Category Archives: hudson valley

Wednesday 2nd October 2013 – I WAS ON THE ROAD EARLY THIS MORNING

So much so that if it wouldn’t have given me a guilty conscience I would have avoided paying the camp site fees. There was no-one around when i arrived, and no-one around when I was about to leave either. However, earlier in the morning, the patrolling ranger hand come by to chat to me because I wasn’t on his list, and he reminded me to pay at the gate “but you look like the honest sort anyway” – which just goes to show that they don’t know me very well around here.

fish road rainbow bay lake george new york usaI’ve been following Lake George northwards towards the head of the lake. Lake George is a cleft in the earth between two rather large solid lumps of limestone and this is another one of those places that quailfies for the Most Beautiful Places on Earth and as you can see.

Some of the views are stunning, specially when you consider that we are now in autumn and the leaves are turning. It’s definitely the best time to be here

boltons landing lake george new york usaI wouldn’t be here in the high summer though. It’s terribly trendy and frightfully twee, with the worst kind of boutiques all over the place, including the “Indian tepee” where you can buy genuine First-Nation artefacts, all dutifully stamped ‘made in China”.

That of course does remind me of the Indian who won first prize at the Boston Tea Party all those years ago. He was found next morning drowned in his tepee.

I did however meet a guy who, like me, lives with nothing but his solar panels and wind turbines, and runs his truck (an ancient Ford F250) on biodiesel. We had an extremely lengthy chat about all kinds of things, but going back to this summer thing, he was telling me that in the summer the population here is over 30,000 – but in winter they struggle to make 2,000.

silver bay YMCA camp lake george new york usaFurther along the Lake is a place called Silver Bay, and my first opinion was that it was one of those places that had “Strength Through Joy” that you found in Germany in the 1930s, churning out little Master Race clones, written all over it.

It turns out that I wasn’t all that far out either because further enquiry revealed that it is in fact a YMCA summer camp. Although I could do with getting myself clean and having a good meal, I didn’t want to hang out with all the boys and so I resolved to no hang around too long. But they get their money’s worth from a place like this.

As an aside, I should mention of course that out of season when there are no paying customers, the YMCA, so I was told, does open its doors to deprived children from the inner cities to give them a break, give them an experience of the countryside, and teach them leadership skills.

waterfront lot for sale lake george new york usaI made a few stops off along the route, for a variety of reasons, one of which was to look at this. It’s a tiny little waterfront lot with enough room to just about park a car and trailer, a storage shed, a boat ramp and a small dock.

The view from here is totally stunning as you can see, and furthermore, it’s for sale. I’ve determined to find out the price of the lot and if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because I’ll be lying down in a darkened room recovering.

fort ticonderoga lake champlain new york usaBut really why I’m here of course is to visit Fort Ticonderoga, or Fort Carillon as it was known when it was in French hands (even though in “The Last of the Mohicans” they insisted on calling it Fort Ticonderoga throughout). It’s the scene of several abject British military disasters and when you read this litany of errors it really does make you wonder how come the British managed to rule a quarter of the globe.

Failing to sweep away a defensive line from behind an earthen bank when you have a numerical superiority of over 4 to 1 and so abandoning a battle, even though your casualties are no more excessive than the defenders’. Or else a sentry fleeing from a charge of half a dozen enemy scouts, dashing into the fort to seek safety, and forgetting to close the gate behind him. I can go on and on … "not with a bayonet through your neck you can’t" – ed .

lake champlain lake george fort ticonderoga new york vermont usaThe purpose of Fort Ticonderoga was to control the entry from Montreal down into the Hudson Valley to New York (or, more precisely, the reverse of that route). That’s Lake Champlain right there ahead of us in this photo taken with the sun streaming into the lens of the camera (sorry about that), and that on the right is the river that goes into the interior where there are several portages and then you reach Lake George. All the river traffic that travelled between New York and Montreal – freight as well as British soldiers on the way to attack Montreal – had to come out of that little bay on the right.

