Stories from Behind the Camera: The Lady of the Lake

The M/V Mount Washington on Lake Winnipesaukee

Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire is known for many things. Water sports, amazing sunsets, cool breezes, great boating, a couple hundred islands, an ice airport and charming resort communities. Its most popular and enduring attraction, however, has to be the M/V Mount Washington, a unique ship that cruises the lake from late spring until the leaves have left the trees in the fall.

Seeing this unusual ship cruising past our summer home is the most enduring memory of my many trips to this lovely lake.

But first, some history. The first Mount Washington, a wooden ship, launched in 1872 to transport travelers and cargo across the lake as part of the Boston and Maine Railroad Company. As the fastest of many such ships on the lake, she came to dominate the transportation business. By the end of the century, she transported more than 60,000 passengers each year.

Eventually, automobiles eroded the railroad business so the "Mount" was sold and converted to a tourist attraction, carrying passengers to many ports around the lake. In December, 1939, a fire broke out at the railroad station in the Weirs, the Mount's home port and spread to the ship, completely destroying it. The owner, determined to replace it, found a ship in New York, built in 1888, cut it into pieces, transported it to New Hampshire, reassembled it and launched the second Mount Washington just eight months later. In 1982, she was again sliced down the middle and 25 feet were added, making her sufficiently large to be reclassified as an an official maritime ship. She became the M/S Mount Washington.

[Historic information from https://cruisenh.com/pages/history]

The Mount in Alton Bay

When I was a kid, the Mount cruised daily from its home port in the Weirs to Meredith, Wolfeboro and Alton Bay, the four corners, more or less, of Winnipesaukee. Because our summer camp is on a bay, we got to see her four times each day, once each way in the morning as she picked up her passengers and once each way in the afternoon as she returned them home.

Even before you could see her come into view, you could hear her engines giving advance warning of her arrival. When I was small and heard those engines, we would all yell, "The Mount! The Mount is coming." My brothers and I would run down to dock and wave, four times a day, every day, even though the ship was too far away for us to see if anyone waved back.

Sometime during my middle school years, my parents sent my brother and I off on our first solo cruise from the neighboring town of Wolfeboro to our home port in Alton. I was probably fourteen and my brother would have been ten. My parents then drove, with my infant brother in tow, from one port to the other. The whole ride probably took no more than half an hour, but it was thrilling to be let loose on the great ship without a parent dictating our every move. I distinctly remember recording our departure from Wolfeboro from the back of ship on my Kodak Instamatic camera. I can picture that photograph in my mind, but cannot, unfortunately, determine its whereabouts.

The Mount in Wolfeboro

By the time I was an adult, the powers that be had changed everything. Instead of daily trips to all four ports, she started coming down past our place only four days a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. A Saturday evening dinner/dance was added. Now, sadly, she comes to our neck of the woods only on Sundays. She still cruises every day but staggers the ports depending on the day of the week. Keeping track of where she is going to be and when has become something to look up online instead of something we can easily conjure up at a moment's notice.

The Mount is the "premiere" ship in New Hampshire

Now, each night, there is a dinner cruise. For many years, the captain would bring her within fifty yards of our house on Saturday nights. Everyone along the shore here would flash spotlights, put in for this express purpose. The Mount would flash back at us. We could hear the music and sometimes, if the air was just right, smell whatever delicacy had been served for dinner. But now the ship has a new captain and her trips down the bay on summer evenings have ended.

The Mount, heading towards Little Mark Island at the mouth of Alton Bay. She would come close to shore on Saturday nights during the dinner cruise until a new captain took over the evening sail.

Worst of all, we have to remember to watch for her now on Sunday mornings and afternoons as we no longer have the advance notice of her engines. She was given a new, silent engine a few years ago, thus eliminating the hum and whirr of her engines, a sound as familiar to me as breathing.

I miss the great churning engines of the Mount. I miss the advance notice. I miss the daily trips.

Times change. Technology advances. And not always for the better.

The Mount in the Broads of Lake Winnipesaukee

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading!!!!

For print information, please message me at vmlincolnphotography@gmail.com.

Follow me on Instagram @vmlincoln.photography and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/vmlincolnphotography for more photographs from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Alaska, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, England, Iceland and the Faroe and Orkney Islands. Next stop - Hawaii!