Captain Ed, Luna, Okee and I have arrived in Kingston, Ontario – Canada! This means we have traveled about 1500 miles since leaving Stuart, Florida. After 84 days, our captain/crew capabilities have improved, but are certainly not perfected.
Kingston is a historic and interesting city full of Canada Geese, Mallard Ducks, and people from all over the world, all raising their children. The water at Confederation Basin Marina is clear. Kingston lies on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Cataraqui and St. Laurence Rivers. The submerged aquatic vegetation is so thick, it is being removed and piled atop the docks. I have been unable to determine if it is native or partially invasive. Nonetheless, the geese and ducks eat it ravenously!
The population of Kingston is very diverse. The city houses Queens University. The blend of old and new city has a hip and international vibe. There is every imaginable ethnic restaurant. Reading the historic markers makes clear that the community is coming to terms with its difficult Native American history.
Since I last blogged, Ed and I have traveled from upstate New York’s Brewerton to Oswego; Oswego to Clayton; Clayton to Wellesley Island, and Wellesley Islands to Kingston, Ontario.
Ed and I stayed longer than planned in Brewerton. We had significant starboard bow-thruster issues in the Erie Canal and had hoped to get fixed at Winter Haven Marina. After a 12 day visit, we did not. Ed is ready to learn how to handle the boat anyway, and I had the opportunity to study a colony of supersonic barn swallows and their chicks. Also, with time on our hands, Ed and I visited the lands of my family’s mid 1800s teasel growing-Thurlow English heritage: Syracuse and Skaneateles, New York.
My father was born in Syracuse in 1936 and grew up in Liverpool on Onondaga Lake. This five mile long lake, sacred to the Iroquois Confederacy, became polluted by industrial pollution and sewage to the point that by the first half of the twentieth century it was one of the country’s most contaminated waterbodies. My grandfather moved the family to a home on the St. Lucie River in Stuart, Florida in 1952. Little did he know the fate of the Indian River Lagoon. Unlike the St. Lucie, Onondaga Lake has gone from “the butt of one eyed fish jokes” to a lake of beauty, much enjoyed and improved. Let’s hope the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon can do the same.
Carpenter Falls on beautiful Skaneateles Lake was my father’s favorite. It lies in an old growth Hemlock forest towering above the cliffs of Bear Swamp Creek. My dear father passed away in 2022, but I could clearly envision him standing under the falls since he could not swim in Onondaga Lake. It must have been a happy place for him and it was a happy place for me that day too.
Thereafter, Ed and I returned to Brewerton and headed west through locks on the Erie Canal, once rapids or waterfalls, taking Finito north at Three Rivers – where we saw our first swan! Once in the Oswego River it became narrow and quiet and I thought about how my reading had taught me that this river, as all between Lake Ontario and the Hudson River, was the lands of the French and Indian War – that of course included the British. This was a time when commerce was motivated by the slaughter of animals for the fur trade. Millions and millions of them…
Sometimes history is overwhelming but one can’t close one’s eyes to it. Ed and I were reminded during our visit to Oswego that the city was the ONLY in the U.S. to accept Jews during WWII. The Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum/Fort Ontario tells this incredible story.
From Oswego, Captain Ed, “bow-thusterless,” led Finito through the St. Lawrence River to Clayton, first settled in 1801. It was the main railroad terminus to the 1000 Islands resort region during its heyday of the Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th Century. These rock islands emerge from crystal clear water. Most are forested.
Here the rich and famous built vacation homes – the most famous being Boldt Castle. Within thirty years, Mr. George Boldt, rose from poor Prussian immigrant to fabulously wealthy proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Boldt abandoned the castle upon the death of his beloved wife for whom he was building this castle. Lovingly reconstructed by the Thousand Island Bridge Authority, today, the castle is open to all as amazing testament to the spirit of the American Dream and of American history.
