The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.
n 1620, a Highland prophet called the Brahan Seer predicted that full-rigged ships would one day be sailing round the back of Tomnahurick, near Inverness, at a time when the only navigable route near the location was the River Ness, on the other side of Tomnahurick. Engineers started to look at the feasibility of a canal to connect Loch Linnhe near Fort William to the Moray Firth near Inverness in the 18th century, with Captain Edward Burt rejecting the idea in 1726, as he thought the mountains would channel the wind and make navigation too precarious. The Commissioners of Forfeited Estates had originally been set up to handle the seizure and sale of land previously owned by those who had been convicted of treason following the Jacobite rising of 1715.
By 1773, they had turned their attention to helping the fishing industry, and commissioned the inventor and mechanical engineer James Watt to make a survey of the route. He published a report in 1774, which suggested that a 10-foot (3.0 m) canal from Fort William to Inverness, passing through Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, Loch Ness and Loch Dochfour, would require 32 locks, and could be built for £164,032. He emphasised the benefits to the fishing industry, of a shorter and safer route from the east to the west coast of Scotland, and the potential for supplying the population with cheaper corn, but again, thought that winds on the lochs might be a problem. More details
