Lock 11

Last year was pretty dry around here. Lock 11 usually has at least a couple inches of water in it, but it was actually dry for most of the Fall. We had an unseasonably warm day last November, so I headed out and got some photos. Lock 11 is a pretty deep lock - when the I&M was a major trade artery, the water would have been almost up to the top of the lock. To me, this is like archaeology. There once was a 96-mile-long canal that ran from Chicago, now abandoned, and in many places is now completely gone. But every now and then you find a tangible remanant - a monument to the mostly Irish workforce that dug the canal and built these locks. When you see the dry canal bed, or in many places a weed-choked, stagnant ditch, it's hard to comprehend that it was once a bustling, 60-feet-wide-by-6-feet-deep major waterway. Olympus E-1, Zuiko 14-54mm.