Island City

A secret gem

Brockville is somewhat of a secret gem among the Thousand Islands, located a relatively short distance from major Canadian cities including Toronto and Montreal. The nation’s capital of Ottawa is only an hour’s drive to the north, while Syracuse, New York is a two-hour drive to the south. Today the city is enjoying a renaissance on the river with several residential waterfront developments underway, as well as a new anchor tourism attraction: The $21-million Aquatarium, which fully opens in March 2014. The Aquatarium (aquatarium.ca) and the marine interpretive center’s initiative called RiverQuest (1000islandsriverquest.com) will cast a spotlight on wonders of the Thousand Islands region. The Aquatarium will include a live otter exhibit as well as displays about the area’s Gilded Age, pirates, shipwrecks and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

“The Aquatarium essentially will tell the story of water and history relevant to our region,” says David Paul, Brockville’s director of economic development.

In June, Brockville hosted a War of 1812 Tall Ships festival as the First Port of Call for the provincial event, attracting 13 historic vessels from across North America and Norway in a 16-port tour across Ontario.

Simon Fuller, the Ottawa developer behind the Tall Ships Landing Condominium Resort on the city’s waterfront who spearheaded the private-public Aquatarium project, describes Brockville’s waterfront as a Thousand Islands’ treasure.

“Brockville is an idyllic port of call to experience the best of the Thousand Islands dockside lifestyle,” says Fuller. “Whether moored at one of the 16 municipal-owned islands or within the Tunnel Bay Harbour, all of the historic charm, cultural attractions and modern amenities that you could expect at a ‘Niagara of the River’ are available to you within walking distance.”

Fuller’s great-grandfather, Thomas Fuller, was Canada’s chief architect. He designed some of Canada’s Parliament buildings in addition to 160 government buildings across the country, including in Brockville. Fuller came across Brockville quite by accident when he learned his great-grandfather’s building in the city’s Court House Square was for sale on eBay. His company, the Fuller Group of Companies, bought and restored the building, renaming it the Thomas Fuller Building. Fuller went on to build the Tall Ships Landing Condominium Resort on the city’s waterfront, which offers slips to residents and a panoramic view of the Brock Isles.

Fuller sailed tall ships as a youth along the St. Lawrence. His father, the late naval war hero known as the “Pirate of the Adriatic” built the tall ship Fair Jeanne in his family’s Ottawa backyard. The Fair Jeanne, one of the tall ships participating in the recent tall ship festival here, frequently sails throughout the Thousand Islands and was used as a floating stage to shoot a music video of the critically-acclaimed Toronto band The Great Lake Swimmers.

Island culture and attractions

Brockville has lots to offer visiting boaters, including downtown shops, restaurants, patios, farmers’ market and The Brockville Arts Centre, one of the finest heritage performing arts theatres in Canada. The oldest incorporated city in Ontario has historic landmarks and picturesque Victorian mansions line its streets and waterfront. The city also has Canada’s oldest railway tunnel and pristine parks and walking trails.

“People here of all generations don’t lose their passion for the river,” said Bonnie Burke, the curator of the Brockville Museum. “Everybody has a connection to the river.”

Brockville boasts some of the world’s best freshwater diving to explore the area’s historic shipwrecks. The port city is also linked to the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve as a United Nations environmental and historical designation.

Tourists in Brockville shouldn’t miss the opportunity to visit Fulford Place, the grand summer estate built and once owned by Senator George Fulford I, which is now operated as a museum by Ontario Heritage Trust. The museum has a room dedicated to an exhibit on the yacht that Fulford named Magedoma, using a combination of the initials of his wife and children’s names. Today the vintage vessel is known as its original name, The Cangarda. The refurbished 1901 steam yacht made a comeback to the city after a visit here two years ago. The remarkable $12-million restoration of Cangarda by California venture capitalist Dr. Rob McNeil is a story in and of itself and tells much about Fulford.

