The Soo Locks

[mmartin798]

One of the questions I ask myself as part of this process is whether or not Lake Erie and up are landlocked and unable to enter Lake Ontario and the Atlantic Ocean. To make that trip, ships small enough need to traverse the Welland Canal at Niagra Falls and then the locks on the St. Lawrence River. Both of these passages are not short and consist of a very large number of locks. I will use the Welland Canal as an example. The map here show the two air burst targets close enough to have any effect on the Welland Canal. Thorold is SW of the center of the 1 PSI overlap area. This is the location of the southern most lift lock in the canal. The northern most lift lock is 3 km inland, putting it about even with the top of the 3 PSI ring of St. Catharines. This section of the canal has 7 of the 8 locks. The 8th lock is on the Lake Erie end to compensate for the changing lake level.

Then there is the 43 km length of the canal to consider. Is the entire canal under one parties control or are there many? Chains and cables could be strung across the canal to bar travel until appropriate toll is paid at just about any point along the canal.

The situation on the St. Lawrence River is similar. I really just want to get a handle on how separated the various Great Lake and the Atlantic would be.