lock 7 viewing complex

You can check the times that ships are arriving daily at LOCK #7. It's really quite fascinating watching the ships navigate thru the lock system.

My friends from out of town were amazed by the entire mechanical wonder of how the Locks operate. They were blown away. The girl in the information office was so helpful.

Watching a ship go through the lock is as big of a wonder as the falls themselves! We arrived at Lock 3 at the time we thought a ship would be coming through, but apparently the times flex quite often, and we missed it coming in. A volunteer there told us to drive down the road to Lock 7 and we'd see it there. While it's not quite as nice as the viewing platform at Lock 3, if you stand on the bleachers at Lock 7, you get a view straight into the lock itself. The whole process of a ship coming into the lock, being raised (or lowered I suppose) and going on its way takes a solid half hour. Well worth the time though!

The lock seven "viewing complex" is just some bleachers set up between the road and the Welland Canal were you can sit and watch the boats go by. There's not too much here. The Thorold information office and the parking lot are across the bridge spanning the rail-road tracks and there's a variety store across from there run by an Italian family. That's about all.

This is a great place to view one of the most unusual features of any canal in the world. This part of the St.Lawrence Seaway's Welland Canal is where to view the flight locks. These are a set of three parallel locks where one can watch the ships traverse both directions at the same time. It's the only place along the canal this can be seen. It's obvious why they have this - it's the steepest point of the Niagara escarpment for the ships to "climb". Without them, the backlog of ships in this area would be huge! Very interesting and well worth the time to view. Warning: There is very limited parking, it's not handicapped accessible and the complex is off of a very busy hill and roadway. I have driven into town, parked my car and ridden my bike down to these locks.

A little hard to find, but worth looking for. Not as informative as the lock 3 visitors center, but a great place to view the lock

Le seul endroit du monde avec des écluses de ce type en eau douce qui permet de relier le lace Ontarion (qui est connecté au Saint Laurent) avec les autres grands lacs américains (Erié, Supérieur & Michigan...(ce canal aux gabarit impressionant permet de sauter environ 100m de différence de niveau entre le lac Ontario (aval) et Erié (amont) et le lock 7 est situé à l'endroit des chutes de l'escarpement rocher dit du Niagara (le même que les chutes du même nom qui sont plus à l'est que le canal) et permet en 4 écluses de franchir en moins d'un kilomètre plus de 60 mètres de différence de niveau...

Emplacement idéal pour voir passer les énormes bateaux sur la voie maritime, le centre d'information de l'écluse 7 nous a fourni les cartes et infos pour guider notre séjour à la fois dans Thorold et dans la région des vins de la péninsule de Niagara. Commis sympathique et souriant, il a pris le temps de nous donner l'itinéraire et de nous le détailler sur la carte. Très utile, merci