Celebrate 200 Years of the Erie Canal

The Buffalo port at the western terminus of the Erie Canal, celebrating its 200th birthday this year, made the city rich and famous.  Then, the port nearly vanished, covered up by streets and parking lots.  A transformation started with an archeological dig. When shovels hit a whiskey distillery’s foundations a decade ago, the old bones of the city’s lost harbor came to light. The stones revealed the story of Buffalo’s beginnings and the shape of the original canal. Local passion for its restoration and preservation grew.  A public effort emerged to make the waterfront an inviting place.

The banks of the old Erie Canal harbor are now Canalside, 12 acres at the downtown edge of Lake Erie. Here people come together, walk the promenades, take in sunsets, head to the lighthouse, get on a kayak and ride a schooner, catamaran or ferry. 

This metamorphosis arrived in time for 2025’s bicentennial commemorations where the canal that changed a nation began.  

The enduring engineering marvel, now beloved by boaters and kayakers, has 351 intact miles and a Buffalo harbor that invites people to explore history and enjoy the water.  

Head to the Commercial Slip, a restored portion of the original canalway, to visit the home of the Erie Canal boat “Seneca Chief”, built by the Buffalo Maritime Center and a volunteer-led team. This recreated version of the first canal boat to skirt Niagara Falls and travel from Buffalo to New York City has been readying for a September 2025 journey along the original route, the water highway that shifted and changed since its 1825 beginnings. Nearby, a pedestrian crossing replicates a bygone truss bridge. 

Just steps away is another recreation: The Longshed was built to look like warehouse from the canal’s heyday. Now it is home to a new museum stop opening in the summer of 2025. The “Waterway of Change” is an immersive exhibit designed so visitors can take virtual journeys and see how the canal shaped New York State. 

The canal’s opening led to Buffalo becoming the world’s largest grain port and the eighth largest city in the country.  Two centuries later, Buffalo’s harbor enjoys this 21st century reimagining and transformation of what was once an off-limits industrial waterfront.  This renaissance combined history with new public access, said Mike Vogel, and current president of the Buffalo Lighthouse Association. 

“The most amazing thing about Canalside is that it’s a watershed moment,” he said. “It’s trying to build a sense of place and incorporating Buffalo’s very rich heritage into a gathering space, a place where people want to come, a place that celebrates history, but also offers a lot of opportunity just to enjoy the present, in terms of lawns and a wharf, and above all, nearness to the water, which is, I think, the key.”