The Erie Canal Towpath at Canastota

New York · United States · Execution site

A mile and a half of towpath in Madison County where you can walk into something you cannot see.

The stretch of Erie Canal towpath between Canastota and Wampsville is a mile and a half long, flat, and completely ordinary to look at. For the working life of the canal this was where the animals walked. Draft horses and mules were harnessed to boats and led along this bank, hour after hour, generation after generation, and the path exists because of them.

There is a spot on the north side that people go looking for. Walking it, you come into something. The description everyone reaches for is the same: it feels like walking into a wet blanket hung on a line, a resistance with a surface to it, cool and slightly heavy. It is not a cold spot, and it is not a smell or a sound. It has edges. People who have found it report being able to move their hands along it and follow its shape, and the shape they describe is a large animal standing still and facing west, in harness, along the line of the path.

That is the whole account. No noise, no figure, nothing seen. Just a horse sized volume of resistance on a towpath where horses walked for a hundred years, standing in the direction of travel, waiting to be told to move. It is one of the strangest and quietest entries in this archive.

FAQ

Where is The Erie Canal Towpath at Canastota located?

The Erie Canal Towpath at Canastota is in New York, United States.