You Can Help Bring the Water to Life!

To look at an empty stretch of canal is undoubtedly picturesque but will invariably become boring after time. In order to bring vibrancy and colour, the waterways needs boats, people and wildlife to come together and share the experience.

National surveys suggest that around 200,000 people flock to one of Scotland’s canals in any typical two week period. The Lowland Canals play host to around 250 permanently moored boats, whilst the Caledonian and Crinan Canals attract around 3,000 transiting craft every year. Nature continues to use the canal as home with a recent National Wildlife Survey showing that sightings of swans, herons, bats, otters, dragonflies and kingfishers were recorded in Scotland. Can you add to the list?

A visit to your local canal will never leave you short of something to see and we are interested in capturing as much of the activity that goes on as possible. If you are out and about on the towpath, or even on your boat, why not take some pictures or a short video capturing your experience?

Over the coming months, we will be looking to display as many of these as we can on the site – so post them up and let us know so that everyone can get a feel for what there is to see and do. You may even feel like submitting a photo into British Waterways Scotland Photographic Competition 2009, which will be launched in the coming months.

Don’t forget to keep checking back for new items and you may even get some inspiration!