Kirkfield Lift Lock
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Chamber Length: 42.4 m (139 ft)
Chamber Width: 10.1 m (33 ft)
Chambers hold 228,093 gallons of water weighing 1,700 tons
Average Lift: 14.9 m (49 ft)
The historic Kirkfield Lift Lock is located a few kilometres north of the Village of Kirkfield. The Kirkfield Lift Lock is the second highest hydraulic lift lock in the world with a lift of 15 metres (49 ft). The lock is situated at the highest point along the Waterway at 256.20 meters (840.5 ft) above sea level. The lift lock was designed by Canadian engineer Richard Birdsail Rogers, who utilized the same design of the lift locks in the old Canal de Centre in Belgium. It was constructed between 1900 and 1907, and was originally intended for commercial traffic. Today the waterway is utilized exclusively by pleasure-boaters. Visitors can walk the grounds surrounding the canal or climb to the top of the lift to see it in operation as it lowers or lifts boating traffic on the waterway.
The Trent-Severn Waterway is a national historic site of Canada. It meanders for 836 kilometers through central Ontario from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario and is considered to be one of the finest interconnected systems of navigation in the world.
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