Sadly, the rich personal experiences of most of those who built and first worked on North America’s oldest active canal have been all but lost to history. These fictional accounts, consistent with scant historical records, speak to a forgotten time when Irish, Scottish, American, French and English cultures converged and sometimes clashed. The stories revisit the lives of navvies, surveyors, builders, voyageurs, lockmasters and others who shaped a region’s not-so-distant past. Faced with horrific working conditions, extreme weather and deadly disease, their humanity and fortitude were arguably as impressive as the waterway itself.