Gananoque Boat Cruise and Fort Henry

On August 7 Dad, Karen and I headed out on a vacation.  We came home with more than 3,000 photos, and memories of a really good trip -- about 4,000 km for Karen and I and almost 5000 for Dad.  These are some of my favorite photos. 

The first two stops were a boat cruise of the 1000 Islands and Fort Henry. The 1000 Islands cruise took us around the island for Boldt Castle (begun in the early 1900's by George C. Boldt (Waldorf Astoria) for his wife Louise.  She died suddenly and construction was stopped) but we didn't stop to explore the castle.  A passport is required to visit since its in the US.  The Gananoque boats visiting the island check the passport before leaving the dock.
 

Boldt Castle

The "castle" next door

St Lawrence and 1000 Islands

Soaring off the stern

The next day we went to visit Fort Henry -- I kept calling it Old Fort Henry as that's the name I remember for it but in all the researching I did for the trip, it was always called Fort Henry although using Old in google searches brought up lots of references.

Going through an access tunnel to the cannon portals.  The walls of the dry ditch are curved to allow the ball to be reflected through the ditch.  It was a dry ditch as a water filled moat would have frozen in the winter and given access to the inner fort to enemies.

This is one of the prison cells for the fort's soldiers.  The cot was added after 7 days but taken away every 3 days as a reminder that they were being punished.  Not sure that was really necessary as the other part of the punishment was moving stacks of cannon balls from one end of the parade ground to the other -- lifted without bending legs.

 

 It was fascinating to watch them doing 19th century drill -- when they say close order they weren't fooling. Better not get out of step with the other ranks as the rear ranks step where the front ranks foot was.

We watched the practice session, the afternoon presentation and then had tickets to the sunset ceremony

Here they are racing to attach a perceived enemy during the evening presentation (more gear on than in the afternoon)

And then firing on the perceived enemy.  The guns were loaded with blanks for the evening and afternoon presentations.  During the rehearsal, the soldiers all said "BANG" or occasionally "BANG BANG" when it was time to fire.

During the evening intermission, they invited the children to come down and be trained as recruits.  They learned to salute and to turn but no marching or wooden rifles (the day time sessions did the marching and rifles).  After the fireworks, there was someone at the exit to hand out certificates to all the children.  They were to fill in their name, clean their rooms and be ready for 6 am inspection.  The rank for the children is Private (and only private) -- Daddy is the Sergeant and Mommy the General  -- no arguing that's just the way life is.  :)  made us smile as we left.