Of course, when Fort Ticonderoga was finally captured by British (it wasn’t, by the way, despite what British history books might say – the French abandoned it round about the time that Québec fell to the British under General Wolfe) it served no useful purpose and so a further fort – Crown Point – was commenced a few miles further north and this time, facing northwards to watch out for the French advancing from the North to try to retake their possessions around here.

However, the rather dramatic collapse of the French in Upper Canada in 1759-60 rendered that fort unnecessary so some rather half-built ruins are all that remain. They are said to be in a spectacular setting and so that’s where I’m off to tomorrow.

But tomorrow morning I’ll show you all a photo of the view from my “bedroom” window here at Ticonderoga.

Tuesday 1st October 2013 – I’VE BEEN TRAVELLING BACKWARDS TODAY

And that might explain this awfully stiff neck that I have – unless I didn’t swallow the Viagra quickly enough last night.

18th cntury cannon firing real round fort william henry new yorkFirst stop was back to Fort William Henry to watch an artillery demonstration – a real period cannon firing a real cannon ball. Certainly impressive, definitely noisy, and quite successful. Much more successful than Colonel Munro’s artillery that were badly constructed and kep blowing up – there’s a lovely piece of a 32-pound cannon, that they found well-embedded in the soil, on display here at the fort.

And I learnt something new today too, and that was why no cannon was ever raised more than 5° from the horizontal even though that meant a huge loss of range. The answer was that in general it meant very little in loss of range but much more accuracy, which is a strange thing to say. With a high elevation, you need pinpoint accuracy because when the ball lands, it buries itself in the soil. With a low elevation, it skimmed across the surface like a flat stone across the lake, and this could increase the range and also increase the likelihood of hitting something.

From here I went off to look for Fort Edward, the fort that controlled the frontier around here and to which the survivors of Fort William Henry were fleeing when they were butchered by the Iroquois. I drove past it yesterday, simply for the reason that it isn’t signposted at all from the main road, being on private land. The guy here at Fort William Henry gave me a few pointers and off I went.

fort edward new york usa
And here is the site, in someone’s back garden, although the fort was very much bigger than this of course. It was totally destroyed by the Americans during the Revolutionary War to stop the British from fortifying it, and yet when some of these house-owners were digging down underneath their houses to make cellars, they were churning out all kinds of artefacts, many of which are in a little museum in the town (although, of course, many were simply sold on eBay).

There have been a few archaeological digs and searches on a few of the properties and all kinds of things have been unearthed, all of which is quite exciting. Not as exciting as what was to happen next, though, for we are about to have another Red Bay or Albion experience.

timbers recovered from river hudson fort edward new york
Expressing quite an interest in this kind of thing and, I suppose, being quite knowledgeable, I was engaged in quite a chat with the local museum curator, and after a while he beckoned me into the back room. “Good job I’m wearing my chastity belt” I mused.

However, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I’ve been encountering a lot of dredging along the Hudson just now, and the dredgers were here a short while ago and they encountered something solid just off the banks of the river where the fort was. It turned out that they had hooked a couple of squared-off timbers that have in all probability been part of the fort and were thrown into the river by the retreating Americans. The dark peaty silt on the bottom of the river has preserved them.

Anyway, I’m apparently the first layman to lay my hands upon them, which is something of an honour, I suppose.

thrilling incident of Jane McCrea Fort Edward New York
One of the things that we discuss every now and again is the dramatic change in language over a period of time, and here’s a classic example of this. This describes “one of the most thrilling events in the annals of the American Revolution”, and so today you would be gripping the edges of your seats in eager anticipation.

But back using the contemporary language of the end of the 18th Century your heart would be fluttering as you read the tragic story of young Jane McCrea. She was 17 (according to one account, and as old as 24 in another, and varying ages in between according to more accounts) and she was travelling in the country to visit her fiancé (and so 17 would be a good bet if you ask me) when she was seized by two native Americans working as scouts for the British soldiers.

These Native Americans couldn’t decide amongst themselves which one had captured her first and so was entitled to … errr … do the honours, you might say, and so in an age-old tribal custon, they decided to cut her in two so that each one could have a half.

I can imagine that if such an event were to happen today, poor Jane McCrea would be less than thrilled by the outcome of events.

