Leaving Cape Vincent, New York, we head north up the St Lawrence Seaway and enter the Thousand Islands. The Thousand Islands really number over 1800. Each island is granite and forested and dotted with summer cottages.
Many of the islands are public parks with docks, primitive camping and trails. As these islands are on the border, some are in the US but most are in Canada. We will go up the New York shoreline and visit the US islands, then turn south and go through the Canadian side of the islands. Negotiating this area is a bit tricky as depths vary widely, one minute 3-4 foot and a minute later you are in 80-100 feet of water. The islands were carved out by glaciers way, way long ago so these island are actually the top of large hills. Needless to say we stay in the channel, which we share with the freighters on the St Lawrence.
The first island is Wolfe Island and it is Canadian. It is one of the larger islands, it’s southeast coast is filled with wind turbines further along the island has summer cottages in its many coves. Along sideWolfe Island on the American side is Carleton Island , a much smaller island that has summer cottages and farms along its shore.
Next we pass the even smaller island of Hickory (Canadian) and begin to pass the larger Grindstone Island (American). Between the mainland and Grindstone there are lots of tiny islands, many no more than rocks with a few trees. Governor Island and Calumet Island are of interest. Charles Emery, a tobacco tycoon from Brooklyn NY bought the small group of islands in 1881 and named it Calumet Island. Emery connected some of the islands to create a lagoon to shelter his boats. In 1892, he then built a “owners cottage” or castle of 30 rooms, a 82 foot water tower, guesthouse, skiff house and icehouse. This was the first grand estate built by industrialist in the Thousand Islands. The castle was closed in 1907 and the owner died in 1917. The property sat little used and a fire destroyed the castle. The heirs ended up selling the property which still had the water tower, caretakers home and part of the boathouse. The island is privately owned today.
Right after Calumet, we turned into the town of Clayton, NY and secured the boat at the municipal marina. There are 10 other Loopers here in the marina. We had met one before in Cape May and one we knew from watching their YouTube channel about their buying a boat and planning for the Loop.
Once we got the boat all connected and did the paperwork for storing the boat this winter, we took off to town for lunch and to visit the Antique Boat Museum. Must admit that I lost Bill several times in this museum. He was in heaven!! This museum was originally a yard for timber milling. The oldest building was built in 1886 to house the steam boiler and engine that powered the woodworking mill. The museum tells the story of the St Lawrence River boating, houses a big collection of canoes and skiffs, old racing boats, classic wooden powerboats, launches and outboard engines. The museum offers classes in boat building and does boat restoration on the museum grounds.
We stopped to get an ice cream on the way back through town and enjoyed sitting and eating our ice cream in the downtown waterfront park watching the boats go by. Clayton is a town developed around boat building and maintenance, wood working and saw mills, supporting the surrounding farms and supporting all those summer cottagers. In its golden age, this town had eight trains a day transporting summer guests during the season from Syracuse, Albany and New York.
When we got back to the boat, we were invited to see a Pilgrim trawler. Bill could not say no. We had a great time touring the boat and sharing stories.