Home Waters

July 2003

My home waters run deep.

As a child summering in the Finger Lakes, I spent sunstruck days immersed in Canandaigua Lake’s cool, clear water until my fingers and my toes shriveled like prunes.

As a teen with a driver’s license and a yen to explore, I roamed the dusty back roads and narrow dirt trails of the Bristol Hills that rise above the lake, aware—but barely—that to some those hills were sacred.

As a young mother of a pair of West Coast kids, I delighted in sharing with them the East Coast tradition of summer at the lake, complete with boating and bonfires, farm stands and fireflies.

Last summer I returned alone and was reminded all over again that Canandaigua Lake is the most beautiful of New York’s Finger Lakes.

Canandaigua (pronounced Can-an-DAY-gwa) was old long before newly-independent American settlers incorporated the city in 1789. The Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy called it “the chosen spot” and the Seneca tribe which lived along the 16-mile-long lake were known as “keepers of the western door.”

An agricultural people who cultivated corn and lived in bark longhouses with their extended families, the Senecas were early feminists. The women of the tribe chose the chiefs of the clan, the members of the tribal council and the representatives sent each year to the confederacy’s great council fire. During the Revolution, the Iroquois sided with the British, and in September 1779, after defeating the English and native forces at nearby Elmira, the Americans under General John Sullivan marched north to destroy 40 Indian villages, including the Seneca settlement at Canandaigua.

The Seneca’s past is invoked at the Bare Hill Unique Area, a reserve atop the 865-foot-high hill the tribe called Genundewah. The traditional site of the Seneca council fires, Bare Hill is also the setting for the tribe’s best-known legend of a great serpent that encircled the village atop the hill. The giant snake starved the people who stayed inside the tribe’s fortress and swallowed those who tried to escape until a young boy defeated the beast with one unerring shot from his bow. The serpent died hard, ripping up trees and clearing the hillside as he thrashed back and forth while spitting out the heads of his victims which had been turned to stone. The path the serpent bared gives the hill its present name, the large round stones found around the lake are known as Indian heads, and some say the ancient monster still dwells in the deepest portion of the 262-foot-deep lake.

Two Bare Hill trails traverse a riot of wildflowers—goldenrod, asters, sweat pea, Queen Anne’s lace, daisy fleabane. The lower trail skirts a small pond and dead-ends in a copse of trees. The upper trail offers views of the lake and leads to the council rock where the tribe commemorates the Seneca’s annual bonfire of thanks for peaceful times and abundant harvests. Unfortunately, a re-growth of forest blocks the view south to 1,100-foot-high South Hill, called Nundawao by the Seneca and site of their creation story. Today the Seneca thanksgiving on Bare Hill is repeated by summer visitors on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, when residents ignite red road flares along the entire 32-mile shoreline to create the celebrated “Ring of Fire.”

The history of Canandaigua’s white settlers is told on North Main Street, which is lined with mansions and churches that reflect more than a century’s architectural styles — from 1790 to 1928 — including Federalist, Greek and Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, NeoClassical, and Renaissance, Colonial and Tudor revival. From May to October, tours are available at the 1816 Federalist-style Granger Homestead and adjacent carriage museum and by appointment at the 1887 Victorian mansion at the 50-acre Sonnenberg Gardens. However, my favorite Canandaigua house—the 1829 Jared Willson House at 211 North Main Street—is appreciated best from the sidewalk out front where visitors can see the perpetual light in the window that has shone for almost a century in memory of a beloved son who died in World War I.

Turn any corner in this district to find a dozens of smaller but no less historic homes on numerous quiet, tree-shaded streets. A few blocks away the Main Street business district features a similar array of historic commercial and government buildings, many of them now occupied by smart shops and inviting restaurants. My favorite downtown building is the golden-domed 1857 Ontario County Courthouse where feminist Susan B. Anthony was convicted of the crime of voting in the 1872 presidential election.

The Bristol Hills around Canandaigua Lake provide find plenty of worthwhile byways for backroads rambling. One turn may offer an endless vista of a patchwork of farm fields—corn, sunflowers, vineyards—and another may lead to a charming crossroads boasting antique houses while in between are well-stocked produce stands, working farms and, increasingly, Amish horse-and-buggies.

One place I like to stop is East Hill Gallery near Middlesex, where the Rochester Folk Art Guild shows and sells the practical items made by the craft community at 360-acre East Hill Farm. The crafts include pottery, woodworking, wooden boat restoration, textiles and graphic arts and the products include ceramic and wooden bowls and plates, furniture, rugs, toys and clothing.

Another is Widmer’s Wine Cellars in Naples, one of more than 60 wineries in the region that make the Finger Lakes second only to California’s Sonoma County in annual wine production. Swiss immigrant John Jacob Widmer founded the winery in 1883, which today produces a variety of wines, including port, sherry, Chardonnay and Riesling.

Copyright 2003 © by Beth Quinn Barnard on text and photos. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited