Ice boating on the St. Lawrence River

A weekend in Northern New York...

 My wife & I, representing HRIYC, set up a table on ice yachting at the Small Craft Festival at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton NY,  on Oct 11.    ABM is a wonderful small museum with an  extensive collection of rowing skiffs, antique motor boats, outboards, canoes, and much more. Past commodore Bob Wills had made a connection with the Museum early this year and they have a nice exhibit on ice boating on the St Lawrence, including some items we loaned for the exhibit.   

One wall of the Iceboat exhibit at Antique Boat Museum, in Clayton, NY. 

Ice Yachting trophies:

HRIYC trophy (c) for Rainbow 1904.

MMGCC (?) trophy 1st in class, 1963

A few pictures of Ice Yachts off Clayton, on the St. Lawrence River, circa 1910-20.

Our display table, featuring Reid Bielenberg's model of Sappho, the Athens ice yacht, circa 1870. 

One of the rewarding aspects of setting up ice boat displays or doing a talk on the history is the opportunity to meet folks who have a story to tell or their own experiences on iceboats in the past. You never know.     We met several folks who recalled friends or relatives sailing the river in long ago winters. Lisa talked with a woman a number of years older than us who wasn't familiar with ice boats but recalled riding horse drawn sleds across the ice.  Like the Hudson River, winters have been much milder in recent years and the St. Lawrence does not freeze reliably. Last winter though, it did freeze over, the first time in awhile. 

The day after our time in Clayton, we stopped in nearby village of Cape Vincent, and went to the local village museum. Volunteers Rick & Karen were happy to see us and when they heard our story about the Iceboat display in Clayton the previous day, they immediately turned us onto to their archives of iceboat items!

All images courtesy of Cape Vincent Historical Museum

Sailing as early as 1898, off Cape Vincent. No doubt they sailed between Canada & US.  Cape Vincent is where the St Lawrence meets Lake Ontario, or the other way around... 

 

A scene as described by the elderly visitor the day before in Clayton. 

A set of runners and an old model where on display along with ice tools and an old Ambulance.

 

An old  album contained a nice collection of photos of ice boats off of Cape Vincent and Clayton. 

circa 1940s - 1950s

trussed planks on most boats. 

an E skeeter is part of this line up.

races clearly drew large crowds here... 

 Rick - museum volunteer - noted that he remembers the ice boats racing in his youth (50s) - though he didn't sail. He did make a crude ice sail to use with his skates. He recalled skate sailing with a buddy from Cape Vincent to Clayton - approximately 15 miles!

My favorite pictures from the Ice Boat scrapbook.  Rick noted that most winters an ice bridge was established from Cape Vincent to Wolfe Island, across the river in Canada. The crossing closed after the first car went through the ice. I haven't found pictures like this on the Hudson yet!