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MARIO RITTER: And I'm Mario Ritter with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. In the early eighteen hundreds, traveling in the United States was dangerous. Business and trading were limited. Then came the waterway called the Erie Canal. It helped build America.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Two adventurers recently traveled the more than five hundred eighty kilometers of America's Erie Canal in kayaks.

Then the two, Richard Harpham of Britain and Glenn Charles of the United States, paddled into the Hudson River to complete their trip to the Statue of Liberty in New York City.

A tour boat passes Lock 2 on the Erie Canal in Waterford, New York, in 2008.

They piloted their light, small boats more than eight hundred kilometers in about twenty-one days. That time also included stops for cultural and historic activities along the way.

The event was called the "The New York State Spare Seat Expedition." Harpham and Charles invited others to join them for parts of their travels. The "guests" rode in the additional seat in the boats. Many kayaks have a single seat.

MARIO RITTER: The two men call themselves "expeditionary kayakers" – explorers on the water. One goal of their trip was to honor the struggles that built the Erie Canal. It became America's first national waterway in eighteen twenty five.

At that time, the Erie Canal crossed the state of New York from the city of Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany and Troy on the Hudson River. The Hudson River flowed into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. So the canal joined the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. The canal made New York City a major port.

The difficulty of traveling through the Appalachian Mountains had kept many people from going west. The mountains also prevented people in the west from sending their wood and farm products east. But the canal overcame the natural barrier of those mountains. It helped open the American West. The Erie Canal made the United States a richer and stronger young nation.

BOB DOUGHTY: Politicians, businessmen, farmers and traders had talked about creating a canal connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean for one hundred years. A lawyer and politician named De Witt Clinton finally succeeded in getting the canal built.

As early as eighteen-oh-nine, Clinton saw the need for the canal. Then he had to defend his idea against people who laughed at him.

Some critics called the canal "Clinton's Folly" -- a stupid project. In eighteen twelve, the federal government rejected a proposal to provide money for the canal.

But five years later, the New York State legislature provided more than seven million dollars for the project. The lawmakers named Clinton to head a committee to supervise the development of the canal. De Witt Clinton was elected governor of New York that same year.

MARIO RITTER: The Erie Canal was five hundred eighty-four kilometers long, more than eight meters wide and one and one-half meters deep. It could not have been completed without the hard and dangerous labor of many workers. Historians say about one-third of the workers had recently moved to the United States from Ireland. They本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。