Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Thousand Islands

It's actually 1,864 islands in total, but who's counting?
 
Thousand Islands is an archipelago of islands between the US and Canada. The Canadian islands are in the province of Ontario in Canada and the US islands are in the state of New York. To qualify and be counted as an island, an island needs to be afloat all year round (no dipping when it's high tide), must have an area greater than 1 square foot and must support at least one living tree on its land. (Wikipedia)

Driving from Mississauga, it took us just over 3 hours to get to Gananoque, Ontario. We left early since we wanted to catch the first boat ride out to the Thousand Islands. We took the 5-hour trip that included a stop-over visit at The Boldt Castle on Heart Island.

Gananoque Boat Line

The boat trip was nice but uneventful. It was very interesting nd informative to learn about the islands and bridges and international waters. Knowing that we were sailing away on the playground of the rich (if they were not all famous) was also quite a draw card. We were fascinated to see houses that were built on quaint, landscaped islands.
 
Bridge on 1000 Islands

1000 Islands

I was really excited to visit Boldt Castle as well because of it's supposedly romantic history. The story goes that George Boldt built the castle for his wife. However, it was never finished and in 1904, all construction stopped because George's wife died. These days, it is a stopover attraction for people taking boat trips around the 1000 Islands. Boldt Castle is located in the aptly-named Heart Island. It is under  US soil.
 
Boldt Castle
 
The trip back was even more uneventful. The weather and the breeze made an afternoon nap absolutely hard to resist. I probably dozed off a bit because the next thing I know, we were near the boat dock and the others were already preparing to unload.

It's worth it to see the islands but I think if I had the chance to do it again, I would've opted for the shorter boat trips. The only hitch is that, of course, the shorter trips did not include the stop at Boldt Castle.

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