Articles by 'Lynn E. McElfresh'
From my very first summer on the River, I’ve heard the story about Harry Chalk and his tin cup. Harry was the intrepid c...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I probably have a dozen things with the word Grenell on them: t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, rain jackets, canvas bags and...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Before my first visit to Grenell in 1975, my then fiancé - now husband, Gary, showed me the lot map of Grenell drawn in ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
From the day the Grenell Island Community House was dedicated in 1934, the southwest corner room was designated as a lib...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
The trek to the post office to retrieve the mail is a daily ritual on Grenell. It’s rarely a straight shot there and bac...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Augusta Cecconi-Bates is known as a composer of operas and operettas. Her most recent operettas were not only written in the Thousand Islands, but were inspired by characters
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Located near the foot of the island, just down the sidewalk from the Grenell Island Chapel, stands the heart of Grenell—...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Island life is all about boats, so why did it take Grenell Island Improvement Association 91 years to come up with the i...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Two old cottages beneath a fistful of pines—that was my first impression of what was then known as Ogden Point. Be...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
SHIP! It’s a game we started when my husband retired nine years ago. It’s nothing original. We actually got the idea fro...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I see ospreys almost everyday of the year. When I go to the grocery story, in the parking lot and ditto at the gas station...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
The portal to our magical island world starts in Fishers Landing at Chalks Marina.
I think my heartbeat doubles as soon...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
“I never touched a paint brush until age thirty-five,” Kelly Curry says proudly. But in the past decade, she has painted...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Because of daily walks on Wellesley, rarely does a day pass that I’m not out on the River. I can’t imagine visiting the ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
The last two months I’ve written about my walks on Wellesley. But as with anything in life, sometimes it’s not the desti...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Last month, I gave you a peek at the trails of Wellesley Island State Park (WISP). This month, I want to take you ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
For me, walking in nature and writing are somehow connected. The more I write, the more I need to walk. In order to writ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
We usually close up, leave the island and head south after Columbus Day. This year we left early as our son Rob got marr...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I learned to fish here in the Thousand Islands the year before we were married. My husband, Gary, grew up fishing. It wa...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
“The real drama came when a boat ferrying a dozen of our weddings guests, including my wife Nina, began to take on water over the transom...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I remember the first time I saw a loon. It was in the early 1980’s, because we still had that small aluminum fishing boa...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I read about the “Mystery of Maple Island” my very first season on the island. So I’m long familiar with the legend that...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
The schooner Roseway tied up to the dock at Frink’s Park in Clayton, New York, on June 25th. It was a cool, dreary, drip...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
As our neighbor says, “Cottage life isn’t for sissies.” He says it with a smile though and we all know what it means.
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Non-island friends are always curious about how we get things to the island. There’s only one answer…by boat.
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Music has been part of island life on Grenell since Uncle Otis had a heavy square grand piano pulled across the ice back...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
For me, there are only three seasons: Pre-River Season, River Season and Post-River Season. Pre-River Season s...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Flags abound in the islands. At Grenell Island’s July 2009 regatta, participants were asked to count the flags as they p...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
It wasn’t used and it took up too much space. Yet, chopping it up with an ax and burning it was not an option.
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Greg Lago welcomes winter. Everyday, snowy or not, Lago makes his way to his studio on James Street “The good thing abou...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
By the time I first arrived on Grenell Island in 1975, my husband’s family had already been on the Point, for nearly a h...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Janet was five, when her parents bought the cottage on Grenell Island, and it's where she spent her summers. She became ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
When my husband proposed to me back in 1974, he asked if I would consider getting married on the island. At that point i...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Spring of 2007, we returned to Grenell Island to find a display of breath-taking paintings in the Grenell Island Communi...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh