Summer Vacation | Kingston Adventures

We wanted to stay close to home this year for our main summer vacation. The one place my wife and I had been talking about visiting is Kingston, Ontario. As a city, it is one of the older urban centres in Ontario. It is home to numerous historic sites, not to mention some stunning architecture and natural landscapes. We only spent three full days in the city, but we got to see a lot in that time. We visited Old Fort Henry, took a river cruise on the St. Lawrence through the 1000 Islands, and explored the Pumphouse Museum. We then spent some time in the historic downtown area. For my camera kit, I took along my D750 with the 24mm, 35mm, 50mm (which I ended up not using at all), 60mm, and a manual focus 200mm lens. I also packed along a Pentax Zoom 280-P, a 1990s point-and-shoot loaded with the new Kentmere 200, my Mamiya m645, the 45mm lens and a roll of Lomography Potsdam and Ilford HP5+.

Starting off our vacation with a bang, hitting up Old Fort Henry. Now, I’ve been trying to return to Fort Henry for several years; the last time I visited, I was five, according to my parents. Since then, I have visited the fort twice, and in both instances, it was closed. Once they were set up for the Halloween event, and then again for the second time, they shut down for the season. This time, I made sure the site was open. Fort Henry is the only Victorian-era masonry fort in Ontario, built primarily to defend the entrance to Lake Ontario and the Rideau Canal. Its secondary role was to defend the Kingston Dockyards (today home to the Royal Military College) until they shut down in 1853. The fort had not changed much; the usual refreshes were everywhere, but I got the chance to see all the displays and watch the guards do their training manoeuvres. However, the bugs were nasty; they weren’t biting but still annoying enough to chase me off the top gun deck of the central redoubt. I’m accustomed to smaller forts featuring multiple buildings and varied materials. Fort Henry was designed primarily for artillery; it’s big, grey, and difficult to photograph from the inside. But at least I was able to get some shots of the guard doing their thing and a lovely music demo.

The second day was spent in downtown Kingston. We had initially planned to visit the Pumphouse Museum first, then head into downtown. However, a school group was there in the morning, so we revised our plans and headed downtown. Now, we had already parked downtown and walked out to the Pumphouse, so it was back the way we came. One problem with downtown Kingston is that there is a lot to see but no easy way to see it all. We then wandered around various streets before grabbing lunch and heading back to the Pumphouse for a couple of hours. The Pumphouse is a former water pumping station that served Kingston for several years and is now a lovely little museum featuring the original steam engine and pumps in place, as well as a great display of model trains. I ended up walking back to get the car and bringing it to the Pumphouse so that we wouldn’t have to walk back a third time!

Our final full day took us out of Kingston about a half-hour east to the town of Gananoque. The reason is that in our planning for this trip, we wanted to take a 1000 Islands Cruise. We did not want a long cruise or one that included a stop at Hart Island. The cruises were limited out of Kingston, but the cruise out of Gananoque offered a simple one-hour tour. The tour took us through two main island groups: the Navy Islands, located around the 1000 Islands Bridge, and the Admiralty Islands, closer to Gananoque. We arrived in Gananoque a few hours before the boat was due to leave, which gave us some downtime. I took the chance and wandered around a bit near the docks; I didn’t have the time to explore the downtown area on this trip (but it gave us a reason to return). I did find a cool, abandoned factory. I was expecting a lot more people on the boat and having to jockey for positions, but there weren’t many people. And those mainly stayed on the upper decks, and I had the bow section to myself. I had planned to use either the 35mm or 50mm lens but ended up using the 60mm macro lens. Despite being a macro lens, the 60mm was wonderful for landscape work through the island chains.

It was a lot of fun to go on vacation earlier in the year. And more importantly, I was able to explore a city in Canada that I have not visited in any real way in several years. The last time I passed through was a short stop on my way home from Ottawa back in 2009 and the weather was terrible that day also! And on the other couple of occasions, the weather didn’t cooperate much either. If you are looking for a fun spot to explore with a tonne of history that might not be on your radar, then Kingston might be a good spot to check out. You can check out all my photos from the trip over on Flickr!