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Canal du Nivernais

The Canal du Nivernais links the French rivers Loire and Yonne. The 174 km (108 mile) canal, traversing the Burgundy region and climbing through the Morvan woodlands via 110 locks and 3 tunnels, is considered one of the most picturesque canals in France. (McKnight, 193)

Location and Construction

The Canal du Nivernais runs generally north-south between the commune of Auxerre in the Yonne département and the commune of Decize in the Nièvre ''département''. Constructed over a period of 57 years, beginning in 1785, the Canal du Nivernais was designed to create a commercially navigable route linking the river Loire with Paris. However, due to the winding route and large number of locks, the Nivernais was considered an inferior route to the Burgundy Canal and as a result the locks in a 58 km stretch were never upgraded from 30m length to the 38.5m "Freycinet" standard that was the rule throughout the rest of France. The predictable result was a long decline in commercial traffic until, by the 1960s, fewer than 50 vessels made the passage each year. Given the cost of maintaining the waterway and manning the locks, the eventual closure of the Canal du Nivernais seemed a foregone conclusion.

Revival

in 1972, Pierre-Paul Zivy