Tag Archives: Ontario

1000 Islands National Park

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This photo of Belleville is courtesy of TripAdvisor

 

With so many “rocks” sticking up out of the St. Lawrence River, which qualify as islands?

Interesting factoid: To be considered one of the 1000 Islands, an island must be above water for 365 days of the year and it must support at least one living tree. By these criteria, there are 1864 islands in the 1000 Islands. The smallest is Tom Thumb Island, on the Canadian side of the border. It has one tree and only a few square feet of land that stay above water all year long.

No island is bisected by the border between Canada and the United States, which is why the border through the 1000 Islands region is so jagged.

photo courtesy of Omegatron

Just Room Enough Island, aka Hub Island, is the smallest inhabited island. It’s in the US 1000 Islands. Funny, but the name of the family that owns it is Sizeland.

Airbnb Roulette

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Riverview B&B

Months ago, when I was planning this trip, I was looking for a place to stay between Lake Placid and Toronto. We wanted to see the Thousand Islands area, but I didn’t know any of the towns along the St. Lawrence River. So I played Airbnb roulette: Pick a town anywhere in the vicinity—Kingston, Ontario, say. If you don’t see anything you like in Kingston, keep zooming out on the map until you find something. That’s how I found the Riverview B&B in Gananoque. Ganawhat? Doesn’t matter. Just put your chips down and spin the wheel.

The Riverview was a bit difficult to find only in that our GPS (some of you may remember the obstinate Rita from previous trips) disavowed any knowledge of Thousand Islands Parkway where the B&B is located. How can that be? It’s a major thoroughfare along the river! With Rita in a huff and not having cell service in Canada, we were on our own. (What did we do before Smart Phones?) Fortunately signage was good, and we were able to find the parkway, which, by the way, is spelled “1000 Islands Parkway.” Hence, Rita’s attitude.

The B&B, the former Lansdowne House, stands out like a manor house in its rural community just east of Gananoque. It was a large, stately home that has recently been remodeled into eight spacious guest rooms, plus a large suite for the owners. It also has a fitness room, a breakfast room, and a beautiful rooftop terrace. Relieved that we had at least broken even on our bet, we dropped our luggage and headed in to town to explore. 

What an adorable town! Gananoque—or Gan, as locals call it—is just our speed: small, picturesque, quiet, and oh-so friendly. There are several scenic walks through the town of approximately 5000 which highlight some of the elegant homes built during Gan’s heyday as a major transportation hub on the St. Lawrence. Perhaps it’s fortuitous that river traffic was later diverted to Kingston, a city of over 120,000 today, so that Gan could retain its 19th-century charm.

We started at Tourist Information, where a pleasant woman educated us as to Gan’s many highlights. Primarily, it’s a launching point for boat tours of the 1000 Islands. Rather than being cooped up with tourists feeding seagulls for five hours, we opted to see the sights of the town on foot, starting with the Ganonoque Brewing Company which, as luck would have it, was right across the street from TI. We enjoyed a very talented (humorous, as well as musically endowed) duo performing in the brewery’s diminutive Beer Garden while we washed down the dust of the road. 

at the Purple House Cafe

A couple saw us reading through our TI brochures and asked if we were looking for a place to eat. Not particularly, but we would take all recommendations. Purple House Cafe, hands down. Just a pleasant stroll away, Purple House had a sweet stone patio with a wood-fired pizza oven out front. The weather was perfect—sunny and a warm 75°—so we enjoyed a delicious pizza while playing a rousing game of dominoes. Board games are part of the ambience. It just keeps getting better. Winner, winner, pizza dinner!

Bendominoes, bendy dominoes

FDR

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Eleanor and Franklin greeted us at Springwood, his family home in Hyde Park

Our first day of sightseeing on the Grand Niagara Tour: We headed up the Hudson River Valley to Hyde Park, New York. I’ve always wanted to visit the home and presidential library of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I didn’t know much about the Roosevelts, but I’d heard enough to be intrigued. Now, after spending two days in their midst, I want to know more. I’m researching biographies. Any recommendations?

FDR was born and raised at the family home of Springwood, and didn’t leave until his fourteenth year to attend boarding school in Massachusetts. At eighteen he attended Harvard, and four years later law school at Columbia. He didn’t take to law school and left to study law on his own. He passed the bar exam on his first attempt. Not bad for being self-taught!

Springwood

There’s so much more to his life and all that he accomplished for his state and country. Most remarkably, he accomplished what Herbert Hoover could not: He rescued this country from the Great Depression. His ideas were radical, as they needed to be, and he started putting them into place within a few months of taking office.

After two successful terms as president, America, on the brink of world war, voted him in to a third term of office. At the end of his third term, and this time actively in the midst of war, America elected him to an unprecedented fourth term. Sadly, he died as he, Churchill, and Stalin were laying the groundwork for a post-war world, just months before the war ended. Yet his legacy for peace lives on, predominantly in his dream of the United Nations.

I didn’t realize the FDR Presidential Library was not only the first presidential library, a concept that Roosevelt came up with himself as a quiet place to work while in Hyde Park, but also the only one ever used by a president while still in office. It’s a repository chock-full of papers (both his and Eleanor’s), memorabilia, and artwork. I loved seeing all the little animals on the desk he used in the Oval Office. It reminds me of my own!

I thought I would have no interest in a temporary exhibit called War Art, motivational posters from World War Two. I passed through the display, vaguely glancing at the walls. My pace slowed, however, as the message began to hit home: Americans were called upon to make incredible sacrifices during the war. Not just rationing and victory gardens, but also collecting scrap metals, rubber from tires, glass, clothing and rags (and we thought we invented recycling!); working extra hours and improving efficiencies in the work place to cover the Americans who were fighting overseas; volunteering for everything from scrap collection to rolling bandages; being mum about the war effort to avoid spreading information that could help the enemy; and so much more. Buying war bonds was especially important. Just imagine the daunting challenge of funding a global war right after the Great Depression! If it hadn’t been for Roosevelt’s New Deal, this country wouldn’t have had the infrastructure to get through a world war.

When they elected him president, many Americans did not realize FDR was paralyzed from the waist down. He was never photographed in his wheelchair and only publicly mentioned his disability once, in the last year of his life.

Being a spectator during the wars America has been involved in over the past 50+ years is nothing like supporting a massive world-war effort on a daily basis for almost four years. The Greatest Generation? You bet! We could all learn a lesson on sacrifice, honor, and integrity.