Erie Canal Bicentennial

October 26, 1825: a packet boat slides out of Buffalo, Governor DeWitt Clinton pours Lake Erie into the Atlantic, and a ribbon of water reshapes a continent. This episode sails the Erie Canal’s dramatic voyage — from the feverish hand‑digging and deadly swamps to the politics that branded it “Clinton’s Folly” and the jubilant Wedding of the Waters that proved its power. Along the towpath we meet the immigrants and farmers who dug the locks, hear the silenced voices of Indigenous nations whose lands were cut through, and follow the canal’s unintended legacy of disease, invasive species, and environmental upheaval. Two centuries on, the bicentennial voyage retraces that route, inviting listeners to witness how ingenuity and sacrifice can both forge and fracture a region — and why that living history still matters today.