With Thanksgiving fast approaching, we would like to thank all of our donors and volunteers for all that they have contributed in 2019 in support of the Trust and our work in the C&O Canal NHP.
The C&O Canal Trust recently welcomed two new members to the Board of Directors, L. Paul Bremer III and Jonathan Warner.
Believe it or not, the holidays are just around the corner! To help you start to plan your gifts for the holiday season, we made a list of great items for the canal lover in your life!
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Welcoming close to 5 million visitors annually and stretching 184.5 miles long, the C&O Canal National Historical Park requires many boots on the ground to maintain its trails and towpath, operate programs, and assist visitors. The National Park Service would not be able to do this without the invaluable efforts of the many volunteers who contribute thousands of hours of service each year. Read More
The State of Maryland has announced that it would support the C&O Canal National Park Service’s towpath resurfacing project with a grant of $1.02 million from the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) for the third consecutive year. Read More
You may have heard that e-bikes are now legal to ride in National Parks and on other public lands. Whether you’re delighted to be able to take your e-bike on the towpath, or worried about how this will impact your experience in the Park, please read on.
The last Saturday in September is Bike Your Park Day, an initiative created by the Adventure Cycling Association to promote biking in national parks, state parks, and other public lands. Lowell Markey, longtime volunteer with the C&O Canal National Historical Park, led an interpretive bike ride on September 28 to celebrate this year’s Bike Your Park Day. Visitors got to experience the new towpath surface near Shepherdstown and discover the history of this part of the park.
In September, the C&O Canal Trust said goodbye to long-time Director of Programs and Partnerships Becky Curtis, who has moved with her husband to Santa Barbara, CA. Becky joined the Trust in 2011 and has played an integral role in the organization’s growth over the past eight years.
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Join the Canal Towns as they kick off October with a festival and a marathon!
Thank you to everyone who made Park After Dark 2019 such a success – our sponsors, our silent auction donors, our volunteers and, most of all, our guests whose bonhomie and generosity truly made it a night to remember. Read More
On August 22nd and 28th, the C&O Canal Trust hosted two groups of girls from Community Bridges Inc. at Lockhouse 6. As part of the Trust’s Canal for All Initiative, the groups were given a brief lecture about the history of the canal from a Canal Classrooms teacher and spent the night in the lockhouse.
Things are changing once again in the C&O Canal Trust office, as Cheyenne Seybold and Ben Bender complete their time with us and a new member of the team, Callie Fishburn, joins us. Read More
Over 7,000 K-12th grade students benefited over the 2018/2019 school year from the Park’s award-winning Canal Classrooms program. This curriculum-based program, supported in part by C&O Canal Trust donors, allowed young people from a wide variety of backgrounds to learn the unique history of the C&O Canal and to deepen their knowledge of the natural world in one of the most biologically diverse national parks in the United States.
Year One of the Park’s multi-year towpath resurfacing project is complete! Towpath users can now enjoy 23 miles of completely rehabilitated towpath, from Edwards Ferry (Mile 30.8) to Whites Ferry (Mile 35.5) in Montgomery County, and from Brunswick Family Campground (Mile 54) in Frederick County, to the Shepherdstown Bridge (Mile 72) in Washington County.
The Conservation Jobs Corps (CJC) is a new program built off the successful Maryland Conservation Corps (MCC). After years of seeing the benefits that MCC provides to young adults and the natural resources they protect and restore, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources expanded the program to include a younger age group. By partnering with community organizations, teens and young adults are able to work alongside natural resource staff to conserve Maryland’s natural landscapes.
On Thursday, August 8, the first boat traveled across the newly-restored Conococheague Aqueduct in Williamsport, MD. The C&O Canal National Historical Park hosted Governor Larry Hogan, Senator Ben Cardin, and Senator Chris Van Hollen, among other elected officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by hundreds of people. Read More
After 23 years at the C&O Canal National Historical Park — 16 as its Superintendent — Kevin Brandt is retiring on September 14, 2019. The C&O Canal Trust sat down with him as he reflected on his long National Park Service career. Read More
At 184.5 miles long and with more historical structures than any other national park, the C&O Canal National Historical Park is always a work in progress. This summer, however, visitors will be able to enjoy the fruits of several big projects nearing completion. Read More
August 8 will be a big day for the Park with the ribbon-cutting for the newly-restored Conococheague Aqueduct and the ground-breaking for the new Park headquarters in Williamsport, Maryland. Please join us to celebrate these two landmark occasions!
A big thank you to all of our Canal Towns partners who stepped up to fund a daily shuttle around the towpath breach at Culvert 82 (Mile 52.5). Following the flash flood in May 2018 took out that section of the towpath there was no safe way for hikers and bikers to go around the breach.
This year, the C&O Canal hosted 90 middle school students from Identity Inc. at Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center in celebration of Latino Conservation Week. This week was created in 2014 by the Hispanic Access Foundation to provide Latino youth and families with outdoor recreation opportunities near their homes and for Latino communities to demonstrate their commitment to conservation. Sherry Guillen, the Community Volunteer Ambassador for the Park, organized a day of hiking, biking, and learning activities. Guillen wanted kids to realize what resources are available to them and provide them with recreational opportunities that they might not have experienced before. There were many first-time experiences that day, including being in the Park, seeing Great Falls, and riding a bike.
