Who knew we could drive 45 minutes north and reach Europe! Our three-hour cruise (yes, the Gilligan song came to mind!) on Lake George was lovely…clear water surrounded by beautiful mountains, and waterfront resorts fit for a king. We were onboard a 103-year-old vessel, the Mohican, that’s seen many overhauls since her days as a supply boat for the hotels and mansions surrounding the lake. Lake George is 32 miles long, with islands dotting its length. Most of the 200 islands are owned by New York state and operated as campgrounds. Too bad Teensie can’t fit on the Mohican…we’d be back at the nearest island in a heartbeat!
The captain took us into Paradise Bay, which really doesn’t resemble a bay at all; it’s more like a postage-stamp opening in the water between a group of islands along the lake’s eastern edge. He’s obviously done the trick many times, but it was still quite exciting for us and all the other passengers…we seemed only inches away from the rocky shores. Stan said it reminded him of the secluded coves his grandpa’s skipper, Bob, piloted into on the family’s boat adventures in Alaska.
Once on land, we skirted the eastern edge of Lake George on our way up to Fort Ticonderoga, a place of tremendous history, considered the key to the continent by various armies over the centuries. It sits on a point between Lake George and Lake Champlain, with incredible views in every direction. A French trading post, built on the site in 1667, was replaced by a fort in 1755 to ensure France’s control of the important passage. In 1758, a British force of 17,000 troops attempted to gain the fort but was utterly defeated by 3,700 French and Canadians. The Brits returned the next year, and the outcome was reversed, though this time without bloodshed: the French were terribly unprepared and abandoned the fort. The British held it for 16 years, usually with a small garrison, and let it fall into disrepair.
In 1775, colonial forces under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga in what became the first victory of the Revolution. The following year, Henry Knox and a small band of militia transported much of its remaining artillery and ammunition (42 sleds carrying 59 cannon--60 tons!), in the dead of winter, over land and water, to Boston to break the stalemate with the holed-up British and give life to the war and the dejected American forces. It’s an incredible story, and there are many artistic renderings of it in the fort, as well as examples of the guns and other artillery.
Sorry for the “lecture”…but Ticonderoga’s history is so colorful and deserves much more than what we can recount here. This blog is our record of what we’ve seen, and we’ll need these notes to remember the details when they’ve become buried among so many other facts along our way.
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| Islands in the "Narrows" of Lake George |
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| Paradise Bay |
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| "Cottage" belonging to the owner of the Boston Red Sox |
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| Mohican's dock (with paddle-wheeler Minne-ha-ha) in front of historic Fort William Henry, inspiration for James Fennimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" |
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| Fort Ticonderoga looking over Lake Champlain |
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| Kelsey could barely lift this 1770s-replica musket |
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| Kendall is da bomb! |
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