World Canada Ontario Kingston

Hank & Patti's Great Adventure

Kingston, Ontario, Canada 30 Aug 2007

After a really wet start this morning, we then had light rain or overcast most of the day. We arrived in Kingston about 3:30 with beautiful weather. We will be here in the Rideau Acres Campground for the Labor Day weekend which is also celebrated in Canada. Since we had not really planned ahead for where we would be for the holiday weekend, we were happy to get a site here in the (RV) rally field. The rest of the park is full & they have people coming to the rally field which is mostly a large, grassy area. Some RV parks have you pretty close to your neighbors which is not the way we prefer to RV, but we adjust to what we get no matter where it is. What we have right now is a long gravel site with water & electric and grass on both sides. There is lots of room between us & the next RV. So much room that during a rally there would be at least 4 RVs where 2 of us are right now, maybe even more. We spent the afternoon settling in & seeing what we want to see & do in the area, at least to start. A 3 hr cruise in & around some of the 1000 islands is what we plan on doing tomorrow, Fri.

Kingston is at the mouth of the St Lawrence River where it joins with Lake Ontario. That is the NE part of the lake. Watertown, NY is a little east & south of here, being connected to Canada via I81. The Rideau Canal connects Kingston & Ottawa. Again that is the waterway used to transport people & goods for settlers & traders. The Rideau (Kingston) area has been nominated (so far not confirmed) to be a World Heritage Site. Kingston was a large ship building site at one time. The campground where we stayed is on the Rideau Canal. In French, rideau means raft. The Rideau Canal ends in the Cataraqui Rvr which goes into Lake Ontario & the St Lawrence Rvr right where they meet. The Royal Military College of Canada is on a penninsula right there with Navy Bay being on its eastern side. We think that is the equivalent of the Naval Academy in Annapolis. There is also a Fort Henry there, but we didn't visit since we have seen numerous forts of that period already. It is 200 miles across Lake Ontario to Niagara. In the winter, it used to take the original ships 27 days to cross during the winter time because of the weather & high waves. I read that it is more dangerous in the Great Lakes in the wintertime because the waves are high but short which makes it much more difficult for the ships to navigate. There are numerous "famous" ship wrecks or sinkings on the Great Lakes.

The Thousand Island area is beautiful & very much the summer vacation area going back to the Indians according to local lore. Gananaque is a small town/village east of Kingston that is on the St Lawrence right in the middle of where the majority of the small "house" islands are. What I am calling "house" islands are small islands with one house on them. Some have two houses but the really small ones are only big enough for one house. From the small one house islands, the sizes go up to where there are numerous houses. Of course all these houses have boats, decks, piers, boat houses or whatever depending on the size of the island and its location, as well as the amount of money the owners have put into them. Most of the islands never go up for sale, but stay in the family, being passed on down thru the generations. We did see some of the houses or lots on some of the bigger islands for sale. The prices are reported to being in the millions ... location, location, location. The border between Canada & the USA is of course in the St Lawrence between the large land masses. The islands are "split" between the 2 countries... More belong to Canada, but the amount of "acerage" is divided evenly between the USA & Canada. On the river, the houses usually have flags up with the home country flag on top. So sometimes you see only one flag... Canadian or American... sometimes you see 2, but you can tell who "owns" it by which is on top.

Many wealthy & some famous people have lived here or spent summers (or parts of summers) here. On the boat tours (we took 2) the guides announce this house was owned by the ....s or is owned by the .....s. The house that Irving Berlin had still has a replica of the RCA phonograph speaker & white dog sitting in front of it. Kate Smith owned this one. The Rockefellers have this one, etc. One island was totally man-made by bringing in rock fill, building a bulkhead, more fill, etc. to finally build an island big & solid enough to put their house, yard, pier, etc. You can spot it pretty easily because it is the only flat one. The rest are built on rocks which are the tops or peaks of underwater "mountains".

We went to Boldt Castle which was built by the founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. In 1904 he & his wife had already spent $2.5 million on it when she suddenly died. Work was stopped & never resumed until fairly recently. The weather & vandals had been hard on it, but it is in the process of being restored. It is open to tours which of course can only come by boat. It is in American waters. It is an amazing building with 127 rooms "each" with a water view & has 6 levels. The house has hearts built into some of the decorative parts... stonework or masonry work on the house, stair railings, etc. The house was being built as a tribute to Mr. Boldt's wife to show his love for her, so when she died he never went back or had it finished. One of the amazing "facts" for me was that all the limestone in the house was cut special & marked for the exact location it was to go to in the house construction. The Boldts owned many other properties there & elsewhere. One of them had a limestone quarry, so all the stone was cut to specifications at his quarry & then taken to the house. Very interesting & it is nice to see it being restored & maintained.

In Kingston, we went to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes. It has part of the museum inside one of the buildings, but part of the tour is on a 3000 ton Canadian Coast Guard light icebreaker, the Alexander Henry. Also interesting is that the Alexander Henry is a B&B.... & no, it is not all fancy & luxurious. The cost is like $86 to $130 Canadian dollars. They have "quite a few" customers in the summer, especially in Aug. I wouldn't want to stay there & Hank said he has already spent enough time on ships "like" that. It is not that old... built around 1952, but has been retired for awhile.

We enjoyed this area & have also learned that our friends from Gorham, NH got married in Kingston & have been coming to this area for years. It is a small world.