I wasn’t sure which image to share this month, so recently posted a shot on my Facebook page to gauge the interest. People seemed to enjoy seeing the River as it was on February 22nd, so I figured you might enjoy it too. As of today, the ice surrounding the island is entirely gone, melted by ongoing warmth and torrential rains from a severe thunderstorm on the 25th. Severe thunderstorms in February? What’s going on?
Global warming is very real, at least around here, but the good news is that it means the River is ready for us much earlier than usual. This (not very pretty image) from yesterday (just six days later - February 28th) dramatically shows how advanced spring is this year, far earlier than I suspect anyone has ever seen before.
You may recognize this island as the subject of our interactive iPad eBook, “One in a Thousand.” For my needs, this is the “One” literally, because amongst the 1864 islands, it alone has a natural harbor and ramp, exactly a wingspan wide, that safely protected the plane I used for all the aerial photography. Without it, none of it could have happened.
If you haven’t read/viewed/watched/listened to “One,” I’m certain you’ll find it enjoyable. It won two international awards and garnered 5-star ratings in both the U.S. and Canadian iTunes Stores. A vastly bigger undertaking than any of my other books, it has more pictures than all the others combined, a map locating each of them, video, music, narration and the story of my unlikely adventures.
Strangely, despite this having been a major undertaking by a talented team that includes co-author Donna Walsh Inglehart, McLellan Group (who cleverly crafted the unusual interactivity), and Tony Dekker’s award winning band Great Lake Swimmers, it has sold fewer copies than any of the (more expensive) printed books. At $9 (with Apple keeping 30%), none of us ever intended to get rich from it, but we did hope that it would showcase the 1000 Islands to the world in much the same way as “A Year in Provence” and “Under the Tuscan Sun” did for those places.
Essentially, it is a gift to the community, but other than word of mouth there’s no realistic way to make people aware of its existence, so it languishes out of sight, despite whatever merit it may have. If you have an iPad, I know you’ll enjoy it. If you’ve already experienced it, perhaps you might share your thoughts with others below.
Hang in there. Spring is around the corner. In fact, it already seems to be here.
Ian Coristine
P.S. I’ll again take the liberty of mentioning that we have two homes available as vacation rentals, one on the River and the other in the south of France. The latter is actually for sale as we enjoy France so much that we want to spend more of winter there and this home is best suited for the other three seasons. Don’t worry if you’d like to rent it. We’ll honor your slot in our new home if this one isn't available.
