a comma and made it Plain, Joe — which eventually became Major Joe Plain.
No reason for you to believe that. Or that the first completed section of canal was actually a tunnel dug under the mountains, and since it came first, everybody called it the root canal. Or that the canal is iced over in the winter so the fish can play hockey. On the other side, of course.
Like I said, I’m just a guy passing through. Heard a few stories along the way. Might be true, might not. But I’ll tell you one thing for certain: somebody needs to do the research, on account of there’s a lot of money at stake.
How much do you reckon folks would pay to watch fish playing hockey?
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