Last week we looked at some “winter’s tales” from our area, and this week – we have some more! Seems like the Finger Lakes winters provided a lot of time to spin some stories, still remembered more than a century later.

1890s – Good Skating
The tale is told that steamboat builder A. W. Springstead, constructing a boat in Hammondsport, had to meet fellow Keuka Lake navigation mogul Henry Morse in Penn Yan. But the lake was frozen over, and the roads, even without snow, were pretty much useless. A trip by rail would cost him two days. So he strapped on his ice skates, and schussed himself along all the way from Hammondsport to Penn Yan, talked things over with Henry, and skated back home in time for dinner. No word on what his big blue ox was doing! Since this would require 42 miles of skating, all on the same day, you’re welcome to take the story just as you like. I MIGHT buy this with an ice BOAT. But I’d still have my doubts.

Turn of the Century – Good Sledding
Hammondsport kids loved to go sledding (or sliding, or coasting) on Pulteney Street in the village – it was their favorite spot. Corning kids zoomed WAY down those long straight steep streets on the south side. By the time of World War I or so, those activities had to be banned. Cars had become far too common, and silent snowy streets became a memory.

1901 – Getting the Mail
Frank Houck had the seasonal mail contracts for the routes from Penn Yan to Wayne and from Hammondsport to Dundee. He ran these routes as long as the lake was frozen up, after which the customary steamboat delivery – the preferred method – resumed.

1901 – The Iceman Laboreth
The ice on Lake Salubria was a foot thick in 1901, and it wasn’t going to go to waste. Workers were cutting it into more-or-less manageable blocks and sending it to shore with horse-drawn sledges. Once there it would be packed into icehouses and passively preserved for the height of summer, in a world without refrigeration. The Shannon steam plant in Penn Yan used 6000 box cars to ship out 20,000 tons of the stuff that season. This was also happening at multiple places on each of the Finger Lakes, and on smaller bodies such as Thurston Pond, Howard Pond, and the Prattsburgh reservoir. It looks romantic now, but it was wet, freezing, backbreaking work.

The same could be said for maple sugaring. Imagine spending every day in deep snow, lugging two buckets at a time on every trip, and getting soaked from spills while you’re doing it. And you HAVE to do it, because the cows aren’t giving at this season, and you need the maple sales to pay the taxes. “The good old days.”

1908 – Into the Air
Glenn Curtiss loved skating, and biking, and motorcycling, and anything else that involved going fast. By early 1908, Glenn and his friends had finished their first experimental airplane. As lead designer on this aircraft, Lt. Tom Selfridge would of course have the honor of piloting its first flight. But Tom had been sent off on army duty, and Curtiss warned the others – the ice wouldn’t last. So on March 12 steamboat Springstead chugged from Hammondsport out to the edge of the ice and slid the airplane Red Wing onto the frozen surface of Keuka. Engineer Casey Baldwin revved her up, skidded down the ice, lifted into the air, flew 319 feet, and landed safely. No man, and no airplane, had ever flown so far on their first attempt. It crashed in a second flight, on St. Patrick’s Day. Tom Selfridge never saw his airplane in a completed, intact state.

Here we are – in the Finger Lakes! Eleven lakes, in glacially-formed clefts, running south to north toward Lake Ontario and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
We know about those lakes. But what about our OTHER lakes (and ponds)? For the 14-county region is full of them.
The “Little Lakes” of Lamoka and Waneta lie, often overlooked, in the trough between Keuka and Seneca Lakes. The Baptist Camp Lamoka is on the eastern shore of the southern lake, while Boy Scout Camp Gorton is on the eastern shore of the northern lake. So a lot of local folks enjoyed these lakes as children.
Archeological digs nearby discovered what’s now named the Lamoka Culture, people who hunted and gathered 3,500 years ago.
A turn-of-the-century steam launch once operated on Waneta, and water was pumped through a penstock to Keuka Lake, where it generated electricity. I’ve seen people driving and racing their cars on the frozen surface, though I don’t recommend it.
Lamoka used to be called “Mud Lake,” and it drains through Mud Creek. An impoundment going back to the 1790s creates Mill Pond at the outlet in Bradford. Every spring residents would release the pent-up waters, and hundred-foot “arks” would ride southward down Mud Creek, reaching the Conhocton laden with a year’s produce on their “returnless journey” to Chesapeake Bay.
Mendon Ponds Park, south of Rochester, has Deep Pond, Long Pond, Lost Pond, Quaker Pond, Hundred Acre Pond, and the Devil’s Bathtub… this last one being a glacially formed kettle. Non-motorized fishing is allowed, and there are 30 miles of trail where you bump pleasantly up and down, sometimes past rows of ancient maples. There are boardwalks through wetlands, and it used to be (I don’t know if this is still true) that the songbirds would literally eat from your hands.
In the late 1930s, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge began reversing a century old-practice – workers FLOODED the marsh, rather than DRAINING it.
Our forebears lived on the edge of starvation, so always lusted for more pasture and farmland. Restoring the marsh was a godsend for birds along the Atlantic Flyway, winging their way north and south every year, desperate for safe resting spots. They’ve got it now, and even eagles nest here. You can drive around the Main Pool, and visit the Tschache Pool, both shallow ponds that shelter waterfowl in millions.
And while we’ve got birds on the brain, let’s make sure we remember Sapsucker Pond, the central feature of Sapsucker Woods, home to Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A forest trail winds all around it, with several spots where you can step right to the shore, or even out on a platform; the Visitor Center also overlooks the pond. There’s a little island, and some very nice snags. I’ve met orioles, red-wings, wood ducks, mallards, coots, great blue herons, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and (in sunny weather) dozens of turtles at once.
Sanford Lake, near Savona, long ago hosted a small amusement park, of which nothing much is known besides the fact of its existence. It became a popular swimming area, with a raft and diving board, but has now become the haunt of coot and hern. When I first started visiting, beavers were active on the short outlet, which runs into Mud Creek, but they may have moved on now (which is their standard practice).
Besides the beaver, the shoreline of the 30-acre lake is also home to fox and deer, squirrels and chipmunks, while migrating waterfowl find it a sanctuary for the night. I know where the oriole nests, and I love to see the water lily. Small pond, surrounding forest, dirt road, easy trail – I love this place!