File:Muirtown Basin on Caledonian Canal at Inverness Scotland (15199051088).jpg

The Caledonian Canal took almost two decades to build (from 1803 to 1822) and was intended to provide a means of shipping to get from East to West coast of Britain without having to round the Far North of Scotland via the notorious and unforgiving Pentland Firth (which joins Atlantic Ocean and North Sea).At the Canal/s commencement Britain was at war with Napoleon’s France and the English Channel was a dangerous place for shipping. The Canal, running north-east to south west utilising the 4 four main lochs (lakes)(Ness, Oich, Lochy and Linnhe) in the Great Glen fault, however took much longer to complete due to engineering challenges and by the time of completion war with France was long over and by then the Royal Navy had steam-powered, iron-hulled ships which were far more capable of navigating the Pentland Firth and in any case were in many cases too large to access the Canal.

Nonetheless the Canal has remained in use, and proved invaluable for fishing vessels to take a shortcut to avoid the Pentland Firth. It was also of major importance for the conveyance of components for a huge minefield which the United States Navy laid across the North Sea between Orkney and Norway to deter U-boat operations. The mines were shipped to Corpach at the south-western end of the Canal from USA, then taken by barges up the Canal to Inverness where they were assembled by USN staff at distilleries taken over for the war effort, then loaded on to naval vessels and taken into the North Sea.

Nowadays much of the Canal’s use involves leisure craft cruising on Loch Ness, one of the four Lochs which make up the Canal chain.

Now a Scheduled ancient Monument, the Canal actually skirted the town (now city of Inverness) by a distance but such growth has Inverness seen that the Canal now lies within the City Limits, providing lovely walks along the tow paths. Such a walk from Muirtown Basin (where the now-gone whisky distilleries once were occupied as mine assembly bases by the US Navy) to the end of the Canal at Clachnaharry Sea Lock, I undertook last Friday with a group of fellow-members of a Facebook group “Inverness When You Were A Kid”, whereby we visit places we knew as children and/.or explore parts of Inverness we never even knew, photographing and learning the history and geography as we go.

These photographs constitute some of the many taken that day, when Mother Nature provided us with rain. Sun and wind – and we were also granted many lovely views and loads of nostalgia too.