Boat Tales and Buckingham Canal Trail by Times of India (TOI) – To Trace the history of boats and backwaters of Madras (Chennai)

– visiting the trail of buckingham canal, chennai photo coverage

CasualWalker’s Rating for Boat Tales and Buckingham Canal Trail:
8.9 – Great / Nice

Recently during the Madras Week Celebration, visited the Boat Tales and Buckingham Canal Trail organized by The Times of India’s (TOI) Namma Chennai Chance-eyIlla campaign and enthusiastically curated by Ramanujar Moulana to know about Madras’s rich history behind its waterways through Boat Tales – Buckingham Canal.

The trail started from south Buckingham canal in Kotturpuram Bridge which spread across 800 km, which starts from Peddaganjam in Andhra Pradesh and ends in Marakkanam in Tami Nadu. During the early days of Madras (Chennai), the canal was used as the main water transport medium, which had air tight lock system, which stops the effects of high tide and low tide influences from natural water bodies. These locks were once functional are deployed in Kotturpram bridge, Muttukadu lake boat jetty, Thiruvidanthai and Edaiyur backwaters.

The Nemmeli Alavandar temple, a temple dedicated to Sri Alavandar in Nemmeli, near Mahabalipuram, Chennai. Sri Alavandar who was a champion helmsman of his times, demonstrating great talent to manoeuver the boat and was skilled in rowing.

The Muthurangam Bridge in Mahabalipuram which was opened by C. Rajagopalachari in 1942, was one of the earliest bridge built over Buckingham Canal, running till Chengalpattu. Early people used to travel through boats to get to Mahabalipuram, which was an island.

It was historically noted that the great, legendary Tamil poet, journalist, writer and Indian freedom activist Subramania Bharathiyar used the Buckingham Canal to reach Pondicherry, along with a printing machine on a boat through this canal.

During 1966, the boat transportation was highly affected due to the massive cyclone devastate most of the boats. In the mid of 1960s, bus services started from Kelambakkam to Covelong (Kovalam). This trail helped us to know about the amazing history of Buckingham Canal water transport system in the early days of Madras (Chennai) City.

All the trail participants received a trendy Times of India’s (TOI) Namma Chennai Chance-ey Illa tote bag.

Check out and enjoy my photo captures of Boat Tales and Buckingham Canal Trail by Times of India (TOI), tracing the history of boats and backwaters of Madras (Chennai).