Missy has worked the waterfront her whole life, first as a teenager running a 12-seat cafe her mother opened across the street, and now as the owner of Bella’s on Clayton’s main street, where she still cracks open the kitchen doors whenever a freighter slides past on the St. Lawrence River. The Thousand Islands region she grew up in spans two countries, stretches 50 miles along the river, and counts 1,864 islands despite the name that undersells it by nearly 900. For anyone who thinks of this corner of upstate New York as a salad dressing punchline, a morning in Clayton followed by an afternoon inside a castle built as a monument to lost love will correct that fast.
Where the islands get their rules and their stories
A stop at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton is the logical first move, and not only because its giant floor map lays out all 1,864 islands at once. To count as an island here, a piece of land must stay above the waterline 365 days a year and support at least two forms of vegetation, one of which must be a tree. Wolf Island, the largest of the group, sits on the Canadian side. Grindstone Island, the fourth largest, holds a summer community of several hundred residents whose population drops to three or four families in winter. When the river freezes, those remaining families rely on ice boats, airboats, or snowmobiles to reach the mainland township of Clayton.
The museum’s current exhibition on sailing craft is its first fully curated show on the subject, open through at least the following year. Beyond the galleries, every guest can book a speedboat ride for a small upcharge, and the museum operates a working livery. George Boldt’s 1904 two-story houseboat, La Duchesse, originally commissioned by the wealthy hotelier and Waldorf Astoria proprietor, is part of the permanent collection on site.
Out on the water in a Hacker-Craft built to 1940s specifications but powered by a modern 385-horsepower Mercruiser 8.1L engine, the story of the islands fills in stop by stop. Calumet Island once belonged to Charles Emery, a tobacco entrepreneur who invented the machine that wraps paper around cigarettes. He built a castle there around 1890 and connected two separate islands to form one property. When his wife died on the island in 1920, he locked the doors and never returned. The castle eventually burned in 1956. Only the water tower remains, converted to either an observation deck or living quarters. A yellow house on the property was, at the time of the cruise, listed as an Airbnb.
The castle that was never finished and still generates $48 million a year
Boldt Castle on Heart Island is the undisputed centerpiece of the region. George Boldt, a Prussian immigrant who arrived in the United States at age 13 and eventually ran the Waldorf Astoria, began construction in 1900 as a physical declaration of love for his wife Louise. She died in 1904 before the castle was complete. He halted all work immediately and, by most accounts, never set foot on the island again. Restoration proceeded using his surviving plans and period newspaper research, with in-house craftsmen working to stay true to the era.
The castle is now an official port of entry, with a customs office on the docks. Four boat lines stop there, two American and two Canadian. An economic impact study conducted roughly a decade ago, adjusted to today’s dollars, puts Boldt Castle’s annual contribution at about $48 million across both sides of the border.
Missy described the cross-border pull of the region plainly, the way only someone who married a Canadian and drives the crossing regularly can: ‘Come visit Clayton, go visit Gananoque. It’s half an hour. And you may have to wait in your car, so download a movie. But it’s magical. It’s magical whenever you come.’
The water tower Charles Emery left behind
On Calumet Island, the single stone water tower that survived the 1956 fire still stands above the treeline, stripped of the castle that once surrounded it.
Back on the Clayton waterfront, the Antique Boat Museum’s livery dock sits open in the late-morning sun, ready to put one of those 1,864 islands between a visitor and the shore.
