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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
The islands vary greatly in size, most being very small. Some lie in Ontario (Canada) and some in New York State (USA). According to one source the number of islands has been estimated as being somewhere between a thousand and 1700. I'm informed that boat tour announcers tell visitors that there are 1865 islands at low water and 1864 at high water. Many of the islands are privately owned and have holiday homes built on them. A group of some of the islands form the Canadian St Lawrence Islands National Park. Thousand Island Park lies in New York State and is presumably a state park.
A good view of some of the islands can be obtained from Ontario Road 2 east of Kingston and to a lesser extent from New York State Highway 12E west of I-81.
Boat tours of the islands can be obtained from various towns in the area.
My grateful thanks to Bill Daverne who kindly contributed some of the information on this page, together with the following comments regarding the history of Thousand Islands salad dressing:
Thousand Islands salad dressing was named for the islands by the chef of Conrad Boldt, the American millionaire who built and owned the magnificent Boldt Castle on Heart Island (and who owned the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia, arguably the two most famous U.S. hotels in 1910). Boldt Castle can be seen by tour boat (and visited) or by going across the 1,000 Islands Bridge at Ivy Lea (23 miles east of Kingston) and travelling about five miles east on the U.S. side to Alexandria Bay, New York, which is right across from Boldt's Castle).The Thousand Islands described on this page should not be confused with the Ten Thousand Islands off the southwest coast of Florida (south of Naples) or the Thirty Thousand Islands on the eastern side of Georgian Bay, Ontario.
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Most recently modified 3-Oct-04