Written by
Kim Lunman posted on May 13, 2015 12:55
Editor’s Note: Yes, Kim Lunman’s “Island Life” will hit your coffee table this month! I, personally, appreciate all that Kim does for the region – and I know our readers appreciate her efforts. This, the 2015 edition, promises to be a great one!
It's that time of year again: Island Time.
This year's issue of Island Life Magazine, available this month, takes readers to all corners of the world famous 1000 Islands by kayak, boat, plane and helicopter.
The cover, by renowned 1000 Islands photographer Ian Coristine, features an aerial shot of the Lake Fleet Islands, off of Gananoque, including Prince Regent and Sugar Islands, showcasing this region's epic natural beauty. There are nearly 2,000 islands in the 1000 Islands - 1,864 of them - scattered on the St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Cape Vincent and Brockville and Morristown.
It's quite something to see these idyllic islands and their historic cottages and castles from the sky like the aptly-named Red Top Island near Gananoque pictured in this article. Coristine, a pilot and author from Raleigh Island, shares with us his "privileged view" in a photo essay preview of his newest book, “Ian Coristine's 1000 Islands.” And I'll take readers on an aerial tour of the islands with 1000 Islands Helicopter Tours.
Island Life Magazine 2015, the premier 1000 Islands glossy magazine, is published annually with 25,000 copies distributed to select households in eastern Ontario, in the EMC St. Lawrence newspaper May 21 newspaper and the Thousand Islands Sun, May 27 newspaper. Current copies and past issues of Island Life Magazine are available for sale online at www.islandlifemag.ca.
This year's magazine features an article about Hill Island, by Don Ross, a long-time Hill Island resident, author and former Thousand Islands Parks naturalist and founder of both the Thousand Islands Watershed Land Trust and the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve. Another Hill Island story spotlights the 50th anniversary of the 1000 Islands Tower on Hill Island and its new owners from Germany, Konrad and Heidi Linckh.
One of Canada's oldest island golf courses, The Grenadier Island Country Club (GICC), near Rockport, is also featured. Other features include: An article on Bluff Island near Clayton and its charming boutique for boaters called Boateak; Yeo Island and its most mysterious cross, near Rockport, and nearby Tar Island's historic Totem Point and its new owners from the Lone Star State as well as Brockville's beautiful 'backyard': The Brock Isles. The magazine also features more spectacular 1000 Islands images by Sackets Harbor N.Y. photographer Joseph T. Meirose IV, featured in a photo essay entitled 'Riverscapes.'
The 1000 Islands wouldn't be the 1000 Islands without its famous castles: Boldt Castle on Heart Island and Singer Castle on Dark Island. This year's issue includes stories about the ongoing remarkable restoration efforts at the castle, built in 1904 by Waldorf-Astoria Hotel owner George C. Boldt. Boldt famously halted construction in 1904 when his wife Louise died, leaving it unfinished and vacant for decades, before the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority took it over as a tourism attraction and started rebuilding Boldt's dream, one room at a time. Judy Keeler, of Chippewa Bay N.Y., a meticulous researcher of this region's Gilded Age, writes about Dark Island's Singer Castle's owner and Commodore Frederick Gilbert Bourne's fleet of yachts and boats.
Every island tells a story. And the Thousand Islands have so many more than a thousand stories to tell. Enjoy Island Life this summer!
By Kim Lunman
Kim Lunman is the founder, owner and publisher of Island Life Magazine (www.islandlifemag.ca) based in Brockville, Ontario. Island Life Magazine will be distributed in late May, in local newspapers in eastern Ontario and northern New York. Kim is an award-winning Canadian journalist who lives in her hometown of Brockville, "the City of the 1000 Islands."
Kim received the Keeper of the Islands Award, from the 1000 Islands Gananoque Chamber of Commerce, in 2013. A former national correspondent for the Globe and Mail's Victoria and Ottawa bureaus, Kim also worked as a reporter for the Calgary Herald. Kim is the recipient of a National Newspaper Award, for freelance writing, and was also was nominated for a Michener Award, the highest honour in Canada for public service journalism. Her freelance writing has appeared in Boat US, Lakeland Boating, Reader's Digest and the National Post.
