I wholeheartedly endorse the Gowanus Canal as a date site. 19 years ago, I proposed to my wife on a Dredgers canoe on the Gowanus canal, right in front of the Lowes you paddled by. I figured it would be a good idea to propose somewhere that she couldn't run away. Thankfully it worked, and we've been happily married in Brooklyn ever since.

It always amazes me how a city that exists because of the waterways around it , is so disconnected from those very waterways today

That is and always was a filthy canal. I’m 81 and grew up in Brooklyn and remember that canal vividly.

As someone who has grown up in the middle of nowhere in the midwest, watching your channel has made me realize the vastness that is NYC.

I grew up in the 60's thru the 80's downtown BK and I remember the gowanus canal caught fire a few times. Great content my friend. Keep up the great content

Gowanus Canal is called "The Lavender Lake" due to the unusual and often opaque color of its water, which resulted from heavy industrial pollution. The canal's water has historically exhibited a purplish hue, attributed to the mixture of industrial waste, including chemicals, oils, and other pollutants, that were discharged into it over many decades. Thanks for paddling another interesting NY waterway.

I love your videos. I wish I had the nerve to kayak. Not knowing what’s in the water freaks me out. I kayak through you. 😅. Glad you and your girlfriend kayak that water together. Inspirational. Thanks

Great video Matt! Come back anytime. We’ve gotten special permission from the EPA to paddle from our 2nd St dock (at the top of the canal, above 3rd St Bridge) for some select dates this summer. I’ll let you know when they get finalized 🛶 As you mentioned in the video, water quality is very connected to rain events. Rain overwhelms the sewer system & causes it to flood into our waterways. All of them in NYC, not just the Gowanus Canal, it’s just easier to see (& smell) there. We use subway rules - Don’t lick the subway! Don’t lick the canal! That’s why we paddle canoes 🛶 a single paddle drips water downhill & outside of the boat & higher sides keep you further from questionable water quality. BUT the canal is tidal & if the weather is good, fish, birds & all kinds of life comes right back in. The cleanup is ongoing & will be another 6yrs or so before completion. At which time the canal will be one of the cleanest & safest boating areas in NYC 💪

Thanks for showing us around Matt!

Congrats on 6K subs

Great work Matt! Thank you for sharing your adventures with us all! Going to the city from upstate next week and can’t wait to explore. Not a kayaker but love to learn new places. Thank you again!

Another great enjoyable video. It's just amazing the pollution in the waterways in the NY area. It's just interesting to see you kayak the area canals and rivers! Brave too! Also, the absence of anyone in most of your videos is consistent. This amazes me in such a crowded urban environment. Your girlfriend is shy, we never saw her face once . Lol

Pretty cool how you finding peace inside the madness

Happy you found a way to get on this one that's great/ sure dont want to fall in but so fascinating to see this area from the water. millions of people all around and you got a peaceful paddle practically alone, fantastic. thanks for taking us with you

The juxtaposition of the calm silent water with the city and it's noises is delicious. Thanks and Hi Kelsey!

Awesome video you guys! Part of Brooklyn I've never seen. Appreciate you sharing with us! Stay Safe and healthy

Love the Canoe

Great content as usual Matt. The Gowanus definitely looked a bit more sketchy than Newtown but hopefully the EPA will do its just and clean her up.

That's a cool tunnel. Nice to meet Kelsey! 😎 *hope I spelled it right.

I grew up in Brooklyn and can still remember the overpowering odorous smell of the Gowanus. It has always been polluted and used since time immemorial to extract barnacles from the bottom of old wooden vessels. Strange how under that tunnel that yoos guys went thru appeared to have lots of barnacles on the wall. You both are rather adventurous unlike me who would rather wear gloves to protect my skin against acidic water pollution on those oars and also wear a well filtered gas mask respirator to protect my lungs from toxic gas emissions coming off the water. Good thing they don't have rowing regattas on that water. But gotta confess that I could never have thought of such ventures as being "romantic". Thanx for sharing the video.

I find your videos intriguing & can appriciate your love of being on the water. Thnx for showing us these unusual paddling locations. Cheers 🇨🇦

Wow! I can smell ithe canal through my tablet!

All my favorite places ! I was just there a few days ago , Man, I thought you were seriously stuck on that raw sewage pipe in the tunnel of Love ! All your videos are great , Sit back and relax, Very calming ! And you have the Misses along for the ride 👌 Hope your having something good for lunch, I had to run out and get myself a block of horseradish cheddar and roast beef after the one video !

I used to work right beside it and, in the summer, what a stink! it would bubble

How about a Canoe or Kayak of the Hutchinson River from the Mouth near Eastchester Bay up to Mount Vernon!

