WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories
July 26, 2022
7/26/2022 | 26mVideo has Closed Captions
The Anna, Aurora, History of Sackets Harbor, Warden & Co. & more!
This post-war fishing boat has been sitting on the shore of the Anchor Marina in Cape Vincent for 20 years - Discover how she got there and where she came from. And, Historic Sackets Harbor summarized for you - We'll share bits of history you may not already know. Also, this band out of Saratoga Springs has North Country roots - Meet Warden and Co. and take in their folk rock vibe.
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WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories is a local public television program presented by WPBS
WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories
July 26, 2022
7/26/2022 | 26mVideo has Closed Captions
This post-war fishing boat has been sitting on the shore of the Anchor Marina in Cape Vincent for 20 years - Discover how she got there and where she came from. And, Historic Sackets Harbor summarized for you - We'll share bits of history you may not already know. Also, this band out of Saratoga Springs has North Country roots - Meet Warden and Co. and take in their folk rock vibe.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- [Joleene] Tonight on "WPBS Weekly Inside The Stories."
This post-war fishing boat has been sitting on the shore of the Anchor Marina in Cape Vincent for 20 years.
Discover how she got there and where she came from.
And Historic Sackets Harbor summarized for you.
We'll share bits of history you may not already know.
Also, this band out of Saratoga Springs has North Country roots.
Meet Warden and Co. and take in their folk rock vibe.
Your stories, your region, coming up right now on "WPBS Weekly Inside The Stories."
(exciting music) - [Announcer] "WPBS Weekly Inside The Stories" is brought to you by the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation, the Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center.
Carthage Savings, CSX, the Oswego County Community Foundation at the Central New York Community Foundation, the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, and The Badenhausen Legacy Fund at the Northern New York Community Foundation.
- Good Tuesday evening, everyone and welcome to this edition of "WPBS Weekly Inside The Stories.
I'm Jolene DesRosier.
We kick off tonight with the story of Anna.
This postwar fishing boat sits quietly on the shores of the Anchor Marina in Cape Vincent.
She's been there for 20 years, completely neglected but fully admired.
That admiration has a community rallying to save and preserve her.
But is she too far gone?
And how did she get there to begin with?
Director of production Tracy Duflo has more.
(crowd chattering) - I found Anna in Groton, Connecticut.
I don't know if she was built in Groton, Connecticut, but that was her home when I looked for her around the year 2000.
And I was looking for a work boat to match up with my dive boat that we were using for treasure hunting.
The dive boat worked good for diving, but for hauling stuff up and hauling it all back to shore, we needed something besides my beautiful Victory.
So I found her.
I went and bought her.
Didn't pay too much attention about what her speed was compared to my dive boat speed.
And it was an adventure bringing her up here.
Within the first day, we were into another marina because there was some kind of an issue with the boat, and we had to get it fixed, and we'd come back in a week or so, and then we get farther along in the journey.
She leaked pretty bad and the further we went, the more she leaked.
So we had to do some fixing, repairs along the way to minimize that.
The engine is it's old original engine, but it's one of those Detroit diesels that will run forever.
Other than the black smoke that puffed out of the exhaust constantly, the engine ever gave us any trouble.
We did have trouble with the rudder at one point.
Some pieces of wood came off of the rudder, and we had to stop and get that fixed.
Nothing drastic, nothing that turned out to be dangerous, or that we had to get somebody to come and get us or anything like that.
A lot of work to get her here.
After a period of time, we got down through Long Island into New York City and up the Hudson River, and she made it.
I mean, she chugged along.
It's not very fast, but a few issues came up that slowed us down.
But here she is.
I just loved her when I saw her.
And I knew there was gonna be a lot of work to get her ready and usable, but we did.
- [Tracy] Built around 1952, Anna's life prior to her journey to Cape Vincent, New York, was as a fishing boat.
Used near the ocean shore where the water is brackish, she was known as a black water boat.
Much of the fishing was done using nets.
After her ocean life she found a home on the St. Lawrence River as a support vessel for John's dive boat, the Victory.
- Yeah, the Victory was the dive boat that we had built around 2000 in Maine.
And that was geared up with side-scan sonar.
And we would see things on the bottom of the river, and we would drop down and see what they are.
Sometimes they were just junk.
Sometimes it was a big rock or somethin'.
And sometimes it would be somethin' we thought was worth worthy of having, like anchors.
Two of those anchors are in the park in the village.
Instead of bringin' those up, puttin' 'em in the dive boat or have the dive boat hauling it, we used the Anna for that.
Now, it wasn't a good fit.
I can't say as the anchors ever got in her, but it was that type of thing that we would find.
She was slow, and didn't match the big boat, the Victory boat.
That was one of the misfits that undermined us, really, using her a lot for our treasure hunting.
The local close stuff, that was one thing.
But out in the lake five or six miles, we'd be there diving, have all the work done, ready.
And she'd just, maybe we could see her on the horizon, comin' to show up, 'cause a couple, three miles an hour was all she can do.
After about two years, because of business reasons, I wasn't gonna be up here for a year or two, not to do diving, not to do treasure hunting or anything.
So we took her outta the water.
And time went by, things changed, and it was a long time, not a long time, but several years before I got back to diving with the dive boat.
And by then, Anna had deteriorated some, sitting offshore.
And there she sits.
She's still there.
- [Tracy] The Anna has been sitting on hard or land for approximately 20 years.
She's deteriorated considerably and is no longer seaworthy.
