Canals: The Making Of A Nation - 2015 - 7/10

Another canal documentary.
Usually, these focus on the traveler, be they an experienced boat person or some pseudo celebrity who exclaims and gushes in feigned astonishment.
Other docs follow the hiker, traipsing the tow paths.
Those are more picture postcards.

This one is more in depth. Six 30’ episodes follow the engineers who dreamed and designed them, geologists who learned to read the earth, financiers who floated stock shares, navvies (navigators) who provided the sheer muscle, and the boat people who worked the narrow boats.

Recently restored canals are now flooded with daytrippers and the genteel.
The doc flashes a lens at a more troubling possibility - tenants who cannot afford a home.
Always uncertain is the future, though.