If you want a piece of US history -- the American Canadian Caribbean Line, a small boat company out of Warren, RI -- actually cruises the Erie Canal, Albany to the lake. Actually the entire cruise is from Warren to the Sangunay in Canada and even out into the Bay of the St. Lawrence, via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, Lake Oswego, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Montreal, Quebec, and you disembark in Montreal for a trip either home or by bus back to Warren.

I've done it, it's lovely. In the Fall it's particularily nice.