1000 Islands, NY/Ont.

Diversions

The water, and the islands, are the lure. The passing motorist might wonder what the attraction is, since you really have to get onto the river to see the islands and sense their mystique.  

On the Water

BOAT TOURS are the thing in the Thousand Islands, and more than 75 tour boats from eight cruise lines offer trips up to 52 miles long as often as every hour in season. Sometimes it seems there are more tour boats than private craft in this area seemingly made for powerboats. Sailboats are far less in evidence. Also noticeable are the enormous lakers and ocean-going freighters plodding to and from the Great Lakes through the St. Lawrence Seaway via the American Narrows off Alexandria Bay.

Tour boats vary in size and duration of trip (one to three hours). Some, particularly Parkway, Rockport and Heritage 1000 Islands Cruises in Canada, boast of small boats that go where the larger ones can’t. The three-decker Gananoque Boat Line vessels out of Gananoque and Ivy Lea and the large Uncle Sam Boat Lines boats out of Alexandria Bay and Clayton let people move around for various vantage points. Tour high points are the millionaires’ row cottages around Alex Bay, the Canadian palisades area where the greenish waters are 250 feet deep, and some of the smaller, fancily landscaped islands containing a single home and boathouse. Youngsters might get bored after awhile, but we thoroughly enjoyed hearing all the tidbits about who owned the houses and islands. Uncle Sam’s Seaway Island Tour, upwards of three hours long and encompassing both Canadian and American channels between Alex Bay, Rockport and Clayton, is the most comprehensive tour. Trips aboard Parkway’s 48-passenger Island Cruise double-decker are said to be the most interesting. You also can take lunch and dinner cruises, and shuttles to Boldt Castle. Basic tour prices are in the $14 to $20 range and include unlimited stopovers at Boldt Castle.

Boldt Castle
Heart Island, off Alexandra Bay, N.Y.

This was to be the testament of the love for his wife of George C. Boldt, a Prussian immigrant who became the most successful early hotel magnate in America, owning the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. He had spent $2.5 million on a six-story, 120-room Rhineland-style castle with enormous boathouse and power plant when she died in 1904 – mysteriously. No one ever tells the cause, although our young boat guide suggested cancer. Work was stopped and visitors wander through the huge, mostly empty rooms, imagining what might have been. Since 1977, the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority has been restoring the castle to the way it was the day she died, and the results are quite impressive, especially the grand staircase of marble. Main-floor exhibits portray the story of George and Louise Boldt and the development of the Thousand Islands. The second floor contains a working craft studio. Visitors on self-guided tours see a fifteen-minute video and explore the Power House and Clock Tower accessed by a stone arch bridge, the Alster Tower (a “playhouse” containing a dance hall and bowling alley), the Hennery, the palatial stone Arch entry and a stone gazebo. The recently restored Boldt Yacht House, reached via ferry from the castle or by car on Wellesley Island, is a beauty. The awesome structure holds a collection of antique wooden boats, including some from the original Boldt fleet. The family’s three yachts and huge houseboat were moored in slips 128 feet long. The castle is reached by boat tours or shuttles from Alex Bay.

(315) 382-9274 or (800) 847-5263. www.boldtcastle.com. Open daily, 10 to 6:30, mid-May to mid-October, castle to 7:30 in July and August. Heart Island, adults $4.75, children $3. Yacht House, $3 and $2.

Singer Castle on Dark Island
Off Chippewa Bay, N.Y.

