Canterbury Sails by Chasseur: Canajoharie, NY to Amsterdam, NY

August 26 - 27, 2012 Sunday and Monday

Sunday we left Little Falls in the late morning. Our first lock for the day was #17, with a 40 foot drop, it is the largest single step lock on the Erie Canal. It has a gate that is pulled up over the canal and you travel underneath it....things get a little wet. We were heading for Amsterdam, but we had a late start and it was a hot day. We decided to stop in Canajoharie, NY and we are glad we did. David Johnson the harbormaster talked us in to the deepest part of the dock. Canajoharie was once a village of the Mohawk Indian nation. We learned about the river gorge and pools where Canajoharie gets it's name, translated it means "boiling pot" or "the pot that washes itself". David Johnson took us by car to the gorge, a beautiful place where you can walk on the gorge bottom and among the pools and falls. We never would have seen this without David. After walking through the gorge we went to "Jim's Harbor Irish Pub" for a beer. Terry enjoyed a "Black and Blue", Blue Moon on bottom and Guinness on top. They never mixed while drinking it, pretty tasty.
In the middle of town is one of three "dummy" traffic lights still in use in America, and the residents are quite proud of it. It was first installed in 1926. A dummy light is mounted on a pedestal in the middle of an intersection.
In the early evening we sat in the cockpit eating leftovers for dinner. A couple, Bill and Nancy Lyker, walked past us just above the dock and said hi. They went up to a swinging chair and sat there quietly. We made eye contact and waved. Soon after dinner, they were next to our boat asking us if we needed anything, a ride to the grocery store offer, something a cruiser never refuses. After the grocery store, they took us up to McDonald's for coffee. We enjoyed their company and appreciated their generosity. They asked us what we were doing the next day, that they would like to come by in the morning with vegetables from their garden.
Monday morning we walked into town to the Arkell Museum, Library and Art Galley, that features many impressionist works including several Winslow Homer and Grandma Moses paintings. The Arkell family of famed Beech-Nut Packing Company believed in promoting the arts for the people that worked in their factories and for the community at large.
We returned to "Chasseur" where Bill and Nancy were sitting on the swinging chair, just as they promised, with a box of fresh vegetables. Bill brought with him a couple of very old "canal lamps" used as markers in the old Erie Canal. Nancy gave us a couple of newspapers, some bakery buns, and a thermos bag as a gift. They insisted on bringing us a bag lunch for our transit to Amsterdam and said that they would meet us in Amsterdam for dinner.
This trip on many occasions, has been a humbling experience, total strangers just freely extending themselves with acts of kindness. We have been renewed in our belief, faith and trust in mankind.
We experienced some interesting scenes along this stretch of the canal, photos will speak for us. No one believed us about the cows until they saw the photos (see below).
Bill and Nancy were at the Amsterdam dock when we arrived. They took us to see local damage from hurricane Irene, an old Erie Canal site and the Aquaduct of Schoharie Creek, the first bridge on the Canal, that was partially destroyed by ice in 1814. After dinner at Ruby Tuesday, we stopped at Walmart still looking for collapsible water containers, no luck. We said our good-byes to friends Bill and Nancy Lyker, and hope we will cross paths again.

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see." Mark Twain