Few things about flying rival “window seat,” as they complement my lifelong fascination with maps and, later, charts. Of course, few things are as frustrating as realizing I’m sitting on the wrong side of the airplane and can’t just run to the other side. Anyhow, let’s play a game of window seat IDs of photos of the flight from NYC (LGA) to Quebec City with a change in Montreal. See what you can identify here, and then I’ll post them again with annotations/identification.
#1
#2
#3
#4
#1 again. From left to right is downstream. Red number 1 is the South Shore Canal, the downstream-most canalized portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Red number 2 is the Lachine Rapids, so-named by Jacques Cartier and the whole reason for the locks at this location. Cartier thought the route to China lay above the rapids, hence, La Chine.
#2 again. Again, from left to right is downstream. Red number 1 is Habitat 67, 2 is a certain icebound brand-spanking-new US warship that will be left unnamed, 3 is the old port of Montréal, 4 is a lock in the Lachine Canal, and 5 is a certain formerly McAllister tugboat.
#3 again. Here, bottom to top is downstream. Red 1 is one of many random bits of ice flowing downstream toward Quebec City more or less at the location of Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, where the St. Lawrence is about two miles wide, i.e., half mile chunks of ice.
#4 again. Red 1 is the Citadelle, 2 is Chateau Frontenac, 3 is the entrance to Bassin Louise i.e., a location in the ice canoe racing posts, and 4 is the bulk and containerized port of Quebec City. The long unmarked structure between 3 and 4 is the now G3 grain elevator. To see a G3 (Global Grain Group) ship on Lake St. Clair, click here and scroll.
All photos and attempts at identification by Will Van Dorp, who’s also responsible for any misidentifications or omissions. And if you ever decide to buy me a ticket to fly somewhere, make mine a window seat or cockpit jumpsuit.
Here’s an index of my jester posts, which started summer of 2017.
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 9, 2018 at 2:44 pm
Les Sonnenmark
Will, you must really envy Starman, who, in a few months, will be looking down from his open-top red roadster at a different set of canals on the red planet.
February 11, 2018 at 8:11 pm
tugster
Les, you’re right. I hope Mr Musk gave starman a camera.
February 9, 2018 at 4:09 pm
Lee Rust
You can see so much from an airplane if you use the time to look out the window instead of squint at a screen. So a US warship is icebound in the St. Lawrence? That couldn’t be more embarrassing and inconvenient than a lot of other things that are happening right now:
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-01-22-uss-little-rock-stuck-in-montreal-ice.
Buffalo NY is the permanent retirement port for an older ship of the same name, an early TALOS guided-missile cruiser. I once spent a night onboard, camping out in the crew’s quarters with my son’s Cub Scout troop. The new vessel is intended for near-shore ‘littoral combat’ and was recently commissioned alongside her namesake after construction in Wisconsin and sea trials on the Great Lakes.
Thinking about Habitat and the Montreal Expo ’67… my family was lucky enough to travel via the Erie, Champlain and Chambly canals to the Expo that year on a cruising boat that tied up in the marina right next to the amusement area, La Ronde. Back in those days everything was about the ‘future’ and it seemed to be a wonderful prospect. I can’t believe it was over a half-century ago in a world far, far away. Now the future is here! How’s it look?
Starman! Too bad he doesn’t have any eyes. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that one.
February 9, 2018 at 4:26 pm
ws
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/littoral-combat-ship.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Little_Rock_(LCS-9)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom-class_littoral_combat_ship
As of November 2016, three of four active Freedom-class littoral combat ships have suffered engine maintenance incidents. Milwaukee broke down in the Atlantic Ocean in December 2015 and had to be towed back to port. Metallic debris was found in the filter system. The cause was traced to a clutch between the gas turbine and diesel engine systems, which failed to disengage as designed while switching from one propulsion system to the other. Fort Worth suffered a similar breakdown in the Pacific Ocean in January 2016. Improper procedures used aboard ship caused a set of combining gears—hardware used to transfer power to the ship’s water propulsion system—to be operated with insufficient oil. And in July 2016, Freedom suffered a seawater leak into one of its two main diesel propulsion systems and had to return to San Diego for seawater decontamination.[56]
February 11, 2018 at 8:13 pm
tugster
bugs. more bugs. i wonder if the “perfected” systems we use now also went thru a period of debugging.
February 11, 2018 at 8:12 pm
tugster
Indeed, Lee, I expected better of the 1967 future.
February 11, 2018 at 7:35 pm
MARTT
Port side wing of an aircraft. That’s all I got.
February 11, 2018 at 8:13 pm
tugster
portside in photos 1–3. starboard in 4.