Friday, June 29 – Day 56: Today was an off day for the Rickshaw crew in order to absorb as much as possible about Kingston, Ontario. As we soon discovered, Kingston is a very popular weekend getaway destination for both Canadians & Americans with a lot to see & do. According to one of our tour guides, it is the largest fresh water diving location in the world due to the large number of British ships that were scuttled in the neighboring waters during the 1800’s. It was the venue for the Montreal sailing events during the Olympics several years ago, because of the great sailing in the area. Being at the intersection of the Rideau Canal, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and Lake Ontario, it has a long history as a strategic military location as evidenced by a large number of forts and other battlements in the area. It was also the original capital of Canada and so has a lot of history and very old buildings, dating back to the early 1800’s.
Our day started with a bike trip to the local donut shop, Tim Horton’s, to get an internet connection fix via their free Wi-Fi to get updated on emails. Following the email update, we took a tour via a local hop-on / hop-off trolley of the town, which took us around the town and the surrounding area. One of the highlights of the tour was a visit to the fort that looks out over the harbor, and was built shortly
after the War of 1812 by the British to protect Kingston and the naval shipyard from attack by the enemy, the United States. Since this year is the bicentennial of the war, there were a lot of re-enactors throughout the fort, dressed in period uniforms and costumes, marching in rigid formation and even a cannon volley off of the fort wall overlooking Lake Ontario. Following the trolley tour, we jumped on a free (yea!) ferry over to the largest of the 1000 islands (which is an archipelago in the St. Lawrence), which was “Wolfe Island”, named after the famous British general, “James Wolfe”, that won the battle of Quebec during the French & Indian war. Please check out the poster shown below that we had seen at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News last year.
We wrapped up the day by peddling over to the local hardware store & grocery store before returning to Rickshaw, where we met some great folks, Eric, who is originally from Toronto and has a beautiful 1987 41 Defever, and a couple of other loopers, Mike & Judy, from Virginia Beach, who were looping on their 50ft boat, One September.
Our day started with a bike trip to the local donut shop, Tim Horton’s, to get an internet connection fix via their free Wi-Fi to get updated on emails. Following the email update, we took a tour via a local hop-on / hop-off trolley of the town, which took us around the town and the surrounding area. One of the highlights of the tour was a visit to the fort that looks out over the harbor, and was built shortly
after the War of 1812 by the British to protect Kingston and the naval shipyard from attack by the enemy, the United States. Since this year is the bicentennial of the war, there were a lot of re-enactors throughout the fort, dressed in period uniforms and costumes, marching in rigid formation and even a cannon volley off of the fort wall overlooking Lake Ontario. Following the trolley tour, we jumped on a free (yea!) ferry over to the largest of the 1000 islands (which is an archipelago in the St. Lawrence), which was “Wolfe Island”, named after the famous British general, “James Wolfe”, that won the battle of Quebec during the French & Indian war. Please check out the poster shown below that we had seen at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News last year.
We wrapped up the day by peddling over to the local hardware store & grocery store before returning to Rickshaw, where we met some great folks, Eric, who is originally from Toronto and has a beautiful 1987 41 Defever, and a couple of other loopers, Mike & Judy, from Virginia Beach, who were looping on their 50ft boat, One September.
 A little history about Fort Henry.  The cadets loading the cannon for the demonstration.  From the fort - the view of Lake Ontario in the background and Kingston Harbor in the foreground.  The ferry, Wolfe Islander, that took us to Wolfe Island.  Jim and Belinda on Wolfe Island. |  Fort Henry cadets passing inspection.  Jim crosing the dry moat bridge. This far north they can't have water in the moats. The water would freeze and the enemy could just walk across!  The round buildings are martellos. They are guard/gun towers to guard Canada against the United States.  We saw this poster about General James Wolfe (at least we think that is the James Wolfe it is referring to) in the Newport News Maritime Museum. |
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