1000 Islands

With two months to go before the arrival of our little beruska makes vacations a blurry memory of the past – Aline and I decided to sneak in a short road trip to the nearby 1000 Islands area of Eastern Ontario.

For lodgings we stayed at the Denault Mansion Country Inn – a historic stone inn in Delta, built in 1853 by Walter Denaut, a prosperous and widely renowned mill owner, postmaster, general merchant and local politician. Now operated by innkeepers David and Deborah Peets, the inn offers four rooms combining historic charm with modern amenities: original red pine floors and 11-foot ceilings along with central air conditioning and ensuite bathrooms. Our room – the Walter Denault room – overlooked the pool and we made sure to take advantage of it both days we spent there. Breakfast was comprised of home-made granola, breads, jams and local seasonal fruit – a little light on quantity in my opinion – but surprisingly filling.

One of the main reasons we chose the inn was because the lodging backs onto Upper Beverly Lake and it’s possible to go canoeing from the property – which we did during a two-hour paddle on Friday.

Our main outings included two trips to the thousand islands playhouse in Gananoque where we saw ‘Mary’s Wedding’ and ‘Wingfield’s Inferno’. Mary’s wedding is a sad love story set during WWI in which Mary Chalmers recounts her emigration from England to Canada; her chance meeting with farm-boy Charlie Edwards in a barn during a violent thunderstorm; their growing love in the face of Mary’s mother’s opposition, and the unforgiving interruption of the Great War. Wingfield’s Inferno featuring Rod Beattie was a lot like listening to Stuart Maclean on the radio. A one-man show, Beattie plays the fictional character of Walt Wingfield and all the other residents of the fictional Persephone Township. In this story, a devastating fire at the Orange Hall in Larkspur leaves it a smouldering ruin. Walt Wingfield leads the charge to get it rebuilt, but lighting a fire under his fellow committee members proves a daunting task.

Saturday, we then met up with Aline’s folks and brother’s family for a boat tour through the islands before working our way to Ottawa via the Hershey factory at Smiths Falls.