Mike Riley, long-time Canals enthusiast, author, and President of the American Canal Society, sent along this photo, an image loaded with meaning. To the left, canal schooner Lois McClure gets TLC before its transit overland to the Canal Society’s Heritage Park, just off the NYS Thruway. More on the Heritage Park here. To the left and underway is BMC’s Seneca Chief on the hip of C. L. Churchill. Churchill and Seneca Chief are bound for salt water. Before Seneca Chief was even being planned, it was McClure that used to travel between NYS Canals and salt water.

Wendy Marble, long-time tugboat captain on the NYS Canals, sent along this image from Baldwinsville. This is another meaningful image; framed in the photo with the flotilla are Governor Roosevelt, built in the 1920s in Buffalo as a harbor icebreaker and currently still working on the NYS Canals and just beyond is one of a set of small pusher tugs built in the past decade.

Many thanks to Mike and Wendy for sending along these nicely framed images.

Chronological order or not, images of the bicentennial flotilla across NYS’s waterways are very welcome on Dispatches. We need correspondents to cover the flotilla heading farther east. Also, please leave a comment below about your take on the flotilla.