Personal Canal Stories

Everyone touched by canals has stories. Lock-keepers' children recall summers helping boats through, earning tips from grateful skippers. Barge families remember home always moving, scenery always changing. Engineers speak lovingly of structures centuries old still functioning perfectly.

Ahmed Djebbar, whose grandfather dug the Canal de Marseille, became a hydraulic historian: "I wanted to understand what drove men to move mountains with shovels. In archives, I found my grandfather's name—just one among thousands. But that name connected me to something magnificent. Now I teach young engineers not just how canals work, but why they matter."

For many immigrants, canals provided first employment and lasting connection. "The canal gave my father work when we arrived from Portugal," recalls Maria Santos. "He maintained locks for forty years. On retirement, they named a lock for him. A Portuguese man's name on a French lock—that's integration."