Bevroren kanaal tussen Gent en Brugge in de 1780s
Bericht van: sebastiaan (bussum) , 24-12-2023 09:54Ghent-Bruges canal, 1780s
The canal that ran between Ghent and Bruges was frozen over regularly, for short periods of time during the 1780s. The winter of 1785–1786 gives an impression of the way ice was removed and the canal was kept navigable when there was a period of frost from December 1785 until the 8th of January 1786 and a second frost period that lasted from the end of February 1786 until the second week of March 1786 (Fig. 6) (Buisman 2015, pp. 672–686). On most of those days extra horses were hired to pull the barges through the ice. One of the barges already doubled the number of horses on 9th December 1785 adding another one a day later. But on the 27th of December 1785 still more horses were needed and already the next day the icebreaker had to be used with it being necessary for a barge to follow directly behind it. The following day three teams of horses were needed in order to pull one of the barges which was preceded by an icebreaker. In total that winter the icebreaker was used for eight days. In March 1786 the only way to get through the ice was with the ice breaker breaking the ice, utilising several teams of horses, directly followed by a barge also pulled by two or more horses.
The Amsterdam ice breaker at work in 1733 (Amsterdam Town Archives, Beeldbank)
Further east of Bruges ice breaking occurred as far as Aalter bridge, which is halfway between Bruges and Ghent, while another icebreaker worked its way through the ice from Ghent westward towards Aalter bridge. At Ghent there was a special place where a lot of the ice was collected, called the IJsput (ice pit). At Bruges near the Minnewater, where the barges departed each day there was also an ice pit in which the ice blocks were stored.23
During 1786 ice breakers were used again on the same track canal section, starting on 15th–18th November and also the 24th December, while they resumed ice breaking on the 28th December with three teams of horses pulling the ice breaker. On 16th January 1787 the ice breaker was again used, pulled by two teams of horses (Fig. 7).
Daily number of extra horses used on the Ghent-Bruges canal in 1786. Source State Archives Ghent (Belgium), Estates of Flanders, nos. 6384 and 6410
Also during the severe winters of the last decade of the eighteenth century the ice breaker was frequently used and no documentation points to any change, during that century, to the method used to remove ice except by using extra horses to pull the barges and the use of icebreakers pulled by sometimes as many as three teams of horses.
