The Best Way to Explore the Finger Lakes Region Might Just Be by Canoe

This is part of Iconic Passages, a collection of stories celebrating America and the many ways we move through its vast and diverse landscapes. Read more here. You know that old song about the mule named Sal? I have a modern lyric to add: “I dropped my phone in the Erie Canal.” Like the original ditty “Low Bridge, Everybody Down,” which commemorates the beasts of burden that hauled 30-ton barges from Albany to Buffalo, my chorus is born of experience. It was the second morning of a three-day, 40-mile paddle on the New York State Canalway Water Trail. We were making our way in a rented canoe past a string of canalside homes with pontoon boats tied to their docks when a houseboat came chugging by. It was modeled after canal packet boats of yore, which were squat and flat-roofed to fit beneath the low railroad bridges that crossed the canal. The captain was a jokester. “No wake! Slow down!” He yelled at us. Apparently, he thought our meager pace was hilarious. That’s when, distracted, I dropped my phone. The Erie Canal passes over the Irondequoit Creek in Medina—one of the engineering feats that the canal is famous for. There went my photos, travel notes, interactive w