C&O Canal Superintendent Kevin Brandt has announced his retirement from the National Park Service effective at the end of September 2019. Brandt helped to found the C&O Canal Trust 12 years ago as the official nonprofit group supporting the C&O Canal National Historical Park and has worked in partnership with us as we have grown our programmatic and philanthropic support to the park
After three years of fundraising, planning, and construction, the C&O Canal Trust, the nonprofit partner of the C&O Canal National Historical Park, today cut the ribbon at the newly-rehabilitated Swains Lockhouse. This historic lockhouse, located at a popular entrance point to the C&O Canal National Historical Park (NHP) at Lock 21 in Potomac, Maryland, will join the C&O Canal Trust’s award-winning Canal Quarters program as the seventh lockhouse available to guests for overnight stays. Read More
After three years of fundraising, planning, and construction, the doors to the newly-rehabilitated Swains Lockhouse will swing open to guests this summer. This historic lockhouse, located at a popular entrance point to the C&O Canal National Historical Park at Lock 21 in Potomac, Maryland, will join the C&O Canal Trust’s award-winning Canal Quarters program as the seventh lockhouse available to guests for overnight stays. Read More
The Canal Towns Partnership (CTP), a group of nine communities surrounding the C&O Canal National Historical Park, are offering a free shuttle to transport C&O Canal cyclists and hikers around the towpath washout between mile marker 48 at Point of Rocks and mile marker 55 at Brunswick. Read More
At 184.5 miles long and with more historical structures than any other national park, the C&O Canal National Historical Park is always a work in progress. This summer, however, visitors will be able to enjoy the fruits of several big projects nearing completion. Read More
Each year, the C&O Canal Trust welcomes spring with our annual Canal Pride Days. These public events draw hundreds of volunteers from the community and allow Canal lovers to help ready the Park for the busy season by tackling a variety of preservation and maintenance projects. Read More
Visitors accessing the C&O Canal National Historical Park (NHP) at Edwards Ferry (Mile 30.8) will find a smooth surface running to Whites Ferry (Mile 35.5) – the first five miles of the towpath to be resurfaced as part of the Park’s proposed multi-year, 80-mile towpath resurfacing project. Read More
Please sign the petition below to support the Trust’s advocacy for continued funding from the Maryland State Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) for towpath repair and resurfacing. Complete the form that follows to show your support before midnight on May 12. Read More
We had a great showing of support at our first Canal Pride Day of 2019 at the Paw Paw Campground, held Saturday, April 27. Forty volunteers tackled many tasks during the three hour event. The volunteers removed invasive plant species like garlic mustard and Japanese barberry, beautified the campground, and resurfaced the towpath inside the Paw Paw tunnel.
Vermicomposting, the process of using worms to break down food, has many benefits that can indirectly impact the C&O Canal National Historical Park and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Food waste and trash both bring challenges to the Park, contributing to climate change and impacting the native ecosystems we are trying to protect. If you are interested in learning how you can contribute to the health of the C&O Canal, improve your home gardens, and spare your wallet, join the C&O Canal Trust for this free educational workshop, scheduled for Saturday, June 8.
At 184.5 miles long and with more historical structures than any other national park, the C&O Canal National Historical Park is always a work in progress. This summer, however, visitors will be able to enjoy the fruits of several big projects that nearing completion. Read More
What’s it like to work in a national park? Would this be a good fit for me?
This spring and early summer, a group of teenagers from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the National Park Service have had the opportunity to answer those questions as participants in a new Canal For All program developed by the Trust to inspire these young people to aspire to a career in the Park Service they may not have yet considered. Read More
A new documentary featuring the C&O Canal and the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP Trail) will air in March on WQED in Pittsburgh and in May on MPT in Maryland. One of America’s most treasured biking destinations, cyclists from around the world enjoy 335 uninterrupted miles of breathtaking scenery and fascinating history on the two connecting trails, which run from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA. Fellow cyclists serve as the tour guides on this video journey. Read More
Last year, the C&O Canal Trust and the C&O Canal National Historical Park worked with Dr. Josh Howard of Passel Historical Consulting on a project that traced the history of the African American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) along the C&O Canal. The resulting report, “Our Only Alma Mater:” The Civilian Conservation Corps and the C&O Canal, was recently awarded an Excellence in Consulting Award from the National Council on Public History. Read More
The C&O Canal Trust recently launched a new Job Skills Development Program that will provide hands-on experiences in a National Park setting to disadvantaged youth ages 14-17 during the spring and summer of 2019. The program will expose its participants to training in preservation, conservation, and maintenance projects, and will also provide enrichment programs will resume building, recreational opportunities, and job shadowing. Read More
2019 is going to be a very busy year for our Canal Pride program as the Trust works with volunteers from our canal communities to help the Park recover from the floods of 2018 and the effects of the government shutdown. Beginning in March, the Trust will recruit over 1,000 Canal Pride volunteers to undertake projects throughout the year along the 184.5-mile length of the canal: campground and picnic area improvements, towpath and trail repairs, building maintenance and historic preservation, invasive plant and trash removal, native landscaping, and more.
In 2016, the C&O Canal Trust embarked on a mission to ensure the C&O Canal National Historical Park would be relevant and cared for in future generations. Called the “Canal For All” initiative, the program sought to develop lasting, balanced partnerships with African American and Latino communities in Montgomery County, MD, where 38 percent of the population are Hispanic or African American. Read More
With the re-opening of the government, the C&O Canal Trust, the official nonprofit partner to the C&O Canal National Historical Park (NHP), will be working closely with Park staff in the coming weeks to assess damage done to the C&O Canal NHP during the month-long closure, and to identify immediate and longer-term maintenance needs. The Trust will then leverage its extensive volunteer network to provide boots on the ground to take care of those projects suited to the capacity and skills of community volunteers. Read More
Rod Newton joined the Trust in January 2019 as our Volunteer and Programs Coordinator. He comes to us with 20 years of experience organizing volunteers, coordinating logistics, and managing risk in diverse outdoor settings. Read More
