Engineering Wonder: Watching Giant Ships Climb the Welland Canal (Lock 3) & Port Dalhousie

Think about a fascinating geographical puzzle: if Niagara Falls drops 57 metres over a sheer limestone cliff between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, how do giant 225-metre (740-foot) ocean cargo ships and Great Lakes freighters sail past the waterfalls from the Atlantic Ocean to Chicago and Duluth? The answer lies just 15 kilometres (20 minutes' drive) west of Niagara Falls in St. Catharines: The Welland Canal.

1. Watching Giant Ships Inside 'Lock 3' & The 'Flight Locks' (4, 5 & 6)

First opened by William Hamilton Merritt in 1829 (and rebuilt in its current colossal Fourth Canal configuration in 1932 as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway), the 43.5-kilometre-long Welland Canal lifts 30,000-tonne ships 99.5 metres (326 feet) straight up and over the Niagara Escarpment using 8 giant water locks, each raising or lowering a ship 14 metres in just 10 minutes using pure gravity without a single pump.

• The St. Catharines Museum & Welland Canal Centre at Lock 3 (1932 Welland Canals Pkwy, Free Outdoor Viewing Deck): climb onto the elevated outdoor observation platform standing directly beside the concrete edge of Lock 3. Check the digital 'Next Ship Arrival' board inside the lobby (or look on MarineTraffic before driving over): when a 225-metre 'Laker' freighter noses into the 24-metre-wide lock with barely 60 centimetres (2 feet) of clearance on either side, 91 million litres of water fill the chamber and lift the ship 5 storeys straight up to eye level right in front of you.
• The 'Twin Flight Locks' (Locks 4, 5 & 6, 3 km South of Lock 3): drive 3 minutes south along the canal parkway to see three consecutive side-by-side double locks stair-stepping straight up the steep face of the Niagara Escarpment like a water staircase.

2. Port Dalhousie Pier & The 1898 Antique Carousel (On Lake Ontario)

Ten minutes north of Lock 3 where the original 19th-century Welland Canals met Lake Ontario sits the charming harbour village of Port Dalhousie: walk out along the long concrete pier past the two historic 1898 wooden range lighthouses at Lakeside Park Beach, and ride the restored 1898 Looff Lakeside Park Carousel, where a ride on one of its 68 hand-carved wooden horses still costs only a symbolic pocket-change token from May to October.