We expressly took the extra day off in Peterborough to ride our bikes up to the Peterborough Lift Lock - the world's highest hydraulic lift lock. The lock has two large locking pans (one up 65 feet and the other down) in which the boats enter/depart on the high and low ends and like a teeter-totter, when a valve is opened the high pan descends and the low one raises up, functioning mainly on gravity. An extra foot of water on whichever pan is on top provides the weight to bring it down and raise the other in a matter of 90 seconds. The lock still functions with a few modernizations, just as it did when it was built in 1904.

It is structurally a marvel to behold, and is but one of two hydraulic lift locks in the Trent-Severn system. We climbed the stairs to observe the top part of the structure in order to figure out how we would manage with Salty the next day (actually much easier than the normal locks). We looked forward to riding the structure next day.