Passing along the Northern Canal

A panaroma of the Northern Canal.

The Northern canal is the final section of waterway between Tianjin and Beijing that makes up the 1776 kms Grand Canal. An engineering achievement that was centuries in construction, but still completed 1000 years before the canal age in the UK.

Recently recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site, its condition today lies in various states of repair. The Northern canal section, converted into pretty parks at each end, is otherwise unnavigable and almost forgotten. There are controversial plans to restore this section of canal. It's UNESCO status, it's strategic location connecting two huge cities, it's symbol of Chinese ingenuity and greatness, make it a potent source for tourist revenue and political prestige.

While it awaits its inevitable fate, traffic along its length has ceased. Probably less than a handful of engineers will have travelled its length in recent times and I want to cycle along its banks, explore this local relic of ancient history as it passes through the modern world. Seeing the changes of the landscapes and lives along its route, before the scene is reconstructed and packaged for the tourist hoards.

Robert on the way.

Out from the Wasteland

I started in TongZhou in Beijing, closely following the water's edge. Slow progress was made along unmarked paths and trails of farm vehicles. Thin woods and fenced off farms were interspaced by homes made from scrap. Mongrel dogs guarding heaps of bitter smelling rubbish barked and snarled at my pedals. At one bend of the canal I found the decomposing bodies of three dogs. Punctures, tiredness and time forced me onto the roads and a modern cycle path to arrive in Wuqing, dirty and exhausted, for the night.

The next morning, I started out again. The parkland that lines the canals path through Wuqing terminated suddenly at a hectic flyover. On the other side, the canal returned to the more familiar state of dust dry banks, strewn with litter and construction waste. After the previous days experience I took the Beiyunhe Xidi road, which runs along the canal's western side and soon the shabby remnants of the suburbs withered and were replaced by verdant fields. The canal looked clean, young reeds and mature willows growing along the sides. The road too was tree lined and although it was the weekend, wonderfully free of traffic. As it bent gently around a curve of the canal, the sun filtering through the leaves, it felt like rural France. I sped through smart villages, waste and wild dog free. The buildings were in good repair and old men sat peacefully in the shade. Further on there were some graves and here too the cones of the burials were well cared for, adorned with fresh flowers and red rosettes. Today's start an uplifting contrast to the day before.

Riding waves amid the country

The route continued through the flat countryside. Fields filled with thick lush grass were being cut for turf, acres dense with greenhouses and orchards. The vigor of growth in stark difference to the earlier dry and scraggy terrain. I imagine the canal provides the water and judging by the algae already blooming along its edges, receives rich run off in return.

After 2 hours of easy riding, I arrived at the new city of Shuangjie. A regulation promenade and park lines one bank and behind it, partly finished skyscrapers peer over the remnants of the village they're replacing on the other. The park was tranquil, undisturbed by a populace not yet moved in.

A peaceful village.

The nascent city soon ended, but the countryside never quite returned. Another 30 minutes and the canal widened as it met the Yongding River, the water spreading out behind the sluices that control the level. Shortly after, there's a half-abandoned village. Its square sitting quietly above the water. Trees shade broken concrete seats and weeds push up between the stones. This pleasant place, just 30 years ago, would have been new and desirable. Now, the new high-rise homes of Shuangjie, visible to the north, and the modern towers of Beichen, to the south, are preferred.

At Beichen the deserted road passes beneath the ring road and into the obligatory city park. On the map the formal strip of shrubbery, chaperones the canal from one city edge to the other. But the path was blocked by construction and I was forced to find another route. Beichen is not a novice to rebuilding; glossy shopping malls and tower blocks, a once modern-art clock tower and the jumble of crumbling, single story, homes, attest to decades of construction waves - like the growth rings in a tree. The city edges blurred into the outskirts of Tianjin and soon the canal ends at the Ziya and Xinkai Rivers.

Marking the end, a Junk of white stone provides a foreground to the Tianjin eye. In the bright sun, the waterfront is clean, stylish and perky after the previous hour of unfinished or deteriorating landscapes. I weave past anglers and swimmers, a chain of ofo cyclists and a shower of brides. Their sudden presence startling after the 5 hours of solitude.

Reflections on the water

I'd set out, imagining myself cycling along the banks of the canal like a latter-day Livingston, discovering a forgotten and abused remnant of history. I had imagined it as weed choked and dry. Where there is water, I thought it would be foul, full of abandoned pushbikes and poisoned by factory waste. But the Northern Canal is far from like this. While there is no tow path to cycle, quiet back roads run along its length from Wuqing, virtually empty. And while there are patches polluted and stinking and long sections pimped with pretty promenades, its mostly unspoiled, twisting silently, undisturbed beside fields and alongside secluded villages where workers wend their lives, mostly heedless of its presence.

The canal too seems indifferent of the modern world. The static waters unperturbed by the changes around it. As I traversed its length, passing the rising and fallen cities, the vigorous youthful plants and the reminders of life's end, I felt the temporariness of this time and its insignificance in the millennia of the canal's existence. Whatever changes are pressed upon it, its timeless self can wait till they too age and finally pass on.