Dismal Swamp Canal

An 1867 map of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal shows its route (barely visible in faint red lines on the upper right), which connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Currituck, Albemarle, and Pimlico sounds and their associated waterways. The canal, located on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, leads from the Chesapeake Bay at a point near Norfolk and Portsmouth. The building of the canal began in 1793; it is the oldest canal in the United States still in operation.