Fort Ann was the last place to visit today. Known as Fort Schuyler when it was a Dutch possession, there have been 5 forts here at Fort Ann although today not a single vestige remains of any of them.
combined lock 16 17 Champlain Canal Fort Ann New YorkIt is however a strategic place on the route of the Champlain Canal, because, rarely, all three routes of the canal pass within 100 yards of each other here. The first route, known in the vernacular as “Clinton’s Ditch” … "Ditch with a “D” – we aren’t talking about Monica Lewinski" – ed … was modernised and rerouted in the 1850s when new technology permitted wider boats and deeper locks, and the old canal at Fort Ann, just to the right of these locks, was converted into a dry dock for repairs.

On the 1850s canal, new technology meant that they could experiment with “combined locks”, where two locks were immediately adjacent to each other and shared a common central gate. This is combined lock 16 and 17 and the central gate is just behind where the staircase is, the recess for the first gate being seen in the immediate foreground.

From here I stopped at Walmart to do a final food shop for my journey. There I encountered a woman with a face like a wet weekend in Weymouth. “Do you know”, I said, “you look exactly how I feel”.
She burst into laughter, said “well, at least that comment made me smile” and shuffled off down another aisle. Ahh well.

Monday 30th September 2013 – THE FRENCH ARE COMING! THE FRENCH ARE COMING!

strawberry moose fort william henry lake george new yorkAnd even if it is General Montcalm and his Abenakis allies about to wreak havoc on the British soldiers and massacre their prisoners on the plain in front of the fort, there’s no need to worry because as well as Hawkeye and Chingachcook, Strawberry Moose is there ready to repel all boarders – and a few … "you said that yesterday" – ed .

Where I am is at the infamous Fort William Henry, another one of those humiliating episodes in British Military History in North America where, due to an insufficient lookout and picket, Lt-Col Munro allowed the fort to be enircled by Montcalm’s French troops and Iroquois allies and whose superior artillery (which should never have been allowed to land if the look-out had been up to much) battered the fort into submission.

Although the story of the subsequent massacre of the captive women and children was grossly exaggerated by Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans, there was certainly a considerable slaughter here outside the fort as the Iroquois, drunk on the rum looted from the fort and having been denied any say in the peace process thus feeling cheated of their right to obtain scalps and other booty from the occupants of the fort, were determined to seek redress.

So this morning after my relaxing stay at the camp site at Schaghticoke last night, I hit the road.

soil polluted by PCBs schuylerville new yorkFirst stop was at Schuylerville, the old “Saratoga” and a pretty place it is too. But this sign isn’t so pretty. The ground is so polluted by PCBs that it’s against the law to dig in the soil – no use trying to grow potatoes and the like here, even if not a couple of hundred yards from where I’m standing there are corn fields and all kinds of things.

But tha corn is not of course intended for human consumption – it’s for animal feed (and humans will then eat the animals)and so that’s ok. But it’s frightening all the same, what’s happening to the world’s food supplies.

lock 12 old champlain canal hudson valley new yorkYesterday I showed you a photo of a lock on the Champlain Canal. Before the modernisation of the Hudson navigation, there was an “Old Champlain Canal” that was on a much smaller scale. I’ve been following that today too, and I reckoned that I would show you a photo of a lock on here. This is in fact Lock 12 and it’s a little different, isn’t it?

Still, for a canal that was built in 1832 the masonry is in surprisingly good condition although the amount of neglect of the canal and the amount of route that has been lost means that it will never be opened again, which is a shame.

A little further up the road is a town called Glen Falls and while there is nothing to see here (the falls have, like many on the Hudson, been oveebuilt with barrages for hydro-electric power) it has its own excitement. On Lap Three of the circuit of trying to find my way out of the town , I noticed a place called “Mailing Made Easy” – a kind-of boutique which guarantees to find the cheapest method of mailing parcels. Too good an opportunity to miss and so I took the Roland amp that I had bought. They told me the price and, picking myself up off the floor, I packed it because $35:02 was too good a price to miss out on.

