In Photos: Paris Dredges Canal in Hipster Neighborhood, Finds Bicycles, Beer, And a Gun

On Monday, Paris city workers began dredging the Canal Saint-Martin, a historic 19th Century waterway that winds through the French capital's northeast.

With its picturesque quays and rustic, wrought iron footbridges, the canal attracts a diverse array of tourists and locals alike, and has become known in recent years as a hotspot for Parisian hipsters. Crowds of onlookers gathered Tuesday along the canal and its footbridges to catch a glimpse of the half-submerged detritus lining the canal bed.

Many of the treasures revealed by the receding waterline are leftovers from nights of quayside picnics and partying. A couple of years ago, the city launched a huge poster campaign to tackle the issue of pollution around the canal, which had become a dumping ground in recent years.

Besides mountains of beer and wine bottles, city workers have also salvaged a slew of bikes from the city's Vélib' bicycle sharing program, as well as several drowned scooters and motorbikes.

According to AFP journalist Myriam Lemétayer, police officers seized a gun that was found in the sludge.

City authorities will carry out maintenance work along the canal over the next three months, fixing locks and cleaning up the canal bed. Some 45 tons of rubbish were retrieved during the last cleanup operation, which took place from 2001 to 2002.

In order to drain the canal, engineers have installed a dam upstream at the Bassin de la Villette reservoir, which has redirected the flow of the canal into the Seine river.

A dozen workers have been tasked with retrieving the nearly 4.5 tons of fish that live in the canal and releasing them upstream.

Clean-up teams will move in on January 8 to remove the mountains of detritus and sludge, and to fix the parts of the canal that need repairing.

Authorities have said the dry waterway should be filled again in early April.

All photos by Etienne Rouillon/VICE News

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