Life at
Lat/ Long 44 20' 48"N - 75 58' 40"W
(Our home in the Thousand Islands)
For some time, I have written tid bits about the area where we have spent our summers for over 24 years. It has occurred to me that I have failed to give much of an overall view or description of the area though.
You may or may not have heard of it before, but the Thousand Islands is a serious tourist attraction in the country. Let's start with where it is. If you are geographically challenged, picture the great lakes on the east coast. Together, they are larger than the state of Texas and they are pretty much split between the US and Canada.
Obviously, Lake Michigan is not in Canada. At the Eastern end of Lake Ontario is the St Lawrence river that leads to the Atlantic ocean. Where the river starts at the mouth of Lake Ontario, are the 1864 islands of the Thousand Islands. Over the years many rich folks (clearly not us) have built mansions in the area. Wildlife is abundant, with ducks, geese, osprey, blue heron, loons, beaver and bald eagles to name but a few.
The area was named by the French in 1615, but after the war of 1812 many islands were named by the British. Today we have the Admiralty group named after some admirals, the Lake fleet after some ships and gunboats, the Navy group after famous captains, and the 30 Brock islands near the town of Brockville. Nearby is the town of Iroquois with one of my favorite airfields, requiring flying low over lakers (big ships) in the river and come in on final mere feet over terrified golfers before landing on a runway barely as wide as a sidewalk. But I digress.
Some of the islands and bays have historical names and unique stories like Dumfounder, Deathdealer (not to be confused with Deadman's bay), Bloodletter, Psych, Scorpion, Molly's Gut, Smugglers Cove, Fidler's Elbow and Horse Thief Bay. A number of unnamed islands only have numbers. At one time ours was 101G. Real sexy, huh? I spent two years having it officially and legally changed to Honey Bee Island. You can Google it, it's on all new maps and charts.
The border meanders between the islands with half on each side. Ironically the largest island (Wolf) does not have a bridge to it. Only two do, one Canadian (Hill) and one US (Wellesley), linking the US and Canadian mainland's. Honey Bee is in the international rift between both. We are in Canada, but when we dive off our dock, we come up in US waters 20 feet away. This a grennie's, environmentalist and tree hugger paradise, with noise, light, disturbance and trash restrictions of all manner. There are approximately 20 US and a similar number of Canadian provincial parks on islands accessible only by boat.
Many locations in nearby bays encourage 'rafting' with other boats to share the space or to form little communities for the day. There is no dock, so everyone anchors and ties off to each other and walk from boat to boat to visit. It's a big river with depths ranging from 2 to 280 feet, so unless you know the area, you have to be on the lookout for shoals. Your depth finder might indicate 20 feet on the stern (the back of the boat) while the bow (the pointy end at the front of the boat) might be on the rocks. Then, that pinging sound you hear, is the sound of $100. bills being torn up to replace your propeller and outboard lower end.
Most islands are lived on seasonally. Some are big with hundreds of homes, some are the size of your living room with everything in between.
I could write all day about this magical place but you can judge it for yourself by sampling a spectacular short video by clicking HERE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YziwZF8ViUU
The tale of two chairs
Have you ever wondered if all of the stories I write about are true? Well if you do, this one will surely make you wonder. We have all heard stories about cats or dogs that "disappear" only to show up on the owner's doorstep years later. Well, we don't have either so already you can see that this story might have legs.
Some 15 years ago we were having cocktails with our neigbor's a mere 300 feet (100M) from our dock when a storm quickly blew in. Thinking it would be safer to ride it out, we opted to stay and not boat home immediately. A mini squall of sorts blew in the area and was gone in a matter of minutes. We returned home only to find two of our 4 heavy Teak dock chairs were gone. We had often wondered why people in the area chained their dock chairs down, thinking that perhaps there had been theft in the area. We soon realized that anything not nailed down on the dock is as good as gone with the occasional winds.
We immediately jumped in the boat knowing that they would float and would be nearby for sure, where we could retrieve them. We boated an ever-larger area for over an hour but never found them. Finally, we gave up and chalked it up to experience.
Fast forward 15 years and we meet a couple at a little neighborhood get together (we call them mandatory AA meetings) and invited them over for, ...well you know. They also live on the river about a mile from our island. As they were leaving, they remarked that they had two Teak chairs exactly like ours.
Really? Hmmm... And where did they get those chairs, inquiring minds asked? Well, they found them floating in the river 15 years ago and retrieved them. I couldn't decide if I should charge them for 15 years rent or if I owed them for 15 years of maintenance. In the end, we decided it was a wash. In any case, they are now safely repatriated back to where they belong.
