Champlain and Champagne

 

Champlain's Dream, by David Hackett Fischer, is a good, if rather overly detailed, account of the great Frenchman's adventures in New France, and its reading reawakened Jake's interest in the St. Lawrence River area. So when Jake and Stone sat down last fall to plan their 31st anniversary getaway in January, Stone's desire to go some place with pretty much guaranteed snow dovetailed nicely with a trip to see the great Canadian river. Within their maximum preferred driving radius of 6-7 hours, Kingston, Ontario, seemed to fit the bill. This city of about 100,000 people sits on Lake Ontario in the Thousand Islands area of Canada,  right where the St. Lawrence River begins its journey from Lake Ontario northward to the Atlantic. Plans set, Jake and Stone happily thought about the January to come and their sipping some celebratory champagne while gazing out the window at some guaranteed snow.

Come January itself, the champagne was left at home in the fridge (where it was carefully placed in obvious view the night before leaving) and Jersey got walloped with a good 16 inches of snow in their absence. But Jake and Stone had a memorable time anyway.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 – After the mandatory stop at Dunkin' Donuts, the drive proved to be no trouble once we got into Pennsylvania and out of the east coast snow storm that was just beginning. Kingston sits almost directly north of Syracuse, NY, and I-81 north leads right to the border and the spectacular river views of the Thousand Island Bridge where our border crossing was quick (and thanks to our not putting our passports in the fridge with the forgotten champagne) and painless.

Our B&B's  Front Door

The Frontenac Club Inn proved to be an excellent home base for our three night stay in Kingston. Originally built as a bank in the 1840's, it later became the Fontenac Club and hosted the day's leading Kingstonians, the occasional Canadian Prime Minister, and such luminaries as Carl Sandburg and Alexander Graham Bell. Today it is a popular B&B with both character and charm (remnants of the two original bank vaults remain), a convenient location and a variety of good breakfasts gracefully served in three cozy breakfast rooms. Our room on the third floor included a broad view of the harbor, and a large bathroom that featured an equally capacious soaking tub that, unlike others we've experienced, filled up quickly with the necessary hot water.

Kingston's Skating Rink

It is but a five minute walk on King Street from the B&B to the historic part of Kingston. On our way on this first day we passed the town skating rink, which is free to all: bring your own skates, and don't be afraid to leave your backpack on the bleachers. And though there is plenty of ice for all, watch out for the toddlers, who, seemingly having just learned to walk, are now, under the watchful eyes of mom and/or dad, learning to ice skate. Oh, Canada!

Lunch on this first day in Kingston was at the Pan Chancho Bakery and Cafe on Princess Street. Our two soups (one meat, one vegetable), salad, open faced egg salad sandwich with smoked salmon and two glasses of Black River Malbec was an unbeatable way to start our stay. The bakery side of this homey but stylish place had a wide assortment of prepared dishes, delicious smelling breads, and pastries impossible to ignore. Stone got a cookie and Jake a chocolate croissant for the road.

Five minutes later the road lead us to the local tourist office, where we picked up some maps and brochures, were told to be sure and visit the City Hall across the street, and were given lapel pins of the Canadian flag (“These will let you in the Prime Minister's house,” joked the friendly guy beind the counter). As for a recommended coffee spot where we might compliment our cookie and croissant with some Canadian brew, Sipps, was recommended and just up the street.

As told to do, we checked out the Kingston City Hall, with its historic plaques and pictures. For a brief time in the mid 19^th century, Kingston was the capital of Canada, but more importantly, Canada's first Prime Minister, and one of the Founding Fathers of the Canadian Federation – Sir John A. MacDonald – was a Kingstonian. Within City Hall the large Memorial Hall has a dozen stained glass windows that pay tribute to the Canadians who served and died in World War I, quite a moving display.

Heads Up

Coffee at Sipps was as good as recommended. We enjoyed the slightly worn, Bohemian look of this coffee house as we munched our cookie and pastry while looking out the window across the slushy street. And slush was not unusual in Kingston. Throughout our several walks in town we noticed many a sidewalk not properly shoveled, but soon got used to walking in the almost ubiquitous snow and slush. (We got used too, to watching out for icicles that loomed from many a building.) Though there was about a foot of snow on the ground while we were in Kingston, the temps were generally mild – high 20's during the day – and though it snowed three or four times during our stay, the snow was never heavy or amounted to more than an inch or two. Perhaps in Kingston they figure it's not worthwhile shoveling unless it snows a lot – like the 16” that was hammering our Jersey while we were sipping our coffee and looking out the window at mere slush.

