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

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The Pull of Place

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. - Oliver Wendell Homes, Sr.

Last weekend, I attended a small reunion at my beloved college. Although fewer than thirty of us attended, we were a fierce and mighty group. We reminisced.  We laughed.  We poured over yearbooks and pawed through photographs. And we wandered the beautiful campus we called home for four years.

This wandering got me to thinking about the power of place. My favorite author is Anne Rivers Siddons. Almost all of her books have a location in the title - Colony, Downtown, Up Island, Peachtree Road. In fact, the main character is often not really a person, but a place - Maine, Atlanta, a river, an island.  These places take hold of the actual characters and never let them go. These places form the basis of their passions and their loves and their lives and their livelihoods.

Four places.  When I think back, there are four places that have infected my spirit, four places I dream of.  Some are home.  Some are places I dream of making home.  All call to me.  Oddly enough, none of these places is where I came from, where I grew up, where home really is.

Four places - three small towns and one large city, Paris. Yes, Paris.

 I think Paris is the most beautiful place on this planet. When I imagine having the luxury of spending a month in an exotic place, that place is always Paris. It would be my first vacation destination.  It would be my last as well. I love everything about it - the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Champs Elysee, the restaurants, the cafes, the winding hidden streets, the art deco details, the language. Ever since visiting as a teenager on a school trip (how lucky was that???), Paris has been the reason I travel and when travel is possible, Paris is where I want to go. A month in Paris would be a dream come true. Even a minute in Paris is a dream come true.

When I return from travelling, I am lucky enough to come home to a kind of Mayberry, a small town in northeast New Jersey in which the entire downtown exists between two train lines, where parades are held for Halloween, for the Fourth of July, for the opening day of football and baseball seasons and for Memorial Day. On clear fall days, I can hear the music and drums of the marching band on the high school football field. We have a wonderful town pool, tons of recreational sports, an amazing school system. We have a rich and surprisingly interesting history. Our neighbors are our friends and our friends are our neighbors. Sure, we have national banks, a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts and a CVS, but we have our own inn and plenty of mom and pop stores.  But for a local pharmacy, we wouldn't have our two boys. The recent death of a popular jeweler hit everyone surprisingly hard. I didn't start out here, but I certainly plan to end my days here.

And then there is summer.  In New Hampshire, there is a small village on Lake Winnipesaukee, a throwback to the 1950's with shoreline cabins, a rustic country store, mini-golf and a seafood shack with the best milkshakes (or frappes as they are known in New England) ever made. We cruise the lake on a ship that cannt really be described, but has to be seen to be believed.  We visit amusement parks with a Christmas or fairy tale theme.  We ascent the tallest in the northeast and take in the views with our mouths hanging open. We relax on screened in porches, playing cards or Scrabble or Uno. Until recently (okay, twenty-five years or so), there was only one channel on the TV, the phone had a party line and the road was unpaved. My much younger brother called it The Big Bumpy as a toddler. We still have the Bakelite phone with the rotary dial. When I think of my happy place, I think of my town in New Hampshire.

And then there is my college home.  Really, I spent the least amount of time there of all my happy places except, of course, for Paris. It was my first home-away-from-home. It was my first experience of fending for myself and being totally responsible for no one except me. As a senior, it was the first, and really only, time I lived alone. Those four years were the making of me. When I drive up for the infrequent reunions, I begin to cry when I see the first road sign. The waterworks begin again when I hit the small highway that takes me to the college. It starts again as I pass the college gates. This is the place that comes to mind when I think of growing up, of enduring friendships, of fun and laughter and learning.  My beloved college has changed over the years in response to economic and social pressure, but the campus remain essentially unchanged. I can visit and see my dorms and the windows that looked out on the world. I can wander and reminisce and feel young again.

These places.  They pulled me in and will never let me go. I want to be in all these places simultaneously, all the time, every day.  And, of course, while that can obviously never happen, all I need is a photo to bring me back to all the places I call home.

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. - Tad Williams