A Route Well Traveled

The gap between the Adirondack and Green Mountains has long served as a corridor for travel, trade, and warfare, from Native Americans to today’s boaters. The opening of the Champlain Canal in 1823 created an all-water connection between Lake Champlain and New York City, carrying forest products, ore, and farm produce from the Adirondacks, Vermont, and Quebec to factories and markets along the Atlantic coast. In 1916, canal traffic shifted from the narrow hand-dug ditch to a larger channel in the Hudson River. The canal remains in use today for recreational boating and paddling, and the sixty-mile Champlain Canalway Trail offers off-road and on-road routes for bicyclists and hikers.

Stillwater, New York · United States