8/31/17
Departing Maine – we took a pretty leisurely pace getting packed up and heading out in the morning. Stopped at the visitor center and a few other places along the way as we headed back toward the Thousand Islands area of Canada.
We had chance, though getting close enough (there was much uncertainty about how far the road was passable) and possible rain were concerns, to hike the second highest peak in Maine – Sugarloaf Mountain, but we bypassed that on our way out of the state.
09/01/17
We had paddled the US side of the Thousand Islands area on the way out to Maine, so on the return we chose to stay on the Canadian side. We stayed outside the little town of Gananoque and drove into town in the morning. We stopped at the visitor center and at a nice little coffee shop (The Socialist Pig) prior to heading down to the harbor for some paddling. Finding a launch site and parking was a little bit annoying due to some construction and one way roads (I think we drove around the block three times), but we got on the water a bit before noon.
We started paddling West out of the harbor. There were even more small islands in this area than there were in the Wellesley area. We started heading along the Southern shore, but once we reached the “end,” we crossed to the other side of the channel and started weaving more in an out of the islands. I thought I had run the GPS, but apparently not, so the exact route is something of a guess at this point, but I think we covered just under 9 miles including a little jaunt up the river into Gananoque at the end.
After the paddling, we wandered the lakefront a little bit and stopped at a few souvenir shops then headed back to downtown Gananoque to get some food before heading out to our next destination.
The Socialist Pig and some nice pre-kayaking coffee
Water Lilly
Kayaking
Gananoque Marina
Gananoque Marina
The rotating bridge at the mouth of the river up into Gananoque
After paddling local beers from Perth Brewery
There's this thing on the St. Lawrence river where you have a boat house until you don't have a boat house any more because you let it degrade into nothing but a pile of scrap.
The picnic area on the westernmost island we visited. There was a dock for power boats and, I believe, campsites on the island that could be reserved.
Gananoque Marina
To the right is the final point of mainland that we passed. The land in the distance to the left is the last island that we came to (where the picnic site was).
