Many years ago I lived with a woman, to her eternal regret, who grew up in Alexandria Bay. I never got to visit the town with her, and in previous visits to New York State I have not managed to get there. I did finally, this week.
We rolled north through rain and thick green forests such that by the time we arrived on the edge of the St Lawrence River the little tourist town was soaking wet.
Labor Day actually means something around here, unlike the Keys where September is high season for hurricanes. Alexandria Bay is closed for the winter.
I exaggerate but not by much. I walked Rusty for an hour and passed quite a few eateries closed for the winter. The Thousand Islands region is a summer destination for Canadians on the north shore and Americans on this side.
Wellesley Island faces Alexandria Bay and the border is just north of that but I saw Canadian flagged ferries weaving through the rocks and islands. I imagine in summer this place must be hopping. There is an odd symmetry between these islands and the Keys. This place became well known when President Grant was running for re-election in 1872 was invited for a visit by his friend George Pullman who had a home here. President Truman did similar advertising for the Keys.
You may have heard of Thousand Island dressing. Like most popular stories this product comes with two creation myths. One, rather boring one is that a hotelier created it and the proof lies in the fact that they found an original recipe in the hotel safe in Clayton, New York and it is promoted by a local fishing guide.
However there is a much better story and it goes like this. George Boldt and his wife Louise, whom he adored, were cruising the St Lawrence in their steam yacht one fine day. Their chef Oscar Tschirky found he had no salad dressing onboard so he quickly shipped up ketchup, mayo, pickle juice and egg and called it good. We call it Thousand Island.
Aside from salad dressing Boldt is the big cheese in local history. He owned the Waldorf Astoria in New York City and he had money to burn. He discovered the area around 1893 and decided to build his wife a palace on a lump of rock. He bought the five acre Hart Island, as you do when you are that wealthy and hired 300 craftsmen to build a dream home to honor his wife.
She had the poor taste to die suddenly in 1904 before the mammoth task was completed and with a phone call the heart broken Boldt, who had renamed his fantasy Heart Island, called off the craftsmen who were plunged into unemployment just like that.
The place was left to rot for three quarters of a century until the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority decided to salvage the wreck and rebuild it. And the work continues.
You can imagine the genteel elegance of that era when working people worked and the Gatsbys idled as you walk around Alexandria Bay. Plus there was the smuggling… just like the Keys where alcohol was smuggled across the Straits of Florida during Prohibition, so they smuggled madly here from Canada just across the river.
One startling feature of the town is the supremely ugly hospital building on the hill. It’s a muddy brown block on top of the rise overlooking the river, prime real estate, and it is ugly!
It has the added benefit of cutting off downtown from any possibility of a river view. The St Lawrence is Alexandria Bay’s lifeline but you wouldn’t know it downtown. Weird.
But if you walk your dog,
You can find the river flowing past the town.
We retreated to a nearby rest area for the night just off I-81which was surprisingly quiet at night. By day it’s packed with truck traffic to and from Canada over the Thousand Islands Bridge.
We’ve driven Canada Highway 401 along the St Lawrence River previously so we feel no pressing need to cross into Canada this trip. Our plan is to drive east to Lake Champlain and take the ferry to Burlington. Six miles is as close as we need to be to this border because now at last I’ve seen the fabled Alexandria Bay.
