The Welland Canal in Canada

The Welland Canal is a ship canal that runs 27 miles (42 km) from Port Colborne, Ontario on Lake Erie to Port Weller, Ontario on Lake Ontario. As part of the "St. Lawrence Seaway", the canal allows ships to avoid Niagara Falls by traversing the Niagara Escarpment.

Approximately 40,000,000 tons of cargo is carried through the Welland Canal annually by over 3,000 ocean-going and lake-going vessels. The original canal and its successors allowed goods from Thunder Bay, Detroit, Cleveland and other heavily industrialized areas of the United States and Canada to be shipped to the Port of Montreal where they were reloaded onto ocean-going vessels for international shipping.