Self-made New York millionaire Frederick Gilbert Bourne surprised his family in 1904 with this 28-room hunting “retreat” on eight-acre Dark Island. After 100 years as a private residence and a site for weekly religious services, the new owner, a German investment group, opened the turreted, terra cotta-roofed granite castle for tours in 2003 to help fund continuing restoration. The castle includes an elaborate five-story clock tower with Westminster chimes and comes with three boathouses (Bourne, fourth president of the Singer Sewing Machine Co., served many years as commodore at the famed New York Yacht Club). His was the only river castle to be finished and occupied at the beginning of the last century. The architectural marvel was designed by architect Ernest Flagg and modeled on Sir Walter Scott’s Woodstock castle in Scotland. Guides in medieval costumes show four floors filled with furnishings and artifacts original to the castle. The labyrinth of secret passageways with metal grates for spying on visitors, turret rooms, a two-story ice house, an indoor squash and basketball court and even a dungeon are highlights. The castle is accessible by personal watercraft and tour boat lines in Alexandria Bay, N.Y., Rockport and Brockville, Ont.

(315) 324-3275 or (877) 327-5475. www.singercastle.com. Tours on the hour daily 11 to 5, late June to September; Thursday-Sunday in off-season. Open Memorial Day to Columbus Day. Adults $12, children $5.

 
Guided sea kayaking expeditions through the islands are led by T.I. Adventures, 38714 Route 12E, Clayton, (315) 686-2000. Full-day and half-day trips, including lunch and equipment, are scheduled. In Ontario, sea kayaking equipment and tours are offered through Misty Isles Lodge, 25 River Road, Lansdowne, (613) 382-4243, and 1000 Islands Kayaking Co., Gananoque, (613) 329-6265. 

SPORT DIVING has become big in the Thousand Islands, thanks to recent water purification efforts and the accidental introduction of zebra mussels by freighters from the Black Sea. The region now claims to have some of the best freshwater scuba diving in the world, because of clear water and the number of wrecks that rest on the bottom of the St. Lawrence. Horizontal visibility of 50 to 70 feet in 100-foot depths is not unusual. The St. Lawrence has been a major shipping route since the 1700s, and the numerous shoals have turned mariners’ misfortune into a diver’s delight. Shipwrecks range from three-masted schooners and pleasure craft to commercial freighters. More than a dozen dive shops in the area rent equipment and offer instruction. Package tours on the region’s only Coast Guard-certified diving both are offered by 1000 Islands Diving Adventures, 335 Riverside Drive, Clayton, (315) 686-3030 or (800) 544-4241. 

FISHING is popular, especially around Alexandra Bay (“bass fishing capital of the world”) and Clayton. Our boat tour guide said 85 species, from pan fish to sturgeon, have been caught, and the world’s biggest muskie was landed in the Shoals region. Numerous guides lead fishing parties on chartered boats.  

Half Moon Bay Vesper Services. Since 1887, non-denominational vesper services have been conducted by visiting ministers in a secluded bay off Bostwick Island near Gananoque. The congregation arrives and remains in small boats, including canoes, for an hour of hymns and meditation at 4 p.m. on summer Sundays amid a natural water setting gouged in granite by the glaciers. Ushers in canoes distribute hymnals and collect offerings. Boats for people requiring transportation leave at 3 and 3:30 p.m. from the Gananoque Bay Dock.

Waterside Attractions

The Antique Boat Museum 
750 Mary St., Clayton

Started in 1964 as the outgrowth of the nation’s oldest annual antique boat show and auction (still held here the first weekend in August), this former lumberyard has grown into the largest freshwater maritime museum in the United States. Boating enthusiasts have a field day exploring nine new and restored riverfront buildings along the two-acre waterfront complex. They contain all manner of wooden boats, the local St. Lawrence skiffs, old birch-bark canoes, an Adirondack guide boat, exotic yachts, runabouts, outboard motors and such. Proclaimed “the most impressive collection of antique boats in the world,” the more than 200 small craft show the ingenuity of builders in adapting to the tricky St. Lawrence waters, our informant said, and you’ll marvel at the importance that boating has had here over the years. A yacht in the Cleveland Dodge launch building rests on blocks so visitors can peer under as well as inside via ramps. The Stroh beer family’s commuter boat was being readied to go back in the water at one of our visits. A couple of buildings are employed for classes run by the museum’s Boat Building School staff. The fine River Memories shop carries books and nautical gifts. The Seagull, a 40-foot cruiser built in 1935, takes up to twelve passengers on 50-minute trips around the islands on the hour for $12. Speedboat rides in a triple cockpit runabout cost $10. The museum, earlier considered a sleeper with great potential, has realized its potential as a destination site.

