Introduction

 

June 8, 2021

Algal blooms…storm water runoff…septic system management…invasive species prevention…effective cooperation between state and municipal governments and agencies…individual rights and responsibilities intersecting with the common good….

I get the feeling that Lake George is going to get a real workout this summer, possibly more than she’s ever seen. There’s a lot of pent-up energy out there, and the Lake will feel it all.  Her extraordinary beauty and her peril are very much on my mind as I anticipate another rowing expedition this summer, a route that will take me out of the Lake George basin through waters very different from our beloved Lake but, at the end, that will finish on waters very similar to our own.

Fifteen years ago I discovered the joy of rowing trips like these. My mom gave me a guide boat for my 55^th birthday and at the end of the summer I rowed it from Troy to Baltimore, raised $15,000 for the school there that employed me as an English teacher, and wrote The Big Row, a “book” (some call it a coaster) about it all . Like the fabled dancing dog (“The miracle was not that he danced so well, but that he danced at all…”), the bet was as much about whether a post-middle-age duffer like me could do such a thing as anything else. I think half of my students raised money as an anticipated memorial, the other half actually thought I would make it.

But as I’ve gotten older, my preparations for these rowing expeditions have shifted from the physical to the cerebral, from lifting weights to turning pages and tapping keys. In the run-up to a row I’m now spending far more time at a desk and in a chair than on an elliptical…but that’s another story. That’s another book.

As concerns and restrictions around Covid diminish this spring, anyone with eyes and ears can see the resurgence of human activity on the lake. It’s wonderful that people are out and about, clearing their heads and regenerating their hearts on the water and around the shores of our most beautiful lake.

But I worry, too.

My rowing journey last summer, One Lap Around, took place under the overhang of Covid restrictions. The Canadian side of Lake Huron, which had been my planned destination, had been closed to US visitors and even now, Covid concerns complicate international travel, even by rowboat in Canada.  So last year I simply rowed “one lap around” Lake George and Lake Champlain, wrote a book about it (Row West, Old Man), and raised some funds for the LGA by spending two weeks on the water. The seemingly constant headwinds I faced proved to be an apt- if overworked- metaphor for the country.

Now, Covid is in retreat, at least in the US, but Lake Huron will have to wait one more year. The virus is still an issue on the north shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan and since my rowing routine compels me to count on the kindness of strangers for camping, I’ll not want to put would-be hosts on the spot. Instead, I’ll keep this year’s trip close to home once again and hopefully – with your help- do some good for Lake George along the way.   

I’ve recently retired from teaching in Baltimore as has Allan, a former colleague who lives in Hammondsport on Keuka Lake, one of the eleven Finger Lakes. Allan is as much of a kid at heart as I am, and on the phone a while ago we realized that other than a two mile portage through Ticonderoga to Champlain (226 feet lower) and, later on, an eight mile portage between Seneca and Keuka Lakes (270 feet higher), I can nudge the bow of my Adirondack Guideboat into the grass of his front yard, roughly 400 miles away - including the two trudges and maybe some detours - if I just keep at it.

The “just keep at it” thing is important, at least for me. I’ll be 70 in August. As my sister tells me about our shared advancing years, “It’s pretty simple, Al. Just keep moving.”

Besides, since Stewart’s Shops territory overlays much of my route, a Stewart’s Egg Salad Sandwich washed down by a couple of bottles of their killer Vanilla Shake concoction (don’t read the label….just shake it and guzzle), my favorite provisions while underway, will be available through much of my journey.

In Canada it might have been…..Horton’s?

Here’s the plan, in a nutshell, and here’s what’s on my mind about our Lake.

 

The Route to Hammondsport

I’ll row north from Cleverdale to Ticonderoga, put the guide boat on a set of clunky wheels that I’ll carry for that purpose, and push the boat and my gear through Ticonderoga to the lovely Park and falls at the headwaters of LaChute, the waterway that delivers our precious Lake George water to Lake Champlain on its way to the Richelieu River, the St. Lawrence, and ultimately, the Atlantic.

But at the end of LaChute I’ll be heading south, not north, onto southern Champlain, then on to the Champlain Canal and the Hudson to Waterford, then west on the Erie Canal to the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, then the south and west again to Dresden, NY on the west shore of Seneca Lake where I’ll portage yet again to Keuka Lake and, 22 miles later, to Hammonsdport and Alan’s front yard. Badda bing, badda boom. Whew.

The Connection: Stewardship of the environment

Keuka Lake has a lot in common with Lake George. Sure, it’s a bit smaller, (22 miles long vs our 32), but its water is also of wonderful quality even as it, too, faces the challenges of use and development. The Keuka Lake Association, like our own Lake George Association, works hard across municipalities and special interests to preserve and protect this fragile environment, and the similarities of concerns are striking. So I’ll be rowing from one pristine body of water to another, and along the way I’ll be learning what kinds of leadership, stewardship, and best practices will enable future generations to enjoy what we have been given.

After all, facing backwards in a rowboat and moving at 4 miles per hour, you have time to think….and there sure is a lot to think about.

I hope you’ll join me in the boat as this thing unfolds. I have some Covid pounds to shed and a lot to learn, and I could use the company. And our LGA, newly fortified and enhanced by its merger with The Fund, has a lot to do, too…more than ever, I think, and in ways that calls on all of us to pull on the oars, together.

More later….

Big ups!

Al