Ride THE VOLUNTEER (60 minutes)
Board the LaSalle Canal Boat, and enjoy the scenery, history and relaxation of a mule pulled ride on the waterway that changed the face of the nation – the historic Illinois & Michigan Canal.
Your one-hour, roundtrip journey on a full-size replica canal boat will take you on the same hand-dug waterway that 19th century pioneers traveled. Your guides, dressed as Canal Era crew and passengers, will take you back in time to life on the American frontier and the Illinois prairie.
Learn about Mule Tending (20 minutes)
Meet our mule tender Matt and our mules, Larry and Mo at the corral. Matt will explain what Larry and Mo’s life is like – what their job is here on the canal, what they eat, where they live, and tell stories about the horses and mules that worked along the canal in the 1840s and 1850s.
Walk among the Canal Silhouettes (30 minutes)
A few steps from the boat dock and the mule corral, meet ten passengers who rode a canal boat between 1848 and 1853 and three men who worked on the packet boats. These full size steel silhouettes and their labels introduce you to famous and not-so-famous people who walked here before you. Among the famous, see mule driver Wild Bill Hickok, Abraham Lincoln and his family, and Chief Shabonna.
Watch the Prairie Tides film (60 minutes)
Take a seat in the Lock 16 Visitor Center and enjoy a 60 minute film chronicling the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the "tides" of change across the Illinois prairies—from Native Americans, to French explorers, to fur traders, to farmers and settlers, to those who built Chicago into a world-class city. The film illuminates the story of the I&M canal as a catalyst for Illinois’ transformation from a frontier state to a seat of commerce and industry. Personal stories of the visionaries who planned the canal and the immigrants who built it are brought to life through historical photographs, artifacts, graphics and impressionistic action sequences. If your trip doesn’t allow time for the film, a DVD can be purchased in the gift shop.
