Aug 9 and Aug 12 - St Lawrence to New Hampshire

Aug 9, St Lawrence River, Massena NY, Robert Moses St Park

Ever since we started along Lake Erie, all the way to here, we have seen signs telling us we were along the Seaway Trail, but it took weeks before we realized what a resource this is and all that can be seen.
Let me tell you - it would be a great bike trip (relatively speaking...being flat, scenic, fresh air from fresh water and with a prevailing West-to-East tailwind!) along the Seaway Trail. More info at:
http://www.seawaytrail.com/05_index.asp

This area got hot around the War of 1812 when the British Canadians and the new United States and the French got into border skirmishes along the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River and Lake Champlain, and there are signs along the way describing heroes and battles.

Here at Massena we have about run out of United States land along the St Lawrence River – just down the river it turns into Canada, and we don’t need to continue into . The river has turned more into St Lawrence Seaway, more narrow and with locks and dams and pooled up river…no longer “wild” vacationland-type paradise first impression. Back in the town of Waddington, about 20 miles upriver from where we are now, and just upriver from our last St Park, named Cole’s Creek St Park…back up in Waddington there was a sign reading “Carp Capital of the World”, which speaks volumes about the change in the character of the river from further upstream in the Thousand Islands, where such fish as Northern Pike, Tiger Muskellunge and Black Bass abound…where the water is flowing and there are many hiding places, to the Waddington area and below where it is more staid, controlled, allowing the ships to move into the Great Lakes. Jacques Cartier, back in the early 1500s made it as far upriver as Montreal before the rapids were too much to navigate…that’s all dammed and locked now…and carp abound in the controlled area.

So we don’t need to see much more and time won’t wait…we’re headed inland toward Lake Champlain.

Things changed when the St Lawrence Seaway was finished in the 1950’s, so we were told by people who witnessed the change. One man who lived near Ogdensburg was a little rueful, and another guy talked about the hundreds of farms that were bought-out, land claimed due to eminent domain by the government – the water level was going to rise, they were told…but it didn’t rise appreciably and they were left with a handful of money but no farm. A lady up by Massena who lived along the Grass River said that there were no Canada Geese or gulls along the river until the Seaway came to be, and everything changed for the people along the river.

Commercial traffic reached its peak in the 70s…and since then the ship tonnage has dropped to half what it was...the locks can’t accommodate today’s bigger ships, and North America doesn’t export like it used to. They say the Seaway has settled in a “nitch market” I paddled down the Seaway to Montreal in the 70s, and it was right busy, but these days we saw 1-3 ships/day, and I didn’t see any of the ore-carrying Lakers that I saw back in the 70s…the ships with the wheelhouse up on the bow. All the ships these days are ocean-going, with the bridge back aft.

Since the Seaway was opened there have been a number of “invasive species” like lamprey eels and zebra mussels that were introduced to the Great Lakes…nobody thought about ships from other waters emptying their bilges into the pristine fresh waters, releasing creatures from elsewhere that have feasted on the environment much like European diseases decimated the Native Americans.

For us, the main impact was seeing the powerboats and jet skis zinging around this paradise…a house on every island and clogging the coast, tour boats and people with fishing poles everywhere.

It’s funny how I delude myself with “discovering” new places, only to realize that the area is well-established and non-native people have been here hundreds of years, turning it into their own. Realtors have been busy around here for the last hundred years or so and prices are high, and NY taxes are exorbitant compared to the NC taxes we’re used to. And it’s funny how I think I have something new to say or think, when it has all been said and thought better thousands of times before…

We’ll move on…my driving is hyper-mile style, generally 40-55 mph, riding along the shoulder to let cars and trucks pass, nursing the rig along and avoiding as much jostling as possible…getting 26 mpg last tank – but there is a lot of jerking weight on the back bumper hitch, and there signs of stress showing up on the bumper and V is most concerned – we’ll have to pull into a welding shop and see about reinforcing it before it or she becomes unglued.

We left Wellesley Island last Friday Aug 1 and then parked our rig 10-15 miles downriver at Kring Point State Park, below Alexandria Bay for a couple of days. From there we kayaked back upriver around 5 miles to Hart Island, where some chump named Boldt (ran the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC) demolished a beautiful place and got halfway through building Boldt Castle, a big rock house that was supposed to be a testimony of love for his wife Louise, but then she up and died and he dropped the whole project in 1904. The place was essentially abandoned for the next 70 years until it got turned into a tourist trap, and now the town of Alexandria Bay has a whole industry of tour boats crawling all over the place. We paddled around the island but it was all too weird with tourism to stop and see. A good tailwind carried us home, and on the way we found a deserted island with just a couple of duck blinds to dream on.

Next day we pedaled to Alexandria Bay and saw all the tourist stuff from land…there were buses full of people from many nations, and V got a jade necklace that she vows she’ll wear forever.

You think of the Taj Mahal in India, where the guy built it for his wife AFTER she died – now that’s a testimony of love. That Boldt dude…he never should have left NYC. The place he ripped down was nice – we saw it in a big picture in a grocery store.

More about Boldt Castle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boldt_Castle

Further downriver is a real, once-working castle home on Singer Island, built by the guy who made Singer sewing machines, but we didn’t stop and tour that one either.

The swimming in the water around Kring Point Park was great, but it was crowded with trailers with strings of lights and diesel trucks, etc, and all the “camp” spots in the park had reservations the next day so we had to get out…on Sunday Aug 3 went another 20 miles to Jacques Cartier State Park for a couple of days…below Chippewa Bay, where the Thousand Islands area essentially ends and the river narrows and the current picks up, so strong around some islands that it takes some effort to paddle upriver through the standing waves. Looking down into the 20’ deep river is amazing for the clarity and power of the fluid passing under the kayak.

