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They Drained This Famous Canal. What They Found At The Bottom Is A City's Secret History
Jun 30, 2017
They Drained This Famous Canal. What They Found At The Bottom Is A City's Secret History
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the Canal St Martin in Paris is one of
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the city's oldest and most beautiful
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waterways but the centuries old 4 and 1
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12 km Canal is also one of the dirtiest
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and has to be periodically cleaned out
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City authorities recently drained and
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cleaned the canal for the first time
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since 2001 removing over 40 tons of
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debris in the process but it wasn't all
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beer cans clogging things up thousands
0:24
of artifacts were pulled from the muck
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and they rang from fascinating to
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downright bizarre
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[Music]
0:45
the Canal St marttin in Paris has a very
0:48
rich
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history its construction was ordered by
0:52
none other than Napoleon in
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1802 it was designated to bring fresh
0:58
water to the city's rapid growing
1:00
population it also provided an Avenue
1:03
for
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Commerce in typical French fashion the
1:07
funding was procured through attacks on
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wine but as the city grew the canal was
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put under immense strain today while
1:16
still Scenic it has mostly become a
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watery garbage
1:20
dump city authorities recently damned
1:23
and drained the canal for the first time
1:25
since
1:27
2001 workers descended into into the
1:30
canal bed to begin the cleaning
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[Music]
1:33
process so far they've removed over 40
1:36
tons of debris and
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Counting it's a bizarre site for City
1:43
residents the water is still so low that
1:46
you can practically walk across
1:49
it they found a lot of wine bottles but
1:52
there was a whole lot more
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too people seem to have abandoned
1:57
thousands of bikes and mopeds there
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some of them appear to have been thrown
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in quite
2:03
recently but most of the artifacts were
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quite
2:07
old even though they were mostly
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everyday objects they seemed to carry a
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certain historical
2:14
dignity for the workers it was like
2:16
waiting into the city's Rich
2:19
past many of the city's residents
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gathered to watch the
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cleaning they couldn't get enough and
2:25
wanted to see what else they were going
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to pull out
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the city's Aven residents also turned
2:32
out in droves to inspect the new
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territory the Canal's aquatic residents
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were probably less
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thrilled but the city didn't just leave
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them to perish at the
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bottom during a span of several days
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workers moved over 4 tons of fish to a
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safe
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location in addition to the more modern
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artifacts there were plenty of older
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items
3:00
there were old boom
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boxes and even older
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cameras among the items found in the
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canal were some artifacts from the first
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world war including coins an unexploded
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shell and even a
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car that's definitely worth keeping an
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eye on who knows what else they're going
3:19
to fish out of there
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[Music]