Cape Vincent, NY – Keewaydin State Park, NY - July 2, 2008

There is a small museum here that is fascinating. The Cape Vincent Historical Museum is located right next to the Visitors Center and has a lot of information and displays. It was very interesting place. One of the items was a Friendship Quilt that was made as a fundraiser for St. Johns Episcopal Church. The fundraiser was from 1925-28. For 10 cents anyone could have his signature embroidered on the quilt, or embroider it themselves. There are 749 names, so it raised $74.90, which was a substantial sum in those days.

Cape Vincent also lays claim to a movie actress. There is a black beaded dress that Eleanor Bennett McVean wore when she appeared in the silent movies under the name of Eleanor LaMore.

We walked through the aquarium at the Cape Vincent Research Station. The Research Station monitors the health of the fishery of Lake Ontario. Using their trawler, they use nets to collect samples to determine population and health of various species. It was interesting to find out that you can tell the age of a fish by looking at one of its scales. The distance between the rings on the scales indicates fast or slow growth period as well as when it spawns.

One of the displays featured Lake Sturgeon, much smaller than its ancestors. In the western United States during the 1700’s sturgeon as large as 1500 pounds and over 100 years old were common. There are still Atlantic Sturgeon in the Hudson River that occasionally reach 200 pounds and are 6-8 feet long. The population decreased dramatically when they were harvested for their meat and eggs (caviar). Sturgeon are a prehistoric fish and remain basically the same as they were 65 million years ago. Most sturgeon populations are protected and regulated to help maintain or increase their numbers. We took a picture of the sturgeon, but it was through glass and is slightly blurry.

We picked up some food at the grocery store and left Cape Vincent at 10:45 this morning. Bob and Margaret were going to get a later start. It was slightly cool again today and it was beautiful. The channel narrowed for awhile as we got further into the St. Lawrence River and, at one point, there couldn’t have been more than 1 mile between the United States and Wolfe Island, Canada.

We arrived in the Keewaydin State Park Marina at 1:45. We plan to stay here 2 days. Bob and Margaret arrived at 2:30.