The building in the distance at the center top left, with the tall chimney is the Canada Cottons building on the South Canal bank. The locks in the background are, top left-hand side, Lock 17, and you can just see Lock 15 further towards the left of it after the “canal vessel passing and holding space.” This was used to allow two more vessels to pass each other and maximize lock traffic. In earlier years Lock 16 was sacrificed to create the dry docks. On the left-hand side about mid-picture is what looks like a barge with a double derrick. It was used to dredge the canal and repair the locks. The uprights were used as pegs that were lowered into the canal bottom while dredging. The barge was towed by a tug. The straight portion of the canal on the top right-hand side leads to the feeder canal that went under the silver bridge and under the east cotton mill to power the turbine for the electric generator mentioned in the swing bridge postcard (above). The Rapids Queen (the tall boat with the single smoke stack) is in for repairs, or winter lay-up for spring fitting out. The photo was taken in late fall or early spring since the dry dock is full of vessels. This photo was probably taken from the top of the elevator shaft at the western portion (near the Silver Bridge) of the cotton mill—about where Bingley’s Steel was located on Arthur Street. (Bingley’s was bought by Laframboise.) Extra sets of lock gates were kept submerged (wet and ready to install) in case a gate was damaged. The locks along the canal were very busy and any delay could be expensive to the shipping companies and their customers. There were always two sets of lock gates at each location because when the canal was upgraded at the turn of the century, new deeper locks were constructed beside the original old locks from the mid-1800s, except by the harbor where two locks replaced the original three old ones—but the old lock 16 became the dry dock—hence the numbering anomaly of jumping from lock 15 to lock 17 in the newer canal. 

~ Notes by Ray Amell