Synopsis

The Thousand Islands’ very name conjures up images of great natural beauty and nautical wonders. There are forested islands replete with storybook stone castles. Exquisite mahogany runabouts can be seen speeding across the placid surface of the mighty St. Lawrence. Names like Boldt, Bourne, Emery, Lyon, and Pullman are embedded in the Golden Age of the area, and it all comes to life in this pictorial history of the river.

Wooden Boats of the St. Lawrence River tells the story of the rich and powerful men who constructed castles and built classic wooden boats in the Thousand Islands. At the center of the story loom David and Charlie Lyon.

A descendent of the Lyon family, David Kunz tells the story of the river through historical photographs. David is the great-great-nephew of Charles Potter Lyon and Helen Griffin Lyon. Most of the photographs in this book are from the Lyon Archives on Oak Island in Chippewa Bay in the heart of The Thousand Islands.

Bill Simpson, novelist, poet, biographer, and publisher, first set foot on Oak Island in the fall of 1976. He has visited the island practically every summer since. Simpson teamed up with Mr. Kunz to research and write Wooden Boats of the St. Lawrence River.