Eider Canal conservation areas. Eider Canal The Eider Canal (also called the Schleswig-Holstein Canal) was an artificial waterway in southern Denmark (later northern Germany) which connected the North Sea with the Baltic Sea by way of the rivers Eider and Levensau. Constructed between 1777 and 1784, the Eider Canal was built to create a path for ships entering and exiting the Baltic that was shorter and less storm-prone than navigating around the Jutland peninsula. In the 1880s the canal was replaced by the enlarged Kiel Canal, which includes some of the Eider Canal's watercourse. The canal's watercourse followed the border between the
White Sea–Baltic Canal White Sea–Baltic Canal The White Sea–Baltic Canal (, , ), often abbreviated to White Sea Canal () is a ship canal in Russia opened on 2 August 1933. It connects the White Sea, in the Arctic Ocean, with Lake Onega, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. Until 1961, its original name was the Stalin White Sea–Baltic Canal ("Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal imeni Stalina"). The canal was constructed by forced labor of gulag inmates. Beginning and ending with a labor force of 126,000, between 12,000 and 240,000 laborers died according to official records, and accounts in the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.