The Canal Trail follows the Roanoke Canal and its related historic and natural features from Roanoke Rapids Lake Trail Head to River Falls Park. Along the route are an original hand-built stone culvert carrying Spans Branch under the canal through a stone-arch tunnel, Rochelle Pond and Dam, remnants of the massive bulkhead for the wider and deeper Power Canal, and locks once used to lower loaded batteaux. Near Highway 48, another set of locks and a concrete flume likely operated a water-powered sawmill in the early 1900s, while the nearby Roanoke Rapids Paper Manufacturing Company began operating the country's first Kraft pulp mill in 1909. Other features include an old stone structure that may have controlled canal flood surges, an old spillway that returned floodwater from the canal to the Roanoke River, and a pond created by gravel harvesting in the mid 20th century. The trail also leads to the Aqueduct, built in the early 1800s to span Chockoyette Creek and preserved as an important example of early 19th century canal architecture, and to Weldon, a major railroad hub once associated with the Wilmington-Weldon Railroad and known as the lifeline of the Confederacy. At River Falls Park, the canal's terminus ended in a basin and entered the Roanoke River east of the rapids; frequent floods caused wooden locks there to fail and be abandoned, while canal water powered grist mills, an iron foundry, two cotton gins, and a large corn mill built in 1890 that still stands.