page_title: Bydgoszcz Canal
section_title: Completion of the Prussian project
hierarchical_section_title: Bydgoszcz Canal / History / Completion of the Prussian project
caption_attribution_description: Portrait des Franz Balthasar Schoenberg von Brenkenhoff
context_page_description: Bydgoszcz Canal is a canal, 24.7 km long, between the cities of Bydgoszcz and Nakło in Poland, connecting Vistula river with Oder river, through Brda and Noteć rivers. The level difference along the canal is regulated by 6 locks. The canal was built in 1772–1775, at the order of Frederick II, king of Prussia.
  Bydgoszcz Canal has been listed on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Heritage List, N°A/900/1-27, on November 30, 2005.
context_section_description: The Prussian project was born after the first partition of Poland. Lands where flowed Vistula, Brda and Noteć rivers were all under the control of the Kingdom of Prussia and Frederick the Great took specific interest in this situation. The Prussian project was worked out by several personalities: Frederick the Great, of course, but also politician Franz von Brenkenhoff, engineer Hermann Jawein or Minister of Foreign Affairs Ewald Friedrich Hertzberg. Assumably, during his journey through the lands occupied by Prussia, Hermann Jawein was the first to identify the potential of the local hydrographic system, in particular meadow resources, which could be obtained after draining Bydgoszcz canal valley. In February 1772, this idea was brought to the attention of governor Franz von Brenkenhoff, who, once having investigated the situation on the spot, went to talk king of Prussia Frederick II into approving the project. Many benefits were expected from the completion of the canal: 
  creating an alternate trading pole (after Gdańsk);
  improving transport and communication within the newly expanded Province of Brandenburg;
  revitalizing central Noteć valley;
  colonizing the Brda and Noteć rivers.
  The canal design was shaped in spring of 1772. It hinged on a classic solution: the draining and re-routing of the ancient urstromtal. Initially, plans comprised the use of water supplies from:
  Ślesińskiego Lake (now  Stawy Kardynalskie  in Ślesin) near Nakło;
  streams flowing from the Lake District north of Bydgoszcz;
  the drainage of swamps.
  Further researches showed, however, that the amount of water would still be neither sufficient nor regular. Hence the decision to use most elevated water flows from the Noteć river, which required the construction of a specific ditch from Rynarzewo to Lisi Ogon. The required support of Noteć waters caused the canal location to be located more to the south than originally planned.
  The work began in spring 1773, with a man power of 8,000 workers coming from Mecklenburg, Thuringia, Saxony, Dessau and Czechia. After one year, all the water locks were completed. The canal official opening took place on June 14, 1774, but works continued till 1775. 
  2000 workers died from dysentery and fever, the rest was ordered to settle in three colonies on Osowa Góra premises.
  The new waterway was 26.7 kilometres (16.6 mi) long, with 10 wooden locks: 9 in Bydgoszcz and one in Nakło nad Notecią. At the same time as the completion of the Bydgoszcz Canal, the water supply channel (Kanał Górnonotecki) was achieved: 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) long, it brought Noteć water (picked up near Rynarzewo) to the canal (near the location of the village Kruszyniec). It was now possible to ferry goods through inland waterway from Vistula, Bug, San and Narew rivers to Szczecin, thus bypassing Baltic Sea.
  Apart from the short Kanał Jagielloński (1483), Bydgoszcz canal was then the oldest artificial waterway completed on Polish lands; at the time, it was called The miracle work of time. It was followed by other similar realizations: the Dnieper–Bug Canal (1784) or the Oginski Canal (1783).
caption: Franz Balthasar Schoenberg von Brenkenhoff
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