Back at the B&B Jake took advantage of the soaking tub while Stone took advantage of a bed made for snoozing. One of the better rated, upscale restaurants in Kingston is AquaTerra Restaubistro by Clark, which despite its awkward name, proved worthy of its rep. It is part of the Radisson Hotel, which is right on the water, so the restaurant boasts a great lakeside view, and is but a five minute walk from our B&B. A good martini usually augurs well for the meal to come and this held true at AquaTerra. We stayed on the aqua side of the menu: salmon, scallops and chowder, accompanied by two glasses of wine, and finally lemon sponge cake and coffee. Very nice indeed.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 – From one of our two B&B windows we could see the Kingston ferry making its way through the ice across a bit of Lake Ontario over to Wolfe Island. Over a breakfast of juice, coffee, yogurt/fruit, Irish oatmeal with pomegranate seeds, and an omelet of apples and brie, we asked our host about the ferry. He told us it was a must-ride, that it ran every hour on the hour (till 1 AM) even in the winter, and that it was free for passengers. He also said that he had heard reliable stories of old time Canadians, back in the day when the ferry didn't run in the winter, driving the 20-30 minutes across the ice to and from the island. He added, as proof of their not being crazy(!), that they rarely drove across the lake at night and always keep their car doors open as they drove, just in case.

Aboard the Kingston Ferry

We walked to the ferry in about 10 minutes. (One of Kingston's allures is its walkability -- check out the Walk Score for the address of our B&B) The ferry was a unique, thrilling ride, and demanded no open car doors. While the ferry's path through the ice was well worn and the ride was smooth, still it was remarkable to stand outside on the narrow passenger deck and hear the ice slabs hitting the prow, watch the ice slide by in pieces big and small, and look out over the lake – a vast prairie of white. As one might do on the Staten Island Ferry, we just stayed on till they loaded another bunch of cars and trucks, and three passengers, and enjoyed the ride back.

We next went shopping in town for a good pair of mittens for Jake in preparation for our hoped for snowshoe adventures tomorrow and we found a nice pair at a store on Princess Street. Also along Princess Street we discovered the Golden Rooster Deli which looked busy so we dropped in for lunch. It proved to be a rather large cafeteria style place that was full of local patrons – lots of apparent university students checking their phones as they ate their wraps; seniors reading newspapers as they sipped their soups – all looking for a good, cheap lunch. And a good, cheap lunch it proved to be, served in a place with lots of local flavor. Indeed, Stone noticed that the cheerful girls who made our sandwiches put the ingredients together without benefit of the usual latex gloves so common in American eateries.

After lunch we walked around the downtown area some more, then dropped in on a coffee place called Mug and Truffle, and had some coffee and pieces of artisan chocolate before heading back to the B&B for some “laying around time.”

Outside Chez Piggy

We had a very nice early dinner at Pan Chancho's older sister restaurant, Chez Piggy, both of which were started in Kingston by Zal Yanovsky, who, along with John Sebastian, founded the Lovin' Spoonful back in the mid-'60's. Off the street, in a nice little courtyard-like setting that looked especially inviting in the snow and decorative lights, Chez Piggy provided us with a wonderful dinner of spring rolls, soup, and the largest bowl of seafood chowder Jake had ever seen. Chez Piggy's ground floor atmosphere could be described as upscale pub (the upstairs level is more quiet), its low ceiling adding to its cozy feel, with a good list of both wines and brews. The latter list included Steam Whistle Pilsner, which was threatening on this trip to overtake Labatt Blue as Jake's go-to Canadian beer.

We had to do an early dinner as we had tickets to see a 8 PM performance of Steve Martin's play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Put on by the King's Town Players at the Kingston Yacht Club (which btw, is a very unassuming place – sort of a yacht club for blue collar guys with sail boats), it proved to be a very good night of local, but thoroughly professional, theater. Afterwards it was one of our longer walks home – maybe 15 minutes – in a quiet, late night snowfall.

Bridge to Snowshoe Trail

Friday, January 28, 2011 – After another wonderful breakfast, highlighted this time by waffles, we got in our car for the first time since parking it in the snowy parking lot behind the B&B and headed for the Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area, about a 10 minute drive north of town. Here one can cross country ski, snowshoe or ice skate. We had brought our LL Bean snowshoes from home, so after paying our $11 entrance fee we excitedly headed to the snowshoe trail. All morning it had been lightly snowing, with not a breath of wind, so our tramp through the forest and frozen wet lands was like walking in a snow-globe world. “Perfect” is a word close enough.

