Elbląg Canal
Kanał Elbląski
Interesting facts
- Building the canal lowered several lakes along the route, with Lakes Sambród and Piniewo dropping by more than five metres.
- Engineer Georg Steenke worked on the design for almost two decades, from 1825 until construction began in 1844.
- Each wheeled cradle weighs about 25 tonnes and runs on rails set 3.27 metres apart, carrying boats across dry land.
- The longest inclined planes, at Oleśnica and Jelenie, each stretch for more than 260 metres and lift boats about 22 metres.
- Besides its five inclined planes, the waterway also uses four conventional locks, at Miłomłyn, Zielona, Ostróda and Mała Ruś.
- The first tourist voyage along the canal was made in 1912 by the boat Seerose, and regular passenger services began in 1927.
- Damaged during the Second World War, the canal was repaired and back in operation by 1948.
- Its designation as one of the Seven Wonders of Poland came from a 2007 poll run by the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
Why it is worth it
On the Elbląg Canal in northern Poland, boats leave the water and travel overland. Along a stretch of about ten kilometres the route has to climb roughly a hundred metres, too much for ordinary locks, and so vessels are floated onto wheeled cradles and hauled up grassy slopes on rails, then lowered into the next reach of water. The spectacle of a passenger boat gliding across a meadow has made the canal one of the best-known works of 19th-century engineering in Europe.
The waterway, built as the Oberländischer Kanal in what was then East Prussia, was designed by the engineer Georg Steenke on a commission from the King of Prussia. Construction started in 1844 and the canal opened on 29 October 1860. Steenke's first plan relied on wooden locks, but he turned instead to inclined planes of the kind used on the Morris Canal in the United States. Four were built originally, at Buczyniec, Kąty, Oleśnica and Jelenie, each lifting boats about 19 to 22 metres; a fifth, at Całuny, replaced a flight of five wooden locks later in the century. Each incline has two parallel tracks so that a descending cradle balances an ascending one, and the machinery is driven by water itself: water flowing from the upper level turns an overshot wheel that winds the cables, while the incline at Całuny uses a Francis turbine. Electricity is used only for lighting. The boats were built to fit the cradles, about 24 metres long and under 3 metres wide, carrying around 50 tonnes.
The main route runs about 80 km from Lake Drużno, linked by the Elbląg river to the Vistula Lagoon, south to Lake Jeziorak and the Drwęca, with branches reaching Ostróda and Iława through a chain of lakes whose levels were adjusted during construction. After the Second World War the region became part of Poland; since then the canal has served mainly pleasure boats. It was renovated between 2011 and 2015, was named one of the Seven Wonders of Poland and in 2011 was declared a national Historic Monument.
Elbląg, at the canal's northern end, is an old Hanseatic port near the Vistula Lagoon whose rebuilt old town recalls its medieval past.
Getting there
The inclined planes lie in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, about 19 km from Elbląg, the nearest city, which has a railway station and lies at the northern end of the waterway. Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport (GDN) is about 84 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Elbląg Canal is a canal in Poland, in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, 80.5 kilometres (50.0 mi) in length, which runs southward from Lake Drużno, to the river Drwęca and lake Jeziorak. It can accommodate small vessels up to 50 tonnes displacement. The difference in water levels approaches 100 metres (330 ft), and is overcome using locks and a system of inclined planes between lakes.
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