The 20,000-square-foot Edwardian mansion, perched on a hill above the river overlooking Three Sisters Islands, is a testament to the rich and famous of the region’s Gilded Age. Fulford hired the landscape architect firm that created New York City’s Central Park to design his Italianate garden. The mansion was built as a summer home in 1901. Fulford made his millions marketing “Pink Pills for Pale People.” Just across the river, Morristown was known for the famed patent medicine, “Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills.”

And this is just the start of a voyage through the fabled Thousand Islands. The river shares two countries and islands with idyllic names like Fairyland and Mermaid island or menacing monikers such as Deathdealer and Bloodletter island. There’s popular boating destinations like Lake of the Isles, the Lost Channel and the International Rift — a famously narrow passage between Canada’s Hill Island and America’s Wellesley Island. Boats can cruise under the Thousand Islands International Bridge between the U.S. and Canada, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this August, and by the watchful eye of a statue of the Saint Lawrence perched on the Canadian waterfront cliff near Ivy Lea.

Exploring the islands

Tourists from around the world flock here to take daily boat tours of the Thousand Islands from Brockville, Rockport, Gananoque and in New York’s Alexandria Bay and Clayton.

Escape day to day routine with a vacation you’ll remember for a lifetime. Diane Kirkby of 1000 Islands Luxury Tours Inc. offers one-week guided tours of the region with an insiders knowledge of the stories and people who helped shape these islands. Experience the “best of the best” and discover the area’s rich history, unparallelled beauty, attractions and “hidden treasures.”

Some popular tours take visitors to see Boldt Castle on Heart Island and Singer Castle on Dark Island in New York. Waldorf-Astoria hotelier George C. Boldt built Boldt Castle at the turn of the last century for his wife, Louise. Heartbroken, he halted construction of the 120-room castle on the heart-shaped island when she died in 1904 just before her 42nd birthday. Remarkably, the castle sat vacant for seven decades before it was taken over as the region’s major tourism attraction by the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority in 1977. The castle was covered with vandals’ graffiti, some of which still remains on the walls today. The castle has since undergone a $34-million Cinderella-story makeover one room at time to bring it to life.

Dark Island’s Singer Castle, the region’s only lived-in castle, is also a major tourism attraction located near Chippewa Bay, New York. The 28-room castle, with secret passageways, tunnels and even a dungeon, was built by Frederick Gilbert Bourne, a president of Singer Sewing Machine Company, in the early 1900s as a hunting and fishing lodge. Bourne, who owned a 110-room mansion on Long Island, New York, was among many wealthy industrialists to build in the Thousand Islands during the region’s Gilded Age. Today visitors can book the castle’s royal suite to stay overnight on Dark Island as “king and queen for a night,” complete with a guided tour of the secret passageways.

A voyage upriver from Brockville will take you by islands near Rockport, Alexandria Bay, Ivy Lea and towards the Admiralty Group near Gananoque and the aptly-named Wanderer’s Channel. You can even attend a floating church service at Bostwick Island’s Half Moon Bay, where boaters have been worshipping in the tranquil cove at Sunday sermons every summer since 1887. Deep waters here are ideal for anchoring and there are many islands that have state, provincial and national parks for dockage and camping.

A stop at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York is a must-see for boaters with many classic wooden boats on display, along with the lavish houseboat La Duchesse, donated by the McNally family of Wellesley Island and Chicago, Illinois, as one of the exhibits.

Fine dining can be found dockside at the Ivy Restaurant and Marina at Ivy Lea, with slips for boaters to stop in for lunch or dinner. There are plenty of patios and restaurants on both sides of the border, along with shopping, museums and tourism sites. Wolfe Island, near Kingston, is the largest Thousand Island with 1,400 year-round residents, across the River from Cape Vincent. The coastal village is known for its annual French festival in July, an homage to its French heritage and the fact French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to live in exile here.

A storybook escape

These shores offer an appealing escape for many. There’s something timelessly enchanting about the Thousand Islands. British novelist Charles Dickens penned these words after a taking a trip aboard a steam boat here in 1842: “The beauty of this noble stream at almost any point, but especially in the commencement of this journey, when it winds its way among the Thousand Islands, can hardly be imagined.”

A voyage throughout this “noble stream” today calls for a visit to the port of Brockville to discover the treasures of Island City.