The Panama Canal

My father is a canal aficionado. When you grow up in Michigan this is not as weird as it may seem. Between five Great Lakes, 11,000 inland lakes (that are larger than 5 acres) and all those bitty lakes in between, Michigan is a place that knows its water. 

For reasons beyond my understanding, my parents liked to take visitors to the see the US's northernmost set of locks in Sault St. Marie, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. For scale, the city, population 14,000, is the second largest in the UP. A tourist trip this far north involves a pasty and a visit to the locks and ensuing museum before decamping. To a campsite. 

I'm all about the engineering wonder that is a lock system. It's all very academically cool. But it's hardly exciting to watch a cargo freighter pass through the four-lock system at roughly the speed of fast moving molasses, especially when you're 14. 

This needless digression is merely a long-winded way of expressing how excited I was to see the Panama Canal. But not seeing it wasn't an option. I couldn't handle the shame of saying I'd been to Panama but hadn't seen the canal. 

And so. 

On our penultimate day in the city, we got brave, gave two fingers to the $50 taxi that would take us to the locks and hopped on public transport. If I haven't said it before, let me dispel rumours about my high school level of Spanish. It's shit. And so, after alighting at Albrook Station and into the vast bus station, I asked pointed questions in this bad Spanish and was understood. Or pitied. Hard to know. For the very fair price of $2 you ride with the people straight to Miraflores Lock Visitor Centre. Those people are nice and will let you know if you try to get off the bus too early like we did. It felt like a major victory. 

Once you've arrived, you're welcomed into a Visitor's Centre that's just a little bit spectacular. It's $15 for entry ($3 for Panamanian residents) but a world of history awaits. Most dramatically, there are two viewing platforms, one higher up than another. 

A woman on a speakerphone gives the play-by-play in two languages. I likened her to Hispanic or Italian football commentators--'the boat moves in, the water lowers, the boat lowers, there it goes, getting closer, closer, GOOOOOOOOOOOAL!' I loved her. I hope she gets paid a lot. 

And watching the boats enter the canal is strangely mesmerising. We took different vantage points for the best part of half an hour, marvelling at this feat of modern technology. So yes, it's happened. I've turned into my father. 

Over 14,000 boats pass through the Panama Canal each year. The artificial waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific spans 82km and takes a ship over 11-hour to navigate. Paperwork to cross this body of water is immense, with fees to match. 

We eventually peeled ourselves away and made inside for the history portion of our tour. Here, things got eminently more interesting. We were able to piece together why Panama uses the American Dollar as its main currency, why American infrastructure abounds, how colonialism reached this slender nation. And it's pretty grim. 

Work on the canal began in 1881 and was overseen by the French. High cost and mortality rate cut the project short and the USA decided to take up the project in 1904. Ten years later, the canal opened. The opening was a revelation for shipping, drastically cutting down the time and danger of journeys around Cape Horn. The latter is the good news.

In much grimmer news, according to the Panama Canal Authority, officially, 5,609 people died due to accidents and diseases, including yellow fever and malaria, during the American years of construction. The French numbers are 5 times higher. The ethnic breakdown of workers who died is no surprise either; of the official deaths, 5,609 were of West Indian descent. Compare this to the 530 white Americans and you start to see the disparity of the building project. 

 

The US desire for control of the building project, subsequent profits and 'American stability' of the region resulted in a lot of strife. Panama and Colombia, once one country, declared a split in 1903. Backed by American money and a treaty, the Republic of Panama was formed. This came with a $10 million golden handshake and annual annuities. And despite widespread condemnation and years of unrest, the Panama Canal only passed to Panamanian hands in 1999. 

So as my 14-year-old stood contemplating the locks in Sault St Marie, Panama was not yet autonomous. 

The museum, in the form of exhibits and a very engaging film, covered all of this and more. With our little brains filled to the brim with a clearer understanding of the geopolitical madness and the awareness that the history you learn in school doesn't even scratch the surface, we called it a day. 

This was a tourist site definitely worth a visit. Thanks, dad, for sowing the seeds of canal appreciation.

Grateful thanks to the following sources:

Panama Declares Independence From Colombia: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/panama-declares-independence

The Panama Canal: Riots, Treaties and a Little Military Madness: https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/panama-canal

Panama Canal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal 

Panama Canal Authority FAQ: https://www.pancanal.com/eng/general/canal-faqs/index.html#:~:text=How%20many%20people%20died%20during,of%20350%20white%20Americans%20died.