1,000 seems alot right? It is actually a group of 1,864 Islands in the St Lawrence River that flows out of Lake Ontario. The are split between being owned by USA and Canada. They agreed to split evenly by area, Canada has more and USA has the biggest (of course 🙄). We booked our accommodation at Gananoque (pronounced Gananock) in a 126 year old Inn. We arrived late, of course, but the sun was still up enough for us to take in the river views.
Our accommodation was beautiful, had a restaurant right under but we decided to go across the road to a place advertising live music. Music was good, but the space was small so rather loud to sit and have a meal. Back to the Inn for tea. Good food, great view but the mosquitos on the deck were carrying us away. We finished inside which was nice, had a few more beers and went for a twilight walk down to the dock.
In the morning we had an early (by locals measure) 10.30am tour of the islands booked. A lot of our accommodation has included breakfast and this one was probably the best. Full tummies, we headed off to explore the dock in the daylight and checked out the museum. It was a floating museum and the entry was by donation. Again, this was Wayne’s happy place learning interesting facts about things like here he found a front mounted speed boat that had the engine in front to allow more room for passengers.
On board our tour we cruised around the islands in the river. Some had houses built that took up the entire space of the island and others were a little more private with a dock the only evidence that people played here. These were family summer homes, the places they would come when the ice melted to play in the sun and hang out for the season. In winter, the river froze from one side to the other and though they have had people try to live here year round, most gave up.
While we were on tour, there was another activity happening – a poker run. At home it is usually a motor bike or car thing. Here it was a speed boats. Did Wayne’s face light up, you bet!
The islands were beautiful, the bird life a plenty and it made you wish this was your summer home! According to our guide, this is a environment in recovery and they have worked hard to restore the water ways from pollution and the wildlife is coming back. Glad we got to see this way.
From here we headed to Kingston for lunch and wondered around the historical town. We asked a local where we should eat and ended up in a brewery, haha. The place was busy and plenty of people around enjoying the post winter blues and new found freedoms in the post covid times. Neat little town to explore but next it was time to find accommodation for the night.
Flights to Calgary in the morning and we wanted to edge a little closer to shorten the drive. Nothing much to say about our highway accommodation, Calgary and family awaits. Leaving Onatario happy 😊
My Happy Travels 