Articles by 'Lynn E. McElfresh'
It’s time to head north. I get emails from non-River friends all the time asking, “When are you going back to the cabin ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
When we travel to different corners of the world, I’m always amazed how often our experiences somehow link back to the S...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
It’s estimated that around 5 million people in Canada and 20 million people in the United States are of Scottish decent....
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
My father-in-law used to joke that the most expensive piece of artwork he owned was the wooden blue heron that sat on th...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
You can see the utter joy on their faces as children of the congregation come forward to ring the chapel. Lots of childr...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
I’ve heard stories, seen pictures and I’ve even seen the dusty stuffed trophies mounted...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Editor’s Note: Congratulations to all Grenell Island residents – past and present - who participated in the island...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Sometimes Mother Nature needs a hand. Low water levels on the St. Lawrence presented environmental groups the perfect op...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Island neighbor, Catherine Hinds, tells me the water was so low the year she was born, that her parents could walk from ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Bounce! Bounce! PLOP! And the phone was gone. It was a blustery day and the river was so rough my husband changed to car...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
“Please remember to dump your garbage far enough from shore so it does not wash back onto the shores of Grenell.” I foun...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
When you live on an island, boats are important. In the early days, most people got to and from the island via a steamer...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Sam Grenell first laid out lots for summer cottages on Grenell Island in 1879. By the turn of the century there were ove...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
If you cruise by Grenell Island after dark this month, you might notice something special. Grenell Island is glowing wit...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Grenellians have an intense attachment to the old launch "That’s Her". For me, the stories make her seem larger...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
During my first week on the island, July, 1975, I went to the Grenell Island Store/Post Office to mail postcards home to...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
Gone in 5 minutes… Every story I’ve heard about fire on the islands usually had the phrase…it was gone in 5 minutes.
...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
If there is one thing that Grenell Island does not need, it’s more numbers. There are Lot Numbers, Fire Numbers and the ...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
“How many cottages are on the island?”
This is usually the first question I’m asked when I begin to describe life on Gr...
by: Lynn E. McElfresh
A Story of Smugglers, River Pirates, Love, War and Freedom Fighters in 1838...
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