Along the trail we met a young woman with a backpack (the only person we met on the 1 km trail) who was kind enough to take our picture. “Now, if you don't mind, can you take one of us?” she asked. Stone and Jake looked briefly at each other wondering why she would refer to herself in the plural, but the mystery was shortly resolved when she had us pull back a flap in her backpack to reveal Clara, her 11-month old daughter, bundled up and happy, blinking her baby blues in the sudden light. After the picture, Clara's mom said she had to go back to work next month as her one year maternity leave, which is given to just about all Canadian mothers, complete with a minimum 55% salary and guaranteed placement back in their jobs, was due to end. Given her understanding of America's always promoting family values, she couldn't understand our lack of such a program, or anything close. We had to admit that neither could we.

Chick with Chickadee

On the snowshoe trail is a place marked Chickadee Feeding Area. We stopped and immediately the surrounding trees were full of the little cuties, perhaps 10-12 of them. They zoomed around our head, jumped nervously from branch to branch, and seemed to look at us most expectantly. We had no food for them, but looking around saw some seeds and such left over here and there in the snow. Stone picked some up and fed these delightful little creatures out of her hand. Such an experience only put a capital “P” on what was a Perfect hour or so in the woods and snow.

We had seen an ad for a bingo parlor so after we drove out of the park we stopped in at Game Time Bingo on Montreal Street. We thought we would just drop in maybe play a card or two to see what's what. Not so. This is bingo for the serious. There room is about the size of six basketball courts and must seat between 400-500 players. There are four sessions during the day: Breakfast Bingo at 9:30 AM, Matinee at 12:30 PM, Evening at 7 PM and Late Night at 10 PM. Each session lasts about 2-3 hours. The big prize of the day we were there was over $3,000, but usually on good days it gets to be easily north of $7,000. To win it one must get bingo within the first 50 numbers called – or rather, not called, but lighted up on the big electronic displays that are on the room's walls. All this was new to Jake and Stone, but apparently such giant parlors are numerous in Vegas. We had to wonder, as we walked back to our car, if Vegas also sported the underside of this game of chance – the several knots of cigarette smoking, old and lonely, down and out folks who stood outside in the cold, waiting for the Matinee session to begin, and their luck to change.

Cataraqui River Views

The scene could not have been different at our lunch venue, the River Mill Restaurant. Housed in an historic Woolen Mill, this elegant restaurant has pretty views of the snow covered Cataraqui River, a rather sedate atmosphere, and some terrific food, which at lunch time is actually affordable. The fish in Jake's fish and chips was world class tender, and the lemon tart dessert was not afraid to strut its lemony self. There is a nice, if limited, wine list also.

After lunch it seems our earlier snowshoeing efforts now demanded a tub soak and snooze for both of us back in our room, for upon awaking we had one more Canadian thing to do that would demand some energy: seeing a hockey game.

On our walk to the game we stopped off at Tango , where we had heard the martinis were the best in town. Well, the martinis were awfully good, but then all of our martinis in this Canadian city were quite good. At the bar we fell into talking to two guys who were also headed to the hockey game. They asked us about America and New Jersey, and we asked them about Canada and Kingston. Such conversations were not unusual on this trip. Wherever we went in Kingston, people were friendly and engaging.

Hockey, eh?

The hockey game was at the K-Rock Centre, a fairly new arena that seats over 6,000 for hockey. We had bought our tickets ($16 each, senior rate) the day before and had good seats – 10 rows back at center ice. The Kingston team is the Frontenacs and tonight they were playing the Peterborough Petes. The Fronts, as they are called locally, are in the Ontario Hockey League, are coached by NHL great (and Kingstonian) Doug Gilmour, and several of their players have been drafted by the NHL, so we expected a good display of hockey. But this night's game proved to be an uneven affair, with bits of both brilliance and mistakes. In the end the Fronts lost to the Petes 3-2, but we enjoyed the whole scene, from the crowd proudly singing the national anthem, to the requisite hockey fight, to the grumbling of the disappointed local fans as we all (3,009 announced attendance) exited the building.

Back at the B&B, as we packed for our leaving in the morning, we thought we would almost certainly return to Kingston in the summer, for everyone we met told us that Kingston was even better with grass and flowers than it was with snow. Well, Ktown (as it is sometimes called) will have to be awfully nice, we agreed, to beat our time this January. We paused in our packing to look out the window at the beginnings of another light snow fall. In the distance we could see the faint lights of the brave little ferry making its run over to Wolfe Island.

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