North Country At Work

Guideboat builder Carl Hathaway thinking- or “cogitating” as he liked to call it- in Hathaway’s Boat Shop. Saranac Lake, NY. Circa 1960-80. Photo courtesy of Chris Woodward.

Guideboat builder Carl Hathaway carrying a guideboat. Saranac Lake, NY. Circa 1960-1980. Photo courtesy of Chris Woodward.

Guideboat builders Carl Hathaway and Chris Woodward in Hathaway’s Boat Shop. Woodward had just bought the boat shop from Hathaway. Saranac Lake, NY. 1991. Photo courtesy of Chris Woodward.

A guideboat in the making in Woodward Boat Shop. Saranac Lake, NY. March 18, 2009. Photo courtesy of Chris Woodward.

Lilias Wrisley Bartlett ran a boarding house in her home in Lewis from the late 1930s to the early 1950s.  Lilias did all the cooking and cleaning, while her husband Frank tended the farm. The house is still there today, across from Barber’s Pond in Lewis. Here Linda Jackson, Lilias’ granddaughter, shares her stories of […]

Whitney Jackson’s very first gig was delivering newspapers for the Press Republican in Elizabethtown in the 1990s. She inherited the route from her older brother, who started it because their mother decided he needed to learn responsibility. Eventually, the job got passed to the rest of the Jackson siblings – with their parents’ help driving […]

An employee of the Deer’s Head Inn, Zach Jackson, rolling homemade pasta through a machine in the kitchen. 2018. Elizabethtown, NY. Courtesy of Wyatt Jackson. Wyatt Jackson is a cook & manager at the Deer’s Head Inn. Listen to his story at one of our listening stations!

Cooks from the Thousand Islands House. The hotel opened in July 1873, and was torn down after Prohibition and the Depression in 1937. The hotel hired chefs from outside the North Country and brought them into town. Circa 1900. Alexandria Bay, NY. Courtesy of the Alexandria Township Historical Society.

Cranker’s Machine Shop on Mill Point. Cranker was a gunsmith and a toolmaker. He also made motors, and put the motor into the first fire boat in town. The shop closed in the 1960s. Circa 1940. Alexandria Bay, NY. Courtesy of the Alexandria Township Historical Society.

Thomson’s Boat Livery, located next to Cornwall Bros. Coal and Wood. Captain Thomson started the livery as a teenager. Circa 1890. Alexandria Bay, NY. Courtesy of the Alexandria Township Historical Society.