The Indian heritage and traditions of the Thousand Islands are mostly forgotten as the 21st century inexorably advances. Keewaydin State Park, Chippewa Bay and Iroquois Island are reminders that the Cornwall Brothers, Cape Thomson and the Clarks have no claim to being the area's first residents. Indians helped name or lend their names to many places along the river. They also gave the names of the powerful fish "muskellunge" and the "muskrat", the creature which gives rise to the term river rat. When great-grandfather Clark arrived with his family and servants in 1883, Indians still came to camp. on the plateau across the channel at Keewaydin. It was a mythical setting for the Algonquin Indians. The Thousand Islands had sacred status for the Iroquois and Algonquin tribes. At least one account credits the Indians with naming the 1000 islands “Manatoana,” which translates to “Garden of the Great Spirit.” James Fenimore Cooper refers to "that labyrinth of land and water, the Thousand Islands" in his novel The Pathfinder. I found a reference to this encampment in a 1936 Thousand Islands Sun article that was reprinted and edited by Jeanne Snow. There is a reference to the Keewaydin property and the owner at the time, William T. Dewart. In one section of the article it is reported: “Some Indian lore is told about the spring on this property. This is where the Indians camped and used the water from this spring. » Clark's early legends detail an evening when the brave had something important to celebrate late into the night. They were apparently drinking something stronger than the famous spring elixir, and according to the story, they were making a lot of noise. Like the story...... middle of paper...... all the holes in the slats and plaster walls. This was not a complicated wiring job, as the house would have had to be gutted to accomplish this task. This would have been a monumental job and would have destroyed the murals we all wanted to preserve. Dad also hired local builder Perry Simmons in the fall of 1961 to re-roof the house before we returned for the 1962 season. The roof had been left to deteriorate for so long that the contractor only needed to 'a broom to remove the few wooden shingles that had somehow clung to what was left of the old roof. Re-roofing the house didn't come a moment too soon, as we discovered decades later. During our restoration project in the 1990s, we found such advanced rot in the porch soffits that only sawdust remained under the sheathing boards. This rot was clearly the result of neglect of the roof of 1925 - 1961.