Lake Erie’s Canadian side has mostly smaller communities, but the American shore is home to four major cities. Our eastern Lake Erie cruise starts in the lake’s largest city and the gateway to the Niagara River and the Erie Barge Canal.With its highly visible skyline and well marked entrances, Buffalo offers few navigational challenges – apart from the Niagara River.The city’s outer harbour creates a long, well protected waterfront, with plenty of overnight options.
At the southern end of the harbour, cruisers can stay at the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (or NFTA) Boat Harbor.A cruise up the Buffalo River takes you past The Hatch, a well known waterfront snack bar, and the USS The Sullivans,a Second World War destroyer.
Further north of the river in the outer harbour, the Erie Basin Marina – resurrected from a waterfront industrial site – is an ideal stopover for cruisers with a park like setting close to downtown, fuel and pumpout. If you arrive near a national holiday, you are sure to get a fireworks display. At any given time, you will also have easy access to the city’s major league sports teams, the Albright Knox Art Gallery’s excellent modern art collection or the Darwin D. Martin House by groundbreaking architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Boaters heading north towards the Erie Barge Canal on the Niagara River need enough power to handle very strong currents near the Peace Bridge.The Black Rock Canal is a great alternative that takes boaters alongside the river and through one lock.
North of the Black Rock lock, the river still has a significant current, but the broader channel makes it easily manageable.There’s faster water, of course – and a long drop – for boaters who head north of Tonawanda Island towards Niagara Falls.That part of the river is best left to boaters with plenty of local knowledge.Nor
th of the Black Rock lock, the Tonawanda Channel passes along the east side of Grand Island, with factories and power plants on its east shore, grand homes on the west shore, and marinas and yacht clubs along both. Northwest of the South Grand Island Bridge, the channel is broad and clear of obstructions as you head for Tonawanda Island and, turning to starboard just south of the island, to the Erie Barge Canal.
Tonawanda Island has several marinas, but cruisers heading down the Barge Canal or just visiting Tonawanda or North Tonawanda often prefer to tie up for free along the canal walls.The channel can be very busy on summer weekends and the town’s restaurants and shops and small canal museum are well worth a visit.
Heading back up the Tonawanda Channel, crossing over to the west side of Grand Island at the bottom of the Chippewa Channel, cruisers can stop at Beaver Island State Park. It has well equipped transient slips and a lovely beach. On the Canadian side of the channel, Miller’s Creek Marina in Fort Erie, Ont., is a good place for a quiet respite after a stay in much busier Buffalo. Cruisers capable of taking the river can clear Canadian customs by telephone after arriving at Miller’s Creek, stay overnight, then run upriver and west along the Canadian shore of Lake Erie.