Canal Magick

It is not pollution in the canal at Kidsgrove,  but iron oxide in the stone that makes it orange. Even so, the look of it was alarming. Not a muddy orange brown, but bright, lurid. When a barge passes through it, it agitates the water creating orange plumes. You can’t see the bottom at all.

We are here to go on a guided walk, headed by Anna Francis. Francis is a local artist, community mobilizer and friend. Today she will talk to us about the plant life we find at this particular canal. As we arrive she hands us all a pack and my heart leaps. It’s called “A Canalside Arcana” a deck of cards, each representing a plant commonly found at Cauldon Canal (which is not that far from Kidsgrove). The cards have an illustration, description along with potential uses as well as folklore about it. What a bewitching item.

As we walk along the canal, I spot plants that I know – either because I’ve seen them in Asheville, or  here in the UK before. I may not be able to identify every one by name, but they are familiar, a bit like a neighbor you see a lot but never learned their name. It’s reassuring in a time when I am coming back to the UK – the country I am from and grew up in but a place that feels foreign.

It’s here I come to understand the underrated sacredness of canals. They are manmade and were intended for industry and commerce. Those days are gone but the canals are loved by many of us. For me it’s a mix of things. My paternal grandparents lived in a bungalow between the river Trent and Cauldon canal – the canal that was the inspiration for “A Canalside Arcana.”

I grew up coming to the canal and have memories of collecting blackberries with my dad and of my brother catching crayfish, bringing buckets of squirming creatures to show my nan who thought them disgusting. Canals then feel familiar and reassuring. They are also an easy entrance into nature. Where my dad lives and where we are currently staying, the canal is a short walk away. The one I went to as a child and it has a liminality about it. Creating its own ecosystem. I am already thinking and musing over how I can collaborate with the canal in my witchcraft.

Water has its own particular magick and to walk alongside the canal and watch the long canal boats putter through, the waterfowl, the odd fish jumping, then the water become still again, is soothing. And it is always there waiting for us. 

On our walk we drawn attention to things I might not have noticed if alone, such as the volcanic looking rocks embedded into retaining walls – a by product of when the iron was extracted at high heat from the local stone. We’re shown how another structure is covered in what look like little bones or fossils but are in fact the old spacers from long gone kilns that were used when firing plates.

We talk as we go about ways of preserving the wildlife and plants of the canal. Nature here is entwined with human activity, these days of leisurely sort. In this, preserving the canal is a radical act – we want it for its own sake and for our enjoyment. To champion something for its relaxing and joyful purpose is a defiance of productivity I can get behind.

Thank you Anna Francis and Appetite for this precious opportunity.