We paddled across to Brockville, Ontario Canada, a relic of the days before the Seaway – there was a railroad right to the water where coal was transported and then shipped downriver, but it wasn’t cost effective after the 50s, and the town dropped off to largely tourism and “The Best Fresh Water Scuba Diving in the World”. We wanted to wander in the stores, but it turned out it was a “Civil Holiday” with just about everything closed to give everybody a 3 day weekend to enjoy summer, which is so short. A nice enough place as far as buildings and stuff goes, but our impression of the locals wasn’t so favorable – many seemed pretty miserable and it lots were smoking these killer Canadian cigarettes – at least that was our impression as we walked around town, which was not crowded on that day off. Along the waterfront it was great, though – teenage kids were jumping off the wharf and flying down 6’ into the big, deep clear river – no lifeguards or any US precautions. We got a great loaf of bread and then some greasy fish and chips. There were a half dozen islands on the Canadian side of the river, designated Town Park Islands and Provincial Park Islands – people camp on them…we pushed upriver a while, swam some, and then paddled back to the US.

We stayed there another day and the swimming was great, but that Park was packed to the gills with big rigs – nothing against the families happily crowded together or anything…definitely experienced at this sort of vacation – some said they came there every year for the same week and ran into each other and watched the kids grow up, but everybody gets a campfire going with wood they buy nearby – it is illegal to bring your own wood because of invasive species like beetles…so in the evening the area gets pretty smoky…not exactly a rustic situation!.. so next day (Tue Aug 4) we moved 35 miles on to Coles Creek State Park, stayed there a couple of days camped in the woods near the broad St Lawrence and the Carp Capital, and moved Thursday to here, Messina, the end of the line, Robert Moses State Park, home of the Eisenhower Lock. A good size Canadian Tanker locked down the river toward Quebec, and we wandered around Messina and did some walking, but V is nursing a strained lower back – that’s the last time I ask her to help me move the trailer!

Tonight a couple of raccoons took it upon themselves to climb up the Aliner roof while we were inside…kind of amusing until we thought about all the rabies signs around. I drove them off pretty easily, so they weren’t delirious…just enjoying the smell of V’s cooking. We wandered along a nature trail yesterday and happened upon deer, flowers, woodpeckers, mushrooms, a small red squirrel. A couple of days ago I escorted a big snapping turtle off the highway with a broom stick, flipping it over as it fought back until I got it into water and it took off. Big fish, carp-like in size and shape but not as rough-scaled and without carp mouths. Pike disappearing among the weeds. No more ospreys, but hawks, maybe golden eagles, and turkeys.

August 12 – Gorham, New Hampshire

So since that last paragraph we drove to Burlington VT and spent a couple of nights there – what a great town on Lake Champlain! But the drive was right nice as well, taking the northern route through the countryside through little quiet towns with War of 1812 historical plaques, past a big wind-electricity farm and signs along the road promoting wind power, arriving in VT along US Highway 2 and driving on islands down the middle of Lake Champlain, getting to a Burlington town campground and setting up just before a gully-washing thunderstorm hit…good luck again! It rained again that night and again the next day, but we got in some swimming and walked into town along a great rails-to-trails bike/walking path along the lake – lots of Canadians, mainly French-speaking from Quebec with all kinds of bikes – built-for-two, built-for-three!...lots of recumbents, and the local population appeared similarly bent with bikes everywhere and everybody physically active, taking advantage of the short summer while the sun shines or the rain falls – they didn’t seem to mind. Lots of people on bikes! Never saw anything like it except in dreams – it looks like a great place to live…at least in summer. Last winter was the snowiest on record, and so far this has been a wet year…but nobody’s down about it.
There are a good number of sailboats, mainly from Canada, traveling on the lake.

Last night V and I met up with ol’ Wilmington pal Jes Neiles and her buddy Redd – we ate some sort of New England tasty pizza called flatbread and drank some local-brewed beer – they’re happier than clams in Burlington, and you can’t blame ‘em. Jessica has become a crack weather forecaster, and we heard her on the radio explain the situation to the world on NPR. Redd’s a happy chef, and they’re looking to buy a house and settle down. The world is turning well for them.

With V’s back gradually healing, the kayak has seen the world from atop the truck, but today she pronounced herself well enough for extended pedaling, so this morning we went about 10 miles N up the rail-to-trail path up the side of the lake, taking a narrow causeway about as wide as a train into the lake as far as where there had been a swing bridge…now removed…but the rip-rap rock used to build the causeway was actually marble!...big hunks of marble, and I recalled the White Rock Beverage company picture of the White Rock Girl on the rock, and I got V to climb on the rock as I could best recall.

We got back from the pedal and on the road at 2pm and drove E across Vermont…about 70 miles, I guess, through Montpelier and St Johnnsbury - great old architecture, across the Connecticut River and into New Hampshire along other rivers – a twisty US Highway 2 with only 2 lanes and us taking it easy and everybody else in a hurry, pulling over and trying to keep everything in one piece…so far so good…and a moose was grazing along a bend in the road – not much for wild critters otherwise, but some great old New England farms and barns well past their prime - until about 4 hours passed now, just N of Mount Washington for the night. I find out they don’t allow bicycles to climb the mountain – rats!, but the Appalachian Trail is right here so we’ll take a little stroll tomorrow, hopefully. Low temperature tonight’ll be 50, high tomorrow 70, and the rain looks like it won’t fall for the first time in a long time!

We need to slow down but we need to keep moving, we need to look and listen…we could stay in one place a couple of weeks, and we’ll do that at sis’ Betsy’s on the Maine coast after a few days. The top speed on a bicycle should be 12mph, and in a car it should be 45…but even that’s too fast.

The nearer the destination, the more you’re slip sliding away…