It’s been a while since my last post, so you may have wondered if I vanished into the Adirondacks never to return.  The fact is, I went to my friends’ house intending to stay one or two nights there and ended up staying a week.  In my defence, there’s some kind of Lake Effect that happens whenever I visit there, and I end up never really wanting to leave.  I wrote about my driving tour and my backpacking trip to Hopkins Mountain, but when my friends Franz and Magali arrived we ended up checking the bees’ honey production…

…doing some canoe racing practice on the Hudson River with a neighbor and his young daughters, which turned into drinking beer and jumping out of the boat for a swim…

…which eventually led to more beer…

… also a bit of scotch, retro video games, pool, and darts.

In the morning a much needed bucket of coffee was followed by brunch at Ravenous Creperie with different neighbours… and so on… you get the idea.  I somehow also spent hours just lying on the couch reading and staring out at the water.  The temptation was to just keep doing more of the same, but I finally managed to pull myself away, maybe mostly because I had told so many people about my trip that I kind of had to follow through.  Whatever the reason, I got back on the road.

For those of you who are familiar with New York State, you’ll know that the St Lawrence River forms the northern border with Canada, and the Great Lakes lie to the west.  Ships coming from the Atlantic Ocean travel about one thousand miles inland to reach the Great Lakes, by which they can travel into the interior of the continent all the way to Duluth, Minnesota.  About 2 hours drive from where I grew up lies Alexandria Bay, where I went yesterday to take a cruise along the St Lawrence River through the Thousand Islands region.

There are in fact 1,864 islands in the region, but we only see about 70 of them from the cruise.  For the purposes of this count, an island is defined as land that’s above water all year long, is at least 3 feet by 3 feet in area, and supports at least one tree or shrub, and here’s the smallest of them, Tom Thumb Island!

The tour is two hours long, and you’re told much of the history of the river and the homes along it, including who owns many of the mansions there, ranging from the Kellogg family and the owners of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, to the dentist from Alex Bay.  Most of the homes are beautiful, and accessible only by boat, so there’s a boathouse on almost every island too.  I particularly liked this one.

The boat goes under one of the bridges to Canada, and we learned a bit about the history of the bridge as well, including that fact that it takes four years to paint, at which point they start over again, so that the job of bridge painter is a life position.

Our guide, Greg, grew up on the river, and seemed to be able to answer any question.  When I’ve been here before, there were always large container ships going through to the Great Lakes, so I was surprised not to see any yesterday, but Greg said that it was unpredictable, and seven had come through the day before.  It was always interesting to see yachts, sailboats, and jet skis from both the US and Canada dodging around the huge cargo vessels from all over the world.

Speaking of international bridges, this is the shortest international bridge in the world, since the two islands you see are technically located on either side of the border.  I don’t think a passport is required though.

There’s one place on the river where you can see where lanterns were hung to show that the coast was clear to bring in booze from Canada during Prohibition, and another are called Smuggler’s Cove where the waters were too treacherous for pursuit by police, so the smugglers hung out there.  We were told that a church visible on the Canadian side was also a popular spot for Sunday mass for Americans in that era — because they were able to bring back “holy water” from there to the US!

One of the most popular places to visit in the area is Boldt Castle on Heart Island.  Mr and Mrs Boldt were a power couple of their day, and among other things created luxury hotels, including the Waldorf Astoria.  They owned this island and he had a castle constructed there for his wife.  However, six weeks before they were scheduled to move in, just as construction was being completed, and servants were already there to prepare the place to receive them, Mrs Boldt died of consumption.  He had the castle abandoned, and none of the family ever returned.  The first time I visited when I was young, the place had stood empty for nearly 70 years, so it was mostly a hollow shell that vandals had badly damaged.  Since that time, however, the state purchased the island from the family for $1, with the agreement that no one ever live there, and it’s now been fixed up beautifully.  This is the approach from the water — what you see on the left is the power house with the generators, the castle itself is in the center of the island.

The gardens have been repaired as well, and it really is beautiful there.  It’s available for weddings, and they were preparing for one when I was there.

The porches provide a wonderful view to the water.

And the grand staircase inside has been wonderfully restored.

The sitting rooms, dining room, and bedrooms are also restored and furnished.

 

 

Remember, this was just the summer house!  The kitchen was impressive, and the servants’ dining room was bigger than any that I’ve ever had in my houses!

 

For contrast, they’ve left some of the upstairs rooms in the condition they were when the restoration began, and this is how I remember the place from years ago — plaster falling off the walls, dust and graffiti everywhere.

I also particularly like the fact that they’ve put in windows so that you can see how the building was constructed.  For example, the glass dome above the main hall is actually enclosed within it’s own skylight.

I explored some of the other buildings belonging to the castle as well, including this lovely place that we were told used to be the children’s play house.

I love the doors.

I could also look across the water at the yacht house belonging to the castle on the mainland.  I didn’t visit it on this trip, but I remember from being there before that the yacht keeper lived there to make sure that the boats were maintained and available whenever they were wanted.  That center door must have taken a very tall mast!

This small island is just off of Heart Island, and the story is that Mr Boldt built it so that his mother-in-law could visit them!

I had been threatened with rain on this day, but as you can see, it turned out to be beautiful, so I wandered around for a long time, and spent some time reading in the gardens by the water, then eventually took the next boat back to the mainland.

Alex Bay has a lot of little shops and restaurants, but with so little storage room for souvenirs, I’ve been avoiding places like that!  So I drove upriver a bit to Sacket’s Harbor, famous for the part it played in the War of 1812.  I thought that my GPS and I had reached an uneasy truce a few days ago, but I suppose that was wishful thinking, because here it decided to send me down this road.  This is not so much a road as a lake.  It’s Lake Ontario to be exact, one of the Great Lakes, so not exactly a new feature in the landscape and, you know, about 193 mi (311 km) across.  Not a road.

Sacket’s Harbor is a lovely town to wander around in, but I particularly liked Navy Point and the view out over the water.  The commander’s and lieutenant’s houses are still there.

I went to the visitor’s center for more information on the history of the place, and met Maggie, who gave me some great advice on places to see on my journey and ran an informative movie for me, which explained not only the history of the town, but also the work that was ongoing to restore the historic buildings.  At the battlefield site there was a monument to the soldiers who died there.

But on a day like this, it’s really hard to imagine the British warships out on the water getting ready to fire on the town and the fort there.  But it’s significant that the US Army holding this point clearly influenced where the border with Canada now lies.

One final note, after I left Lake Ontario, I drove back to Rome, NY, and to Griffiss AFB, now Griffiss Business and Technology Park, where I used to work.  I was very happy to see that the B-52 that I remembered was still on display there, and looked great.  I’ve been really happy to see that all these historic sites and monuments in New York are looking better than ever, and in fact, many of them are being newly restored.