Open Writing

Ask most people who have not visited the United States what New York signifies to them, and they will answer “Manhattan.” Ask any number of New York City dwellers what it signifies to them, and all too many will reply “Manhattan”, “Queens,” Brooklyn and perhaps “Long Island.” New York City dwellers dismiss anything outside the city as “up state,” a phrase that has an almost derogatory connotation.

Surprisingly few people acknowledge that New York isn’t just a city, but a State. It is one of the most beautiful and dramatic regions in the USA. It extends to the Canadian border at Montreal, and is over 400 miles wide at its widest point. Nor do they know that out of a total state population of close to 20 million, a little over 8 million live in the five boroughs of New York City, and the rest live in “up state.”

It comes as no surprise then that a spectacularly scenic region known as The Finger Lakes might just as well be on Mars as a mere 250 miles from the metropolis. The Finger Lakes is the collective name for ten bodies of water, running roughly north and south, just below the southern shore of Lake Ontario. They were scraped out by glaciers during the last ice age, and filled with water as the ice melted.

They are all beautiful, and all very different in size and characteristics. Their names are taken from Indian tribes who were, and in some cases still are, indigenous to the area. The smallest, Lake Otisco, is just five miles long, and the largest, Lake Cayuga, is thirty eight miles from end to end. The two largest lakes, Cayuga and Seneca are up to three hundred feet deep in places and have steep banks, while some of the smaller bodies are so shallow that weed infestation requires constant attention to maintain navigability.

The lakes are set in hilly farm country, and the approach to some of them by road is full of surprises for first time visitors because the lakes are hidden by the hills and surrounding woods. So it isn’t until the last minute that they come into view. Counter to this, summer storms often take boaters by surprise because the prevailing winds are across the lakes. These storms come boiling over the hills, literally out of a clear blue sky, and can be quite violent on the larger lakes, but are fortunately short lived in most cases.

Salt deposits were discovered under Cayuga, and now there is a network of huge caverns where the salt was mined out. The Cayuga salt mines, along with such deposits elsewhere, were responsible for the dramatic decline in the world value of salt, which had hitherto only been available from salt pans and briny lakes in relatively small quantities.

Cayuga has also been used for the testing of sonar emitters used in nuclear submarines. General Electric, who made the sonar equipment in nearby Syracuse, took advantage of the deep water and the temperature stratification at different depths due to underwater currents. These variations distort sonar signals and must be compensated for to maintain accuracy.

Beyond these commercial uses, the Finger Lakes are predominantly utilized for recreation. The shores are in great demand as a location for summer cottages and even year round dwellings. Most of the relatively level sites were snapped up years ago, so any recent construction has been forced to locate on progressively more precipitous land.

Overcoming these constraints has taken every bit of building ingenuity available, and has resulted in some visually interesting designs. The designs also demonstrate the degree of inconvenience people will tolerate to have a place by the water. Examples are foot bridges from the road to the house, spiral rather than conventional staircases, and parking only on the roadside.

Boating is by far the largest recreational activity on the Finger Lakes. Almost every dwelling has a boat of some sort tied to a dock or moored out. The variety of craft is amazing: from kayaks to small fishing boats to quite large sailing vessels. An uninitiated observer might well be curious as to what purpose a 36 foot yacht with ocean going capability would have on a lake just 38 miles long and at most 2 miles wide.

A little research would reveal that Cayuga, via canals and smaller lakes, connects with Lake Ontario, the other Great Lakes, the Hudson River and the St. Lawrence Seaway. As a result, many owners will take their boats south to Florida in the winter. Even in the summer months, skippers who race their boats will head for Ontario and spend the season competing in the numerous regattas staged by yacht clubs from Sackets Harbor in the east to Toronto in the west.

Yet another surprise the Finger Lakes have to offer is a number of wineries. This part of New York State probably rivals California’s Napa Valley in the production of grapes for wine making. Some of the Lakes, notably Lake Keuka, have the right soil and localized climate to produce some excellent whites, and some pretty good Champaign too. Dr. Constantin Frank, a notable viniculturist, pioneered the cultivation of varietals that did well in the region.

Though the French would probably not want to own up to it, many of their older vines come from Finger Lakes cuttings after a root louse blight, Phylloxera, decimated their plants in the 1800’s. The American vines are Phylloxera resistant. It’s also a little known fact that a considerable quantity of New York State grapes are shipped to California to be made into wine.

Despite ignorance of what the Finger Lakes have to offer in general, many people across America and in Europe are familiar with the name Watkins Glen because it’s on the NASCAR car racing circuit. They probably don’t realize that Watkins Glen is located at the southern end of Seneca Lake.

Seneca, the second largest of the Finger Lakes, was the least exploited until recent times because of the rocky cliffs that characterize most of its shoreline. Known for its fierce storms, boaters were reluctant to use it because there was literally nowhere to run for shelter when a storm broke. Latterly, overcrowding on the more hospitable lakes left boaters no choice but to take what Seneca had to offer.

Despite long running promotional programs such as the “I Love New York” campaign, The State as a whole is still under-appreciated. Towering mountains, wild country and stunningly beautiful lakes are apparently no match for the allure of the bright lights of “A Wonderful Town.”

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John can be contacted at wordworks@hvc.rr.com