It’s always a tough call choosing a winner, particularly when there are several good stories are submitted.
No shortage of correct identifications of the March image and many stories including three great ones from Peter Mabee, Allen Benas and Robert Charron, all of whom just have to receive a set of prints for their efforts, but ultimately there is room for just one "official" winner.
Many responses correctly identified last month’s scene, including this one from Dean Evans of LaFayette, NY:
“This is the channel between Nobby and Welcome Islands. The channel is a very serene escape for what awaits just a stone's throw to the south side of Nobby...the very turbulent American shipping channel directly in front of Alexandria Bay. The often misspelled Nobby Island (to the left as you look at this photo) is owned by Dr. A. John Merola. Welcome Island (to the right) is the former location of the Thousand Islands Yacht Club, and now has a private camp on it owned by the Magari family. In the distance one can see the romantic estate known as Hopewell Hall, formerly owned by George Boldt's granddaughter, and across from Hopewell Hall sits Castle Rest, the estate formerly owned by George Pullman, of Pullman train car fame and fortune, and once visited by President Grant. So there exists a lot of history, lore, romance, and wealth that now blends into the people of present day creating their own storied experiences in the area known as "Millionaire's Row".
I received only a few guesses attempting to identify January’s image and of them, only two were correct. Jim Pontious of Murrysville, PA was one, but the award and the six prints has to go to Steve Franzeim of Harvard, Mass. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to confess that Steve and his wife Chris are very dear old friends. “Beach buddies” actually. Part of a group of friends who re-converge each summer, “Big Chill” style at Goose Rocks Beach in Southern Maine, my childhood and favorite escape, at least before I discovered the Thousand Islands sixteen years ago.
While I figured November’s scene would prove elusive and didn’t, December’s was one I was fairly sure would be easy to recognize, particularly as it included a “down bound” ship passing Singer Castle in the distance, yet only two people picked up on those clues to identify it as the foot of Grenadier Island. This is the Grenadier that reaches downstream on the Canadian side from Rockport to Mallorytown Landing, not the similarly named island in Lake Ontario not far from Tibbetts Point.
The surprise is that there are several Grenadier Islanders on this list and none of them recognized it. It simply goes to show how very different the aerial perspective of a familiar place can be, which is one of the reasons I felt compelled to produce my books in the first place. With only two correct answers, both sharing somewhat different information, I thought I’d include excerpts from each while awarding both a set of prints.
Last month's image: