The fine equipment and frequent train service of the Delaware & Hudson between New York and Bluff Point without change, by daylight or at night, and the direct connection of the same line with the Hudson River steamboats, places this resort high upon the list of available summering points in the dry and healthful north for families from the metropolis. Travel from the west, coming down the St. Lawrence River, or through Canada via Montreal, will find Bluff Point easy to reach; while from the White Mountains and New England seashore resorts it is accessible by through trains via St. Albans or Burlington.
The western shore of Lake Champlain forms the margin of the most varied and altogether delightful wilderness to be found anywhere upon this continent east of the Rocky Mountains. The serried peaks to the westward are in plain view from its shores, their foot-hills ending in lofty and often abrupt ridges where they meet the lake. Three impetuous rivers, the Saranac, the Salmon and the Ausable, flow down from the cool, clear lakes, hidden away in the wildwood, and, breaking through this barrier at and in the vicinity of Plattsburgh, contribute not only to the lucid waters of Lake Champlain but greatly to the picturesque variety of the region.
* * *
There lie broad acres laced with rills
And gemmed with lake and pond
Behind a wave of wooded hills
And mountain peaks beyond.
Benjamin F. Leggett.
* * *
=Plattsburgh=, 168 miles from Albany, at the mouth of the Saranac, is a delightful threshold to the Adirondacks. The northern part of Lake Champlain offers special attractions to camping parties. The shores and islands abound in excellent sites. Lake Champlain is also replete with interest to the historian. The ruins of Fort St. Anne are still seen on the north end of the Isle La Mott, built by the French in 1660. Valcour Strait, where one of the battles of ’76 was fought; Valcour’s Island, where lovers came from far and near, built air castles, wandered through these shady groves for a season or two, and then vanished from sight, bankrupt in everything but mutual affection; Cumberland Bay, with its victory, September, 1814, when the British were driven back to Canada; and many other points which can be visited by steamer or yacht.
It is thirty years since I made my first trip to the Saranacs and I remember well the long journey of those early days, but now we can step aboard a well equipped train at Plattsburgh and in five or six hours stand by the bright waters of the Lower Saranac, which might to-day be called the centre and starting point for all resorts and camping grounds in the eastern lake district of the Adirondacks. Floating about the Saranac Islands of a summer evening, roaming among forest trees, strolling over to the little village one mile distant, and absorbing the rich exhilaration of a life of untrammeled freedom, with a perfect hotel, and blazing fire-places if the weather happens to be unpleasant, form a grand combination, alike for tourists or seekers after rest.