The Welland Canals and Their Communities: Engineering, Industrial, and Urban Transportation

Wesley B. Turner is an associate professor of history at Brock
University and the author

of The War of 1812: The War That Both Sides Won and The Military in the
Niagara Peninsula.

This book traces the history of the Welland Canals (the first was opened
in 1829) and the communities that developed along their changing routes.
The author provides a plethora of detail about canal construction;
different uses of water power; the founding of settlements (around 20 by
the early 1850s); the characteristics of the resident population;
government administration and policies; varieties of vessels using the
canals; and industrial evolution along the waterway. One of the
author’s main interests—public use of abandoned canal routes as well
as the current waterway—is introduced early in the book and treated at
length later on.

Despite some serious flaws—including errors of fact, unhelpful
references, a rambling text, a weak bibliography, and unclear and
insufficient maps—this book belongs on a shelf alongside other local
histories of the Niagara Peninsula.