The World Canals Conference has been held in Scotland, Italy and China in the past decade. And this weekend, Syracuse — a historic home to the Erie Canal — will play the host.

Canal enthusiasts from across the globe will attend the conference, which will encompass Syracuse’s Inner Harbor and Creekwalk and several downtown museums. Public events kick off Sunday at 1 p.m., and the conference will continue for four additional days with exhibitions, speakers and tours of the area that once housed part of the Erie Canal.

The first day of the conference is open to the public and will allow attendees to learn about the history, preservation and revitalization of canals in New York state.

The Erie Canal is a central part of that history and was a building block for Syracuse’s economic development.

“For a lot of people, they think the Erie Canal is a thing of the past,” said Jean Mackay, communications director of Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. “(The conference) is a way of looking back, but also really looking forward.”

Courtesy of Erie Canal Museum

The canal is celebrating its bicentennial this year and has been the subject of celebrations on both local and state levels.

In 1817, workers started to dig out the canal. Construction was finished between Buffalo and Albany eight years after that. The canal stretches 363 miles.

A bill approved by the New York State Legislature in 1817 authorized $7 million to build the waterway.

To commemorate the conference and the canal’s 200-year anniversary, the Erie Canal Museum on Erie Boulevard will have its doors open all afternoon on Sunday, and the Everson Museum of Art will screen short films about canal culture.

Sam Clemence, a former professor of civil engineering at SU and an Erie Canal expert, will deliver the lecture, “The Engineering History of the Erie Canal.”

The 2016 World Canals Conference was hosted in Scotland. Dana Krueger, this year’s event planner, said conference attendees this year will go for “American flair,” as opposed to donning traditional kilts. Krueger planned a central New York cookout for the conference’s final night. The cookoff will be held at Paper Mill Island in Baldwinsville.

More than 250 canal enthusiasts from 14 countries and 19 states will be in attendance at the conference. David Barber, president of the American Canal Society, said the networking aspect of the conference will be its most important feature for those attendees.

Cornelius Murphy, honorary chair of the conference and a professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, is among the speakers at the conference. Murphy said the conference is important because it promotes canals as structures of sustainable practice.

“More people need to understand better what canals can do,” he said.

When the Erie Canal was built, Murphy said, it reduced the cost of transporting goods by 95 percent. In addition to economic benefits, canals also reduce carbon costs and facilitate efficient irrigation.

The canal also opened the Midwest to settlement and helped New York City’s population quadruple between 1820 and 1850, according to Digging Clinton’s Ditch, a website devoted to Erie Canal history. It also attracted vacationers and tourists to upstate New York.

Nearly 80 percent of upstate New York’s population lives within 25 miles of the Erie Canal, according to the state.

Canal education will play a major role in the last four days of the conference, which will be individually themed and begin with speakers followed by tours to canal and waterway sites. The theme of the conference itself is “Our Vital Waterways: Agents of Transformation.”

Barber, president of the American Canal Society, said he is looking forward to the conference’s various tours and presentations but is most excited for the opportunity to meet other canal enthusiasts at what will be his 11th conference.

“Something you’ll discover is people from different places are dealing with the same issues,” he said.

Published on September 20, 2017 at 10:47 pm

Contact Molly: mfbolan@syr.edu