Sunday 19 November 2023--Drizzly morning in Gananoque. Service at the local Tim Hortons is the slowest I've ever seen. One wonders at the half-dozen employees behind the counter, running back and forth nonstop to no apparent effect. Fortunately, I'm in no hurry.

I stop at the Metro grocery store and grab a couple boxes of Stoned Wheat Thins. My favorite crackers, a product of Canada, have been unavailable in the US for two years now. I think it's because of disruption to world wheat markets caused by the Ukraine war, but that's just a guess. I stock up any time I'm north of the border, two or three boxes from every grocery I happen to be in.

Drive the half-hour to Kingston on Route 2. I might save a few minutes by going on the 401, Ontario's main east-west highway. I drove that enough in my work days...I prefer the rural scenery on the old road. Find a parking spot in town--it's Sunday, so the meters are off--and pop into Berry & Peterson, a survivor in my old network of used bookshops. I browse a while and find a couple of interesting volumes, but I don't want to carry them around town, so I tell the gent at the counter that I'll be back for them.

The sky is clearing as I take a few photos around town...city hall, Prince George Hotel, the Martello tower in the harbor. The Comte de Frontenac established a fort here in 1673, for the purpose of controlling the fur trade in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence corridor. The British destroyed this in 1758, during the Seven Years' War, and felt no need to replace it until 1783, when a townsite was laid out for the benefit of Loyalists fleeing the United States following the Revolution. At that time the town (as well as the adjacent river) was known as Cataraqui, which name is currently pronounced to rhyme with Gananoque: Catta Rockway, evidently a clumsy anglicization of a corrupted French spelling of an Iroquois name, the meaning of which no one is sure of. The King's Town occupied a strategic position at the entrance to the St Lawrence River, and developed a strong military presence during the War of 1812. Fort George, over across the Cataraqui River, is now a historic site, but the Royal Military College of Canada is still there, the country's counterpart to West Point in the US. In 1840, a catastrophic fire destroyed much of the town's core, and it was rebuilt in local limestone. I've always thought it a handsome place.

I see both the Wolfe Islander III and the Wolfe Islander IV running back and forth to Wolfe Island, which I will visit at the end of the trip. I assume the latter is running trials. It will go into service when upgrades to the pier on the island are finished, and the III will be retired. The new vessel is much larger.

I have lunch in the Kingston Brewing Company. The bartender is confused by my order of an Impossible™ burger and a Caesar salad, and feels compelled to inform me that the salad is not vegan. Neither am I--I'm just curious about the burger, never having had one. It's not bad...I've had worse real burgers.

Stop back at Berry & Peterson for my books. One's a history of the Toronto Islands. The other is a catalog of heritage buildings in Prince Edward County, where I'm spending the next few days. It's a hefty tome, rather expensive, and I'm not sure how much use I'll actually get out of it. It'll look good on my bookshelf.

It's about an hour and a half from Kingston to Picton along Route 33, the coastal road. Again, it would be faster to take the 401, but then I'd miss the ferry crossing from Adolphustown to Glenora. The ferry crosses the Bay of Quinte, a narrow Z-shaped channel that nearly makes Prince Edward County an island. The 1889 Murray Canal, five miles long, finishes the job. It made passage from western points to Kingston and the Rideau Canal much safer, eliminating the need to navigate the shoals around the peninsula's southern headlands. [It took some digging to learn that the Murray Canal was named for Murray Township, now part of the municipality of Quinte West. I can't figure for whom the township was named; there is no shortage of candidates.]

It's a short drive from Glenora to Picton. The Picton Harbour Inn has joined in the trend of contactless check-in, providing me with an entry code via text. You might think that I, a relatively unsociable person, would like this. I guess I do...but sometimes banter with a hotel clerk, and the chance to get some local scuttlebutt, is all the social contact I get. I settle in, then take a walk along the three blocks of downtown Picton on Main Street. I have the impression of a pleasant and lively small town, quiet at this time of year, but not dead. At the far end I find 555 Brewing Company, where I have pizza and pints. The patio looks very nice; it must be a lively scene in summer. There's no one on it on a cold November evening. The inside room is rather small and charmless, like a takeaway pizza joint's. The beer is decent, but not particularly memorable.