1969; revised 1971
Listen to Ted Yates perform The Welland Canal
William Merritt, do you behold
The great expansion of your dream,
Our fourth canal, unlike the old,
Built non-dependent of a stream?
Eight massive locks of plated steel
Control the waters’ rise and fall.
Ships with seven hundred foot keel
Can through them pass to ports of call.
No more, except on pleasure craft,
Is seen the rigged and bulging sail;
Spinning propellers neath the aft,
Engine driven, new speed avail.
Ships from the sea enter at its mouth
At Port Weller to the north,
Or at Port Colborne to the south
When from the Lakehead they go forth.
The challenge of the Escarpment,
The Thorold Flight Locks meet with ease.
A masterpiece of achievement,
None in the world compares with these.
Shipping increases year by year
In tonnage and variety.
Ships of the world from far and near
In our canal we now may see.
William Merritt, man of vision,
How much of this could you foresee,
When you made this wise provision
To strengthen our economy?
So much Niagara owes you,
Her special son, she loves you well;
And Canada’s much greater, too,
Because you built our first canal.
“The Welland Ship Canal”: Niagara Speaks Again.Volume Two, Niagara Peninsula in Poetry. St. Catharines: Advance, 1971, 31. Originally published in Niagara Speaks. Canada’s Niagara Peninsula in Poetry. St. Catharines, Ont.: Advance, 1969, 30-31.
Published in Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs. Compiled, edited and annotated by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor. St. Catharines: The Historical Society of St. Catharines, 2024
The Historical Society of St. Catharines 