Take a trip to Okanagan Valley


Origin of Welland Canal's Top Hat Ceremony

One only needs to have a slight idea of howshipping to avoid the Niagara Falls region of
Canada's geography takes shape in order tothe St. Lawrence River. Today, over forty
understand the perhaps fanatical emphasismillion tonnes of cargo is carried through
Canadians and their governments have alwaysthis  canal  by  ships  each  year!
placed on transportation. Canada and many
other "New World" countries (including theOne can only imagine the new opportunities
United States) have traditionally placed athat were opened up with the completion of
great value on the importance ofthe first Welland Canal in 1829. In fact,
transportation, largely due to the fact thatcompared to the Canal today, this operation
in order for these huge countries to staymight  well  be  considered  small  time.
cohesive both politically and economically,
there has to be a great transportationThe Second Welland Canal opened in 1854, and
infrastructure in place. For Old Worldwas a much larger investment both of public
countries, size usually wasn't a factor, butand private money. After seeing how a canal
when it comes to the sprawling expanses ofcould open up the trade possibilities of the
North America and the unique geographicalinterior, many interests became involved. The
challenge within it; any construction of agiants of industry in those days specialized
major transportation system was and is a bigin transportation (the railroad developers
endeavour.and so on) and shipping was no exception,
thus the opening of the canal was a very
In Canada, one of the great historicalformalized event. It included a ceremonial
challenges was to provide a way for goods torecognition of the first trip up the canal by
move from the Great Lakes to the open ocean,hanging a top hat (indicative of wealth and
thus avoiding the high costs (and sometimespower) on both the hull of the ship and the
impossibility) of transport overland. Thefirst  bridge  on  the  canal.
answer was to build canals that ran from the
Great  Lakes  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.Today, the Top Hat Ceremony has continued,
both as a demonstration of prestige and for
One of the most celebrated of these canals isreasons of good luck. Each year, the first up
the Welland Canal. Located in Ontario, thebound ship going through the canal is
canal runs from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Ithonoured with a ceremony and the presentation
is part of a series of canals that allowsof the lucky Top Hat.



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