virtualDavis

Spring has returned to Essex, New York! After a looong winter in the Adirondacks the Essex-Charlotte ferry resumed service this morning. The video above captures the very first boat from Vermont to New York.

On March 31 Lake Champlain Transportation sent out this discouraging message:

We have made a test run at the Charlotte, VT – Essex, NY crossing. The ice is still too thick (10″ – 12″) to run. We will continue to monitor the conditions daily. We will notify you of any new changes through our Email/Text notification system.

Oomph! Bad news. Or April Fools?

We waited. And temperatures dropped. Parts of the Lake which had thawed refroze. More snow fell. And then, Eureka! The following message went out on April 4:

The Charlotte, VT – Essex, NY ferry crossing will OPEN Thursday, April 7th. Departures every hour from VT: 6:00 am – 8:00 pm. Departures every hour from NY: 6:30 am – 8:30 pm

Spring has finally returned to Essex!

A true North Country winter! The Champlain Valley is blanketed, no… quaint, but no. Rewind. The Champlain Valley is buried beneath another 15-18″ of fresh snow. Beautiful. Picturesque. Unless you’re pushing a shovel! (Or trying to get somewhere…)

Getting somewhere is the learning lesson topic of the day. Why get anywhere other than right here. Stop driving the desk and go out for a ski! Shortly I hope to do just that. But first a glimpse at the now mostly frozen lake. I shot the fuzzy video on my phone this morning to show that the Essex-Charlotte ferry is still managing despite the ice. This vessel is technically not an ice breaker and can only manage to navigate until the ice becomes thicker than 3″ thick. Which — I’m guessing now — isn’t too far off. In fact, it’s already well beyond that near our dockhouse. Then we’ll reallyhave to stay home and play in the snow!

I missed an opportunity to bid on another great old photo postcard of Rosslyn’s dockhouse/boathouse in an eBay auction this weekend! The photograph shows the Essex-Charlotte ferry early in the 20th century and beyond the ferry boat the Rosslyn boathouse is distinctly visible and looking very much like it does today.

Do you recognize the circled dockhouse/boathouse in the blown-up image I grabbed from a current eBay auction? It’s a bit difficult to discern from the fuzzy photo, but that’s Rosslyn’s dockhouse fifty or sixty years ago. Historic photos and postcards of this unique building protruding out into Essex, New York’s North Bay are not uncommon on eBay and elsewhere. Soon enough I’ll be sharing some of those images over at the Rosslyn Redux website.

Rosslyn Dock House via twitpic.com

I took this photo a day or two before they closed the ferry. I was sitting in my car, waiting to be ferried across Lake Champlain to Charlotte, Vermont.