(315) 686-4104. www.abm.org. Open daily 9 to 5, mid-May to mid-October. Adults $8, children $4.

Minna Anthony Common Nature Center
44927 Cross Island Road
Wellesley Island State Park.

Eight miles of trails and walkways crisscross through 600 acres of wooded wetlands, marshes, swamps and rocky knobs for close-up views of varied wildlife – perhaps a thorny porcupine in a tree, beavers splashing in ponds or white-tailed deer loping into the woods. The center’s staff offers special trail hikes and nature walks. Perched on a plateau of the reddish-brown Potsdam sandstone characteristic of the area, the museum includes live collections of fish, reptiles and amphibians, plus mounted waterfowl and a beehive with live bees.

(315) 482-2479. Open daily in summer, 8:30 to 8:30, Sunday to 5; rest of year, 8:30 to 4:30, Sunday 10 to 4;30. Parking, $7 in season, free rest of year.

The much-used Thousand Islands Bikepath parallels the Thousand Islands Parkway (unfortunately for users, on the far side of the highway from the river) on the Canadian side for 22 miles from Gananoque to Brockville. The paved path is popular with joggers, walkers and rollerbladers as well as cyclists. There are frequent rest areas with picnic tables and restrooms, swimming beaches and plenty of vantage points for viewing the river.

Thousand Island Park. Established in 1875 as a church colony, this slice of Victoriana at the west end of Wellesley Island is on the National Historic Register and reminiscent of the Methodist campground at Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s worth a visit for a look at the colorful old cottages and the spacious green with a tabernacle at the far end. Stop at the boutiques upstairs in the restored Wellesley Hotel or at The Guzzle, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor and sandwich shop across the street.

WATER CULTURE. Boaters dock at the highly regarded Thousand Islands Playhouse, (613) 382-7020, fashioned from the old Gananoque Canoe Club building, which is right on the river at the foot of Charles Street in Gananoque. Five plays a season are produced in the 350-seat Springer Theatre. The shows, mostly comedies and musicals, are scheduled for about a month each from mid-May through October. A more intimate, 120-seat Firehall Theatre opened in 2004 with two productions. The casts are professional, curtain is Tuesday-Saturday at 8 (also matinees at 2:30 on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday). Tickets, $25 to $32.

The Historic Thousand Islands Village Foundation has revived part of Gananoque’s riverfront along Water Street. Its focal point is the Arthur Child Heritage Centre of the 1000 Islands, 125 Water St., (613) 382-2535 or (877) 217-7391. The landmark two-story Victorian “Grand Cottage” with verandas and widow’s walk is full of interesting art exhibits, the Canadiana Gift Shop and interpretive displays of the area’s natural and cultural history; open daily May-October, admission $2.

On the American side, Clayton claims to be the cultural center of the Thousand Islands, with three museums, a waterfront concert series on Thursday nights, a Bluegrass Festival in early June and seasonal theater in the turn-of-the-century Town Hall/Opera House, 403 Riverside Drive. The opera house schedules local and touring productions from mid-June through September. The quaint Thousand Islands Museum, 312 James St., (315) 686-5794, traces local history from the turn of the century. Exhibits include scores of hunting decoys and a replica of the 70-pound, world-record muskellunge sport fish, landed a few miles from Clayton. Open daily in season, 10 to 5; admission, $2. The Handweaving Museum and Thousand Islands Craft School, 314 John St., (315) 686-4123, has a collection of 20,000 hand-woven fabrics and rare spinning and weaving tools plus a gallery with special exhibits; open daily in summer and weekdays in winter, 9 to 4:30, donation.

 
Material excerpted from Waterside Escapes in the Northeast,  by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2005.

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