Thinking with Water

by Cecilia Chen, Janine MacLeod, Astrida Neimanis

Emphasizing the role that vivid personalities – including engineers John Laing Weller and Alex Grant as well as contractors and labourers – played in the construction of the canal, Roberta Styran and Robert Taylor use archival sources, government documents, newspapers, maps, and original plans to describe a saga of technological, financial, geographical, and social obstacles met and overcome in an accomplishment akin to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A story of Canadian skill, courage, vision, and hardship, This Colossal Project details the twenty-year excavation of the giant channel and the creation of huge concrete locks amidst war, the Great Depression, political change, and labour unrest.

368 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013