This Summer in Lake George

--> Tomaso,

Sandy and I always do a historical day trip when we are on our yearly Brant Lake vacation. Saratoga Battlefields; Glens Falls, where the cave scenes took place in the movie version of "Last of The Mohicans;” Glens Falls Drive-In, where teenage personal history was made; Grant's Cottage, where he finished his book and then passed; Rogers Rangers Island; Fort William Henry; Fort Anne; Fort Ticonderoga; Bloody Pond; Montcalm's camp; Half Moon on Henry Hudson's River; Fort Carillon, our eighth president Martin Van Buren's Farmhouse; and Phillip Skylers house in Skylerville. His daughter married Alexander Hamilton.

Or the the farm in Lake George Village where Georgia O’Keeffe lived with Alfred Stieglitz before all the New Mexico stuff. She lived to be 99 years old. Last year we saw many of her original paintings at a gallery in Glens Falls, New York. I believe that the town is named after the falls . . . Maybe not.

The Mohawks held the French Jesuit missionary Issac Jagues at their village, thirty miles west of Albany, twice. The Indians called them The Black Robes. It is called Auriesville. It is where his life ended after his second arrival from France. How about meeting there?

I recently ordered you the book about his life. I also ordered one for Tom Donovan and lent my copy to Prue. It is called "Saint in the Wilderness" and is an exciting, incredible read for anyone who knows and loves the Lake George, New York area. Someone needs to make a movie of his fascinating life and faith. I am especially interested in his story, because the time it all happened was when my relative, Nicholas Bachan, arrived there by wooden ship from Saint Cloud, France, through the Saint Lawrence Seaway . . .  as a soldier. So he learned of all this fabulous history as it was happening.

On his first trip back to France via Albany and the Hudson River, Father Jagues arrives by way of an English ship and is rowed to a shore near a French village. It is winter. He is dressed in rags. He asks a local where the church is. It is Christmas Eve. The man invites him to his house after the Mass. It is only then when he reveals his name and story that his countrymen and family find out that he is alive. YCMTS up.

You might remember his tall bronze statue at the south end of the Lac du Saint Sacrement, right on the border of the Battle Ground Campground. He was the first European to see Lake George. His diary reads: July 3 in 1607. He is missing some fingers from his first capture. The Mohawks were brutal. The other seven tribes feared them. They were cannibals. When the French gave them muskets they became unbeatable.

Which once again begs the question ... Why read fiction?

Thank God for Daniel Day Lewis and Chingachgook.

Magua in the Last Of the Mohicans movie (1992) played a Huron. In real life he was a Oglala Lakota. He died in 2012.

Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota.

p.s.  I always throw in a fib or two. Did you find any?                                  

Roberto Leak in Canoe Tocino