To be exact, there are 1,894 islands in the island region of the St. Lawrence seaway.  We stayed at an RV park in Alexandria Bay and then took a 2 1/2 hour boat tour around some of the islands.

The St. Lawrence River is half in  Canada and half in the US.  Our boat tour took us to both sides of the seaway and also to Millionaires Row.  These are summer homes built mostly by the very rich during the Industrial Revolution on private islands. There are cables running under the water to give each island electricity, water is obtained directly from the river as it is 95% pure, and special “honey wagon” barges come to the individual islands to empty the septic tanks.  Here are a few of the houses:

This house was built by a Texan who also has an exact replica of it in Texas.  He and his wife have decided the houses are too big and have put them up for sale.  Supposedly, a country rock star is looking at this one.

The person who owns this house has their property in two countries.  The main house is in the US and the little island across the bridge (which has the two nations’ flags on it), lies in Canada.

Then there is this fixer upper that has been reduced to 2.25 million dollars. Maybe it’s the weather but we have seen many large structures that have caved in like this. It was noon when we took the tour and as a result the water isn’t showing up as blue as it really is.  The whole seaway is a beautiful deep blue.

Towards the end of the tour, the boat stopped at Boldt Castle on Heart Island and we got off to have a look.  Shuttle boats run to this island every 30 minutes and we got a later one to return us to Alexandria Bay.  The castle was built in 1904 by George Boltd and was to be a surprise for his wife on Valentines Day. However, she died of pneumonia at age 42, in January.  George stopped work on the castle and never set foot on the island again.  The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority took ownership in 1977 and began a rehabilitation program.  The castle has 127 rooms and 365 windows.  It’s quite a site.