EXPLORE
Memorial Day Weekend through October 18
Canal Experience
Your Weekend Visit Starts Here
Looking for a weekend adventure that feels easy, meaningful, and memorable? Pair a Canal Boat Ride with our self-guided Discovery Walk for the full Roscoe Village experience.
Start your visit on the canal, where you’ll slow down, take in the scenery, and experience the story of transportation that helped shape the village. Then, continue the journey on foot as you explore historic buildings, working trades, and the people and places that brought canal-era life to the community.
Part 1. Discovery Walk
- Location: Historic Roscoe Village
- Duration: Approximately 60–90 minutes
- Open Daily: 10 AM to 4 PM*
- Experience Type: Self-guided walking tour
- Includes: Access to historic buildings and exhibits
- Parking: Parking is available throughout the village, with dedicated parking behind the Visitor’s Center Visitor Center
* Please complete your Discovery Walk by 3:15 PM if you have reserved the 4 PM Boat Ride for the Canal Boat Experience.
What You’ll Experience
Your Discovery Walk ticket opens a series of historic spaces throughout the village, each showing a different part of canal-era life.
Visitor Center Theatre & History Room
Start here. Watch the film about the Big Ditch and a canal town came to life, explore the history room with models and artifacts to explore, and see the working canal lock model that explains how boats moved through the system.
Blacksmith Shop
One of the most memorable stops in the village. Watch metal shaped by hand and see how everyday tools, hardware, and canal-related parts were made.
Hay Craft Building
Home to both the print shop and broom shop, this building shows how information and useful goods moved through the same community.
Doctor’s Office
A look at medicine in a canal town, where treatment was practical, personal, and often improvised by today’s standards.
Doctor’s Kitchen & House
A closer look at home life, where meals, soap, candles, and daily necessities were made from scratch. The stone walls and the open kettle for cooking make this area intriguing.
Craftsman’s House – Weaver
See how a working family lived and how labor inside the home connected directly to trade and production.
One-Room Schoolhouse
A single-room system where students of different ages learned together, and older students helped teach the younger ones.
Explore them in any order. Return to the ones that catch your interest. It’s a whole village, not a single stop.
From the village, you can also walk the towpath to see original canal locks, stone chambers that once raised and lowered boats along the route.
Brick streets underfoot. Doors open to working spaces. The canal is just steps away.
Part 2. Canal Boat Ride
- Location: Canal Boat Landing, Lake Park (minutes from Roscoe Village)
- Duration: ~45 minutes
- Season: Memorial Day Weekend (Fri-Sun and Memorial Day) through October 18
- Days: Friday–Sunday (after Labor Day: weekends only)
- Departures: 1:00 • 2:00 • 3:00 • 4:00
Arrive 15 minutes early. Weekend rides fill quickly.
Free parking • Restrooms on site • Accessible (call ahead)
The Monticello III
The Monticello III is a working historic canal boat pulled by draft horses along the towpath, exactly as it was done in the 1830s.
The ride runs about a mile along the canal and back, covered, comfortable, and open to all ages. Ohio’s canal once stretched more than 308 miles across the state through 146 hand-built locks. An engineering phenomenon of its era, dug entirely by hand and completed in 1832. It moved people and goods across the region and helped transform Ohio into the third most populated state in the nation by 1850.
Most of Ohio’s canal system today is trails and dry land. Historic Roscoe Village is one of the few places where it still operates on the water.
Before or after your ride, explore beautiful Lake Park on foot. Walk the towpath, take in the scenery, and discover the remnants of Locks 26 and 27.
Your canal boat captain brings the history to life — how the boats moved, how crews lived, and what it really meant to build and ride the canal.
- Adult Canal Experience | $23 per person
- Senior Canal Experience | $21 per person (Ages 60 +)
- Student Canal Experience | $18 per person (Ages 6-18)
- Children Canal Experience | FREE (Ages 5 & Under)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please complete your Discovery Walk by 3:15 PM if you have reserved the 4 PM Boat Ride for the Canal Boat Experience.
- Adult Canal Boat Ride | $10 per person
- Senior Canal Boat Ride | $9 per person (Ages 60 +)
- Student Canal Boat Ride | $8 per person (Ages 6-18)
- Children Canal Boat Ride | FREE (Ages 5 & Under)
Weekend Canal Experience
Canal Boat spots are limited. Reserve your spot today.
Tickets are also available at the Visitor’s Center and at the Hay Craft Building.
*A small per-ticket booking fee is added at check-out to help cover ticketing costs.