And it’s not going on a snail’s back either – delivery 2/3 weeks they say, which may well be before I get home and certainly before I get back from my next stint in Brussels. And so, Liz and Terry, if you read this before I get in touch with you, I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you if you will take in a parcel for me, but I had to make an on-the-spot executive decision, and with it being an executive decision, if it is the wrong decision, then you can execute me when I return home.

Sunday 29th September 2013 – THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!

strawberry Moose Roy the Ranger neilson's farm saratoga battlefield new york USANo reason to be alarmed, though. Strawberry Moose and his faithfful artillery crew, namely Roy the Ranger, have manned … "personned" – ed … the guns and are ready to repel all boarders – and a few day pupils too by the sound of things.

I’m deep in the Hudson Valley near a town called Schuylerville and while that name might mean nothing to most people, it used to be called Saratoga and that might mean a whole lot more because the battle here, in October 1777, put the writing on the wall for the British occupation of what is now the United States of America.

artillery hudson river saratoga battlefield new york USAFor four months of the year the St Lawrence is frozen over and the only way to send supplies to Montreal and Lower Canada is up the Hudson Valley, over the portages around the various lakes and then down the River Richelieu to Montreal.

At Saratoga there’s a bluff overlooking the Hudson River and whoever controls this bluff controls all of the upper Hudson Valley – a fact perfectly well realised by the rebels, and only belatedly by the Imperial power who had failed to stock up with supplies. The rebels made it here first and as winter started to draw on, the Imperial forces realised that they needed to move them off the bluff in order to restock themselves for the winter.

So on October 7th, 1777, the Imperial forces attacked and after a fierce fight, were pushed backwards off the bluff and right into the arms of rebel reinforcements, and that was that. This was the first nail in the coffin of Imerial domination of the 13 colonies.

So that was how I spent my afternoon, and a beautiful afternoon it was too and no mistake. So much so that I ran completely out of time. luckily though, although the visit cost me all of $5:00, the Tourist Information service gave me a campsite list and so I was able to find the campsite that I missed in the dark last night – must remember to finish earlier in the daytime.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my preoccupation with roundabouts in North America. When I fist started travelling here, finding a roundabout was a major achievement. Nowadays, though, it’s the “in thing” for towns to have roundabouts, almost a status symbol, for here at Malta on Highway 9, they have two in quick succession.

road accident malta highway 9 roundabout truck overturnHowever, it’s all very well having roundabouts here, but it’s another thing completely about drivers knowing how to use them, as this truck driver has discovered, and he has come to a sticky end as he tries to turn off Highway 9 to go up to Interstate 89 and Montreal.

On a neagtive camber like this with a high centre of gravity like that, a dead stop at the “Give Way” sign and a slow and careful drive around would have been much more appropriate than showing off the handling capabilities of his rig. At least the cab hasn’t gone over, so he’s not hurt, except in the pride department, and also in the wallet I bet, because there were several of New York’s finest in attendance.

Why I was down here was for the huge Home Depot that I encountered last night. There was a sale on and so I stocked up with cheap tools – not rubbish but heavily-discounted stuff including a Ryobi all-in bit collection, the type that sells for about €35 in Brico Depot but here reduced to just $6:00. I can do all sorts of things with that.

lock 4 champlain canal new york usaMy route is going to take me along the side of the Champlain Canal – the 19th Century water route between the Hudson and the St Lawrence. While much of it has been abandoned to due navigational improvements on the Hudson, there are still several locks along the route that are used.

This is lock 4 and I watched it being used by a pleasure boat, sadly the only type of traffic along here these days with commerical freight long-gone.

Ironically though, I’ve had lengthy (and I do mean lengthy) chats with 3 people today and they have all featured one thing in common – the scepticism of their Government’s foreign and militarist policies. All three of them have been as cynical as I am about all of this.

There’s an undercurrent of dissent running through the USA and people seem to be only able to express their discontent to foreigners. It really is just like the Soviet Union in the 1970s here, only that the authorities use ridicule and ostracism as a punishment instead of imprisonment. And believe me, ridicule and ostracism are far more devastating a punishment.

But yes, 50 years of fighting Communism, and now they have installed the worst aspects of it here in their own country? There’s something fishy here, and I’m not talking about the contents of Baldrick’s apple crumble.