Another milestone – we’ve been on the road for fifty days AND we’re still having a great time!
In the morning I took the dogs on a short hike to a small lake near our campsite. Once I was about 100 feet away from the campground I let the dogs loose and they had a ball running at full blast up and down the trail, after each other and past each other, and also exploring. I love them running free as much as they love being free.
A bit later all of us (dogs included) headed down to Lake George, nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes. In 1791, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to his daughter, "Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony."
At one time, Lake George was one of the nation's first elite tourist destinations. Conveniently situated on the rail line halfway between New York City and Montreal, the lake became a magnet for the era's rich and famous by the late 19th and early 20th century. Tourists from all over North America and Europe flocked to Lake George and the surrounding majestic Adirondack Mountains. By the turn of the 19th century, Lake George was equaled only by Newport, Bar Harbor, Maine, Saratoga and the Hamptons as a summer enclave for America's aristocracy. Members of the Roosevelt, van Rensselaer, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Whitney families visited its shores.
Now, after 52 years, I was here again.
The town has become more of tourist trap than I remember it. This transition from enclave of the exclusive to schlock shops started about the time I was here last. In my opinion the transformation is now complete.
On a park in the middle of town was a craft fair. These are magnets for Marianne, and it is my duty to stop and stand by while she shops. And I did, but this time with the dogs along.
Molly walks on the leash like a dream, but isn’t the friendliest dog in the world, so she’ll bark when she’s approached by kids, but this time she did pretty well. Coco, on the other hand, is the total opposite; she tugs on her leash until she sounds like she’s choking. She also thinks that everybody is her friend, gladly stopping and jumping up on anyone who shows her any attention. It’s a funny scene, Coco licking the faces of kneeling strangers while Molly hides behind my legs. Molly really wants attention, too, especially if Coco is getting some, so she’ll come out of her shell, but she’ll bark if anyone moves too fast near her, startling everyone around her except Coco, who just keeps licking.
Driving further north I tried to find the place on the Lake where we stayed, but I didn’t remember where it was and as all other places I lived in over fifty years ago, the trees have altered the landscape, but I do think I saw a couple of likely candidates along on our drive.
We were headed to Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain about 32 miles north of Lake George city. My family also visited this site half a century ago.
Just south of the fort is the charming little town of Ticonderoga where we stopped downtown to have lunch at the old-fashioned Burleigh House.
We continued past the fort entrance about a mile to where a little ferry crosses Lake Champlain to take travelers to Vermont. We had considered taking this route at one point.
We turned around and entered the fort grounds and all of a sudden came upon at least 100 tents surrounded by people dressed what appeared to be the period of the mid 18th century. We had fallen through a time warp and ended up in the middle of the French and Indian War.
This sort of thing happened to Marianne and I once before in our lives. In 1969 as we were driving in my Camaro from Yellowstone National Park, where we both worked and met, to meet my parents in South Dakota, I had the site of Custer’s Last Stand on my bucket list as an 18 year old.
Entering the national park, we saw about 50 cavalry troopers on horseback heading down a hill about ½ mile off of the road. At first we thought it was a mirage, and decided we wouldn’t tell anyone what we saw, believing folks would think us crazy.
We drove on, but about two minutes later we saw scores of Indians on horseback charging down another hill behind the troopers. We stopped the car again, and shot some pictures to prove we weren’t really crazy. Marianne suggested that this might be a reenactment, but I thought that this would be sacrilegious, having a massacre every two hours for the benefit of tourists, especially on hallowed ground in a national park.
We kept driving, and minutes later found ourselves on the movie set of “Little Big Man” the 1969 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. Although we didn’t see the stars, it was great coming upon the set late in afternoon as filming was wrapping up, and the troopers and Indians in their period outfits were getting on buses to return to their hotels.
But today we weren’t on any movie set; instead this was a group of people from throughout New England and Canada who came here for the weekend to participate in the reenactment of the French and Indian War for three days, in what was in those days called Fort Carillon, existing just as the people of this era did, living in tents, eating food cooked on fires, and of course wearing period clothing. It was totally absorbing!
The name of the war refers to the two main enemies of the British: the royal French forces and the various Native American forces allied with them. The war was fought primarily along the frontiers between the British colonies from Virginia to Nova Scotia.
The war in North America officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, and war in the European theatre of the Seven Years' War was settled by the Treaty of Hubertusburg on February 15, 1763. The British offered France a choice of either its North American possessions east of the Mississippi or the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which had been occupied by the British. France chose to cede Canada, and was able to negotiate the retention of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and fishing rights in the area. The economic value of the Caribbean islands to France was greater than that of Canada because of their rich sugar crops, and they were easier to defend. The British, however, were happy to take New France, as defense was not an issue, and they already had many sources of sugar. Spain, which traded Florida to Britain to regain Cuba, also gained Louisiana, including New Orleans, from France in compensation for its losses.We were only two tourists of what may have been a maximum of 100 tourists among at least 1000 re-enactors. While we were there, they were getting ready for their big battle scene, so folks were scurrying about get ready and into formations with their groups. Many of them were from the French speaking part of Canada, which was adorable when kids came up to the dogs to pet them, and were asking us stuff we just couldn’t understand. But I’d point to one and say Molly, point to the other and say Coco, and the kids understood. I think our dogs were the only “tourist” dogs on the site.
We didn’t purchase tickets to watch the big battle, but we caught glimpses of it from right next to the actual fort. We did, however, get to hear the constant firing of explosions from cannons and muskets, and smoke was rising in the air. What a treat!
On the way back to our campsite we decided to take the route that more or less was on the eastern shore of Lake George, when we came upon another charming town, Whitehall, located five miles west of the Vermont border at the south end of Lake Champlain and lying between Champlain and Lake George. The New York canal system ran through here, which made this an important town 200 years ago. During the Revolutionary War, General Philip Schuyler built a small fleet of ships here; they were used by Benedict Arnold in the Battle of Valcour Island, an event which led to Whitehall's modern-day claim to be the birthplace of the United States Navy. As a Navy veteran I didn’t even know this (imagine that!).
Whitehall is also home to Skene Manor, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Judge Joseph Potter House, a handsome Victorian style mansion built of grey sandstone in 1874, sitting on a hillside overlooking the town.
Back at our campsite we caught up on our daily Internet chores, watched a little TV, before calling it a night.
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