This little (8×6) landscape acrylic painting is one of my favorites that I’ve done recently.

The water portrayed is actually a stream leading to the Snake River Reservoir, because the canals are not running at this time of year. However, I thought I’d give you some history about our local irrigation canals, because they are really remarkable.

The scheme diverts water from the [Snake] river about ten miles above Blackfoot. The main canal was planned to be 60-85 feet wide, carrying a depth of six feet of water about sixty miles, with many more miles of laterals and smaller ditches. … The canal is 60 feet wide and 8 feet deep, beginning near Firth and ending near the Lamb Weston Potato Plant at American Falls where a small amount of water then empties into the Snake.

Aberdeen, Idaho: Our Small Town Story, by Celia Klassen, p. 14

The canal system was constructed, essentially by hand, using horses, scrapers, and large baskets, and dynamite for rocky areas, between 1894 and approximately 1910. There were a series of investors, some working groups that fell apart, and two different canal companies that were formed to head up the project. The system includes many “fills” … areas where the canal was built up above the surrounding land, as to pass through a low spot.

During the construction, “Tent camps … were set up at various points, and everything the laborers needed had to be brought through the sagebrush by wagon … Families of canal workers lived along the canal while it was being built in what were called ‘ditch camps’.” (ibid, p. 15)

The canal system allows us to farm the Idaho soil, which is volcanic and very fertile, but doesn’t get enough rain for dryland farming. The Aberdeen-Springfield canal company still maintains the 190 miles of main and lateral canals, with sluice gates and the like. A canal runs right past my backyard, built up above the surrounding fields. The canals are drained in the winter months, and last year, an excavator worked its way slowly by our property, deepening the canal and creating large piles of soil on its banks. In the summer, “canal riders” patrol the system, checking for leaks. This is a wonderful system, and it takes a lot of effort to keep it working properly.

Despite being man-made, the canals also beautify the countryside. The presence of water attracts Russian olive trees, cattails, showy milkweed, and birds. Many farm kids grew up inner-tubing in the canals in the summertime, and their raised banks make a natural hiking route for people who want to walk in nature.

The source for this post was the book Aberdeen, Idaho: Our small town story, published by Celia Klassen in 2019. Celia did not grow up in Aberdeen, but married in. As so often happens, it took someone from the outside to appreciate that our local history was worth researching and recording.