Paris:- Wednesday, 22. January 1997:- A few weeks ago when it was a lot colder, the Herald Tribune had a good front page photo of the frozen Canal Saint Martin. I was vexed because I had taken one too, at Bastille, and the water was not frozen there.

After checking out the Musée de la Musique earlier today, I decided to finish off with a look at the canal, starting at the place de la Bataille de Stalingrad, or métro Jaurés for short. Even though the sun was trying its best to break through, the view was not promising.

On the Quai de Valmy side, there are Paris Port Authority warehouses and their dock and on the Quai de Jemmapes side there are some péniches, one of which seemed to be a floating cabaret. And there was ice in the water, backed up in front of the bridge over the place Stalingrad. All of this is in no way romantic, even with ice, but I am 'saved' by the arrival of a sightseeing boat.

It isn't one of the few nice-looking ones but it is the only thing in sight besides seagulls, so I walk fast or slow-run down the Quai de Jemmapes to the bridge at rue Louis-Blanc to get an oncoming shot of it.

I have a good amount of time to regard the scene because the boat is advancing in a leisurely manner, as if there were things of great interest to see; I could not see any bow-wave at all, could not see the 'great ice floes' being battered aside - they were just thin sheets, and very dirty too after lying around in Paris' air for a couple of weeks.

The Quai de Jemmapes was formed at the same time as the canal, in 1822. The canal goes all the way to Bastille, but has been covered by city streets at rue du Faubourg du Temple, and since 1911 it has been under the boulevards Jules Ferry and Richard Lenoir. Fairly recent attempts to cover the whole length have been rightly pushed off the drawing boards by conservationists.

Near here, on the Quai de Jemmapes, near Louis Blanc, was the infamous Montigny gallows, for lesser criminals, which was sort of an annex to the nearby and even more infamous and much larger and always in need on constant repairs Montfaucon gallows, which was reserved for the real bad guys and other people in temporary political disfavor. Villon got off twice; but for others the result was seldom 'temporary.'

On the opposite side is the Quai de Valmy - also formed in 1822 - it was named after Louis XVIII in 1824. The name was replaced in 1830 by name of the victory by Kellermann and Dumouriez over the Prussians on 20. September, 1792. The headquarters of the Salvation Army is at number 187, if my reference is not out of date.

The bridge I am on has no name of its own and is part of the rue Louis-Blanc, named in 1730 as rue de la Voirie - garbage-dump - because is was near the way to the Montfaucon gallows, I suppose. Its present name was acquired in 1885 by replacing the name of rue des Buttes-Chaumont, dating from 1821.

As the sightseeing boat approaches, I am trying to 'fix' it while it is still in the ice floes, and if possible, capture one of the gulls wheeling around - but in this light, they would only be a blur so I am not too worried about missing them.

I shoot and then I hurry to the other side of the bridge and it seems to be a downstream side because there is ice piled up against it - and I will be looking right down on top of the boat as it comes out from underneath.

Ah, there is - in my viewfinder - chugging along, hardly making waves and crashing no cubes of ice to the side. I have been hoping for a Baltic icebreaker effect but this is obviously pure temperate-zone fantasy. The light is better here as I am facing it and this one will be better, with more contrast. More 'Winter in Paris, but now mild.'

Down at the next street there is a lock as well as a bridge and now I know the speed of the boat, I do not even half-run down the Quai de Valmy to get there ahead of it.

This is away from the Port Authority business and here the canal seems more like one in Amsterdam. There are nine locks along here altogether and a canal cruise is quite leisurely; lasting about three hours.

On the way down to the rue Eugéne-Varlin I pass through a little kid's park that is between the road and the canal. These are also common along its length as are mini-parks for adults with benches for passing the time in tranquility. The rue Eugéne-Varlin dates to 1672 and gets its present name from a book-binder and member of the Paris Commune.

I take an offset view of the water pouring out of the lock before the boat drops out of sight behind the metal lock doors. About a half-dozen people are leaning on the bridge railing watching all this action - it is not too cold, and the sun is also almost shining - and even though these boats pass often, and a couple of freight barges as well; it is a show that always draws a bit of an audience - and always has.

The mechanicals of the locks are mostly manual and even if they are powered, the actual machinery is quite old and there are gearwheels turning and old metal things that look like museum pieces, working sturdily, from sometime back then until into the next century.

If any of this gets a 'bug' in it, I hope that there are people more competent than unemployed computer programmers around to fix it. Nuts, bolts, gearwheels; all iron, and flaked from many decades of repainting.

The good thing about it, about watching it, is that it is all so simple that any ordinary person can understand it and its elementary hydraulics - and it all happens at the pace - of a walking horse - if that fast. This is in downtown Paris, this year - 1997.