Ooh, a SuperFun site

Great video! I noticed you're wearing a Florida Trail hat. I thru hiked it back in 2019. It took 72 days and was an amazing Adventure :)

Ah Matt my good friend, I hope the Gowanus canal would be completely clean out and available for all . Also why is that pipe in the middle of the tunnel? that was a dangerous submerge object glad to see you managed to move it. Thanks to the Dredgers as well.

Great Video. In the '60s I'd paddle my surfboard in the East River at the foot of Grand Street by Domino Sugar. Three things: Coney Island EELS are rubber and real; it is in a rats' DNA to scurry up and down the ship's bollard lines. Turpentine is stronger than soap.

I think if you fell in, we'd have to chance the name of this channel to four feet outdoors.

Thank you for the awesome video! We synchronized yet again, as I just finished putting together a video for this Sunday about the Carroll St. Bridge over the Gowanus Canal and so its so cool to see yet again a different perspective on the places I walked through 😀

You're a brave man!

There is nothing wrong with the water in the Gowanus Canal. I swim in it regularly and take home a 5 Gallon Jug full. The only thing I notice is a green tint to my skin.

Matt you are so adaptable! Kayaking and canoeing amazing! If you were not a Boy Scout you should have been. I was a scout in the Bronx in the mid 60’s. Never got too far but with my son I got involved as an adult leader. Kelsey is my daughter’s name. She works with medical examiner. She is very interested in kayaking. I am going to lend her one of ours to use. I have my Oru Coastal or even the Eddyline. I told her that I get her Eddyline for Christmas! Keep on kayaking and canoeing! Question, have you checked out OutDeh Family on you tube? He paddles the waterways of urban NJ! Great Station!

Another awesome video! Love this stuff but so dangerous to be in that water. You should try Sheepshead Bay next.

Thank You Matt. We should speak one day. I am a Commercial/ Industrial Real Estate Broker that has worked on a very large project on the Gowans Canal/Bay and also Newtown Creek.

Great video, I really enjoy how you explore the NYC metro area which is often overlooked for this sort of thing. Tip: A big help to canoeing better is to learn the J stroke.

I took a small flat bottom boat in 1979 through the Gowanus canal, and we went all the way to Dougalss St. Great times

I used to work at the powerplant @ 23rd and 3rd right on the entrance to the canal and always wanted to kayak through there but never got around to it.

Another great video

U guys are brave. I'm near there every other day and it's absolute poison lol

Good place to keep your boat no barnacles will grow on it.

Love this! Super fascinating and engaging. Please consider doing something in Philadelphia or Southern NJ.

2:59 is what one could call divine intervention. Your Oru would have disintegrated. For sure. I dont think they were designed to handle the Gowanus. Nothing is. 😁

If you learn the J-stroke, you won't need to alternate sides with your paddle.

Fall in goodbye Two Feet. 😮

Great video! Your girlfriend picked the worst place to be with you! Don't fall in the water please !!

💙💚💙💚💙💚💚

Big pipe...😂😂😂😂NY its crazy..

I would take a couple gallons of the water and do dishes and clean at home.

Did you get a new canoe? (since the crap in the canal can actually “dissolve” metal?)

I’m from Gowanus, you can’t pay me to do this.

A dolphin swam into it 13 years ago and died. At the 3rd street bridge flowers and signs were lade out

That “smell and sludge” is from decades of “untreated industrial waste disposal” that was never cleaned up 😢

Damn, you upgraded..a canoo and a girlfriend..😂😂😂😂😂😂😂Next is a dog.

will you be four feet outdoors for now on? 🌞

You fall in that water and you grow a third foot

What's easier for you canoeing or kayaking? Would having a kayaking oar be easier to use when canoeing? I really like when you go through the different tunnels, under bridges. That water looks disgusting.

The Delaware river between PA and NJ.

What camera did you use for this?

Do you have any plans to explore Coney Island Creek?

Did you find any dead bodies washed up on the rocks?

How long is cannel,and what does each end connect to?

I can’t believe you paddled in that 🤮

Any sign of life in that water?

Wait a minute..that canoo looks empty..no cooler???...lunch???

You should get a sail boat and sail NY..

That water is the sketchiest yet that you've paddled in the NY videos that I'm seen. 🤢

Peaceful because everything is dead.

Stank

😂😂😂😂😂😂

Nice sanitation garbage barge

Dude, don't touch your face. If your paddle is contaminated, so are your hands. Personally, I'd be covered in Tyvek and latex to paddle that chemical laboratory.

Nasty and sad.

Cleaning??? You can't clean that...at all..

“You don’t wanna touch the water, you don’t wanna swim in it, but it’s still a cool place to canoe“. . The place is a dump and stop romanticizing it

I grew up in Brooklyn place was disgusting. Don’t know what the city is doing to clean up those canals.

Stop lying. They are already cleaining it up if not already completed in its entirety.