1)What is the earliest canal recorded in North America
2) What was the First Section of the Intercoastal Shipping Canal network to be opened?And who was responsible for this engineering feat? Roughly what year was the first sections opened to traffic?
3)Is it possible to sail from the Great Lakes (Canada) to Texas(or beyond?) without leaving the canal system?
4) Was there a West coast canal network? I read somewhere it was in the San Francisco area? Venice County?

"The first canal with locks in North America was built between 1779 and 1781 by British Royal Engineers at Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec, around the Cedres, Cascades, and Coteau rapids on the St. Lawrence River."
www.craigmarlatt.com

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Originally posted by bedstor:
1)What is the earliest canal recorded in North America
2) What was the First Section of the Intercoastal Shipping Canal network to be opened?And who was responsible for this engineering feat? Roughly what year was the first sections opened to traffic?
3)Is it possible to sail from the Great Lakes (Canada) to Texas(or beyond?) without leaving the canal system?
4) Was there a West coast canal network? I read somewhere it was in the San Francisco area? Venice County?

The town of Venice, California, did, at one time, have some small decorative canals (installed by the same developers who named the place). I don't know whether they're still there. Venice is in Southern California -- the LA area.

California does have at least one important ship canal, a very straight deep water channel that lets big ships bypass much of the Sacramento river and delta, on their way from Sacramento (an important Pacific Caost port, despite being hundreds of miles inland) to the San Francisco Bay.

Alan Moore

a LITTLE LATE, but maybe this will help....
Yes, you can go from the Great Lakes south thru Chicago to the Missippi River...
The coastal inland waterway goes from Brownsville,Texas east to Carabelle, Florida where it ends...At this point you go into the Gulf to Tarpon Springs, Florida , a distance of about 150 miles...
From Tarpon Springs you are in the inland water way all the way to the bay entrance to Ft.Myers...From here if you aare going to the Keys, its all open water...
From Key West to the North all the way to somewhere in the Baltimore, Maryland area its all inland waterway....A good thousand miles or more...
Back to Ft. Myers, Florida....
If you wish at this point, you can cross Florida by the inland route.. You go thru 2 locks just like the Panama Canal has, cross Lake Okechobee back into the canal to the third lock and end up at Stuart, Florid where you can rejoin the inland waterway, and go either North or South....
It is a super great trip... I've done it from North Carolina to Key West and then to New Orleans a number of times...
Hope this helps...

Thanks Don
Much appreciated