A New Fenelon Falls Lock, 1963
By the 1960s, the shortcomings of the original Fenelon Falls locks, constructed in the 1880s, were apparent. Made of wood and stone, they required constant maintenance, and the wooden lock gates frequently had to be rebuilt. By the mid twentieth century, the lock gates were steel, supporting a stack of wooden stop logs. To overcome the 24-foot difference between the level of Sturgeon and Cameron Lakes, two locks were needed. The first was located below the Colborne Street bridge, and the second above. When the locks were built, a steel swing bridge facilitated ground and water traffic. When they were constructed, in the age of horse and wagon, the hand cranks that opened the lock gates and swung the bridge were state-of-the-art technology. But by the 1960s, the swing bridge backed up ever longer streams of cars heading north to cottage country. As hydraulic equipment was becoming commonly available, manually opening the lock gates no longer seemed efficient. The time clearly had come for a new design.
Wilf Jackett was contracted to excavate the rock out of the pit. His son George and Garnet Harrison worked two winters loading rock into trucks to be hauled out of the lock. Being such a large job, located so centrally to the village, a lot of people watched and commented on the work being done. Many asked, how would they get the machine out when they were done?
The new Fenelon Falls lock opened in 1963, followed by a concrete bridge two years later. The new Fenelon Falls lock was made of concrete with steel gates—though some of the old stonework was retained at the lower entrance to the canal. A single lift raised boats the entire height, and it was positioned above the bridge, so that boats could readily pass under a fixed concrete span. The new design allowed traffic to flow unimpeded across the bridge, made it much faster for boats to pass through the locks, while vastly reducing the amount of labour needed to operate and maintain the lock. It was also less leaky. Whether by land or water, travelling through Fenelon Falls had become much more efficient.
