Tapping a resource

FREDERICKSBURG has a rich canal history, but don't expect to see boats taking tourists on rides anytime soon.

For now, the Canal Park Trail will have to do, though there are plans to extend the 1.8-mile bike-pedestrian pathway to a 3.5-mile loop to include more canal scenery.

Many cities across the country have revived their canal pasts. For example, the James River Batteau Festival begins its weeklong run June 14. Replicas of 18th-century canal boats make a series of stops along the river from Lynchburg to Richmond.

On the Rappahannock River navigation system, Fredericksburg was the last stop downstream of a series of locks, dams and canals built in the mid-1800s that helped upstream merchants, farmers and even gold miners get their goods to market.

In later years, the canal funneled water to mills along the riverfront and, up until the early 1960s, supplied water for electric generators at the Embrey Power Plant. It also served as a backup water supply.

Re-creating the canal's history presents a challenge.

"One of the limitations is that there are no [working] locks" remaining here, which would give tourists a limited look at how canals operated, said Erik Nelson, Fredericksburg's senior planner. Because of that, "I don't think that the potential is that strong" to make a tourism link with the canal. "I think its greatest value is as an attractive pathway."

William E. Trout III, a canal historian who lives in Richmond, disagrees.

Fredericksburg could replicate bateaux--flat-bottomed wooden boats--which hauled cargo during the canal era. "If you had tourist excursions up and down the canal in Fredericksburg, it would be something everybody knows about," he said.

Back in 1973, in a talk before a historical group here, Trout suggested that the remaining locks and canals could become part of a riverside park system.

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Date published: 5/26/2003