Trent-Severn Waterway, Lock 21 - Peterborough Lift Lock — Attraction in Peterborough

Grateful to have this place for skating. I thought I should share that before moving on. As happy as I am that we have a free semi maintained place to skate in Peterborough, I do need to make an honest review. The ice this year is awful. I know the times are hard and it's not an easy job to maintain that amount of ice, so don't take this the wrong way. I only wish that in this dark time, our city might have put extra effort into maintenance. Perhaps flooding the ice after hours so that it has time to freeze before people are using it. I tried to take my children skating and they had a very frustrating and difficult time with the ice, as it was all broken up from being skated on to early after flooding. The city had the guys out flooding it at 3 pm on a weekday...this seems a little counter productive as people were obviously using the ice at that time and continued using it through the rest of the night. Perhaps hiring people to flood late at night while everyone is home. This way there are far less people out and the ice can freeze smooth and solid before use. Small changes to that schedule could improve the quality tenfold and with that would make the experience far more enjoyable for everyone.

Overall I am happy that we have access to a safe place to skate that we don't have to clear...

This place is imposing! So beautiful, so massive, peaceful and historic as well. The lift-lock is a great piece of technology. I visited early in October and autumn colours were everywhere.

I was in my way to Algonquin so this place was in my way and I totally recommend it as a pit stop on your journey.

The channel at the park is also beautiful, wide and there are fish there. Well maintained, cleared, there are some picnic tables one could use and it is so popular that tourist buses also stop there.

You could also climb to the top of the lift-lock which I recommend, for a killer view of the site and the lock itself, just be careful because the stairs are steep and elder visitants may find it difficult.

There is no entrance fee to this park or any fee at all, parking is available also free of charge (this is not Toronto, remember?) But maybe in high season it must be busy.

A very worthy point of interest if you are...

This could easily have been 5 stars if it wasn't because of the drunk group of people right behind us yelling in our ear. We were told by the nice lady in the ticket booth they did not allow walking around on top deck unless going for drinks or toilet. And absolutely could not obstruct anyones view. The captain was a funny and friendly guy but unfortunately didn't care about the rules. I'm sure he was giving a lot of interesting info. If only we would have been able to hear it. My husband stood up twice to try and hush these noicy people but to no avail. The boat was also 90 min late which understandably can happen but it still just added to a frustrating tour. Honestly we couldn't wait for it to end. I wish the lady in the ticket booth would have been there. She would have told these people to hush and not...