An effort is underway to save her and possibly move her to one of Cape Vincent's village parks so that others may enjoy viewing her.
Some, however, argue that since the boat wasn't built in the Thousand Islands and was only used for a couple of years here, the boat really doesn't have ties to the area and is not worth saving.
Others, however, say that over the 20 years she sat on Cape Vincent property, she's become one of their own, a symbol of Cape Vincent to residents and visitors alike.
- There's an affection for her.
She's like an old soul.
She's not ready for the heap.
She's not ready to be torched and burned down.
She can be rehabbed, not to go back in the water, but to look nice and sit at a park.
It's not gonna take a lot.
We're not making her seaworthy again.
We just wanna make her pretty again.
It's never too late.
She could be restored.
I'm not talking about restored and go out in the water.
But she would look good, a fresh coat of paint.
It doesn't have to be perfect, okay?
But it'll preserve the boat.
And probably every year, some project or extra work or something that some volunteers wanna work on, keep making her a little better and a little better every year.
It doesn't have to happen overnight.
She's been sitting here for years, so it's gonna be a little tricky gettin' her outta here, but it's not impossible.
- If you've been lucky enough to see the northern lights, then you can appreciate their beauty.
But for one aurora researcher, it's about both beauty and science.
Don Hampton of the University of Alaska Fairbanks captures thousands of images nightly to help him quantify the energy pouring down into the Earth's ionosphere.
Take a look (futuristic music) (birds chirping) - 18 to 20 years I've been doing aurora research.
It never gets boring watching the aurora.
It's just a pure joy to watch.
Anytime I look at aurora, I'm just curious about what's going on.
Why is it doing exactly that?
Why are the forms looking like that?
Some of the motions you see, that's 100 kilometers.
That ray just went across that in about two seconds.
I worry that I know enough about aurora that I sort of lose the magic of it.
But when you know the scope of what you're looking at, it's quite interesting.
(celestial music) My name is Don Hampton, and I research the northern lights, the aurora borealis, to try to understand how this whole system affects our modern society.
The work they did in the 50s through the 80s was understanding what is causing the aurora.
How well can we predict those?
We're sort of shifting now into trying to understand how the aurora affects the upper atmosphere and communications and that sort of thing.
We are more and more reliant on talking to satellites.
We do transactions over the internet.
We do communications between us and planes.
We navigate using satellites.
But the sun can actually produce large solar storms that create these very massive auroras that would mess up one of the satellites.
The power grids can also be impacted.
During one of those storms, you get currents in the ionosphere, and that induces currents in those power systems that can heat up transformers and have them damaged as well.
(celestial music) The sun is always putting out this stream of particles called the solar wind.
Particles are moving a few million miles an hour.
When that bumps into our magnetic field, they follow down magnetic field lines and they bump into molecules in our atmosphere.
They depart energy from their motion into those particles, and they get excited.
When they get excited, they actually let out a little bit of a light.
And that light that you see from those molecules, that's the aurora.
The magnitude of the aurora changes quite a bit based on the strength of the solar wind, which changes from day to day.
And it changes over a 11-year-cycle.
So right now we're what's called solar minimum.
During solar maximum, on a given night, you're more likely to see aurora.
So I study auroras here at Poker Flat Research Range.
All across Alaska, we've got sites that have observatories, and so we operate cameras and spectrographs at those sites as well.
I am mostly interested in the optical phenomenon of auroras, so I use different sorts of cameras.
What we tend to use are what are called EMCCD cameras, electron multiplying CCDs, that are very sensitive.
These EMCCDs are not what you would normally use takin' a nice picture or even a nice movie.
We want to know every single detail of the aurora that's coming through on that camera.
I'll take about 20,000 images a night on a winter night in December and January.
Because we are interested in the colors of the aurora, we use what are called spectrographs, which basically take the light of the aurora and spread it out, sort of like a prism.
Most people, when they see aurora, they see fairly bright green color.
That is from atomic oxygen.
If we have light from an atom molecule in the lower atmosphere, say the nitrogen, sort of this pinkish reddish color, that means that particles have created that aurora are more energetic.
We've got, basically, recipes for figuring out how energetic the particles were that came down and created it.
And even how many particles are coming down in a given area.
Again, I primarily look at the optical portion of it, but we combine that with the radar we have on range.
Unlike camera, which can only look at the light that's coming down, we've got radars that can look in the upper atmosphere and see how the aurora is changing the number of charged particles in the upper atmosphere.
The combination's really good because we can see what's happening at different altitudes.
That's important because when you get aurora, you'd get sort of a thin plasma in that same region, primarily made up of atomic oxygen and electrons, (audio skips) they carry their own magnetic field and electric field.
And that plasma can actually sort of push against the winds in the upper atmosphere and then even reverse it in some other cases.
So, we're getting to the altitudes where you get low Earth orbiting satellites.
And if you change the winds in certain directions or change the density, that actually changes what that satellite's going through.
And if it's enough that it can change the trajectory, just a little bit, by even a few kilometers over a few days, but each of those satellites is now something that has to avoid other satellites, as well.
(celestial music) As we're trying to understand how the aurora affects the upper atmosphere and the ionosphere and communications and that sort of thing, one of the big questions we're still trying to understand is what scale is the most important and how much does a small arc in the middle of a larger storm, how much does that matter in the overall scheme of things.
Does this one arc that's only three kilometers across, is that gonna affect the the winds in the upper atmosphere and mess up one of the satellites or not?
I think we're learning pretty well to read the aurora.
There's still certain things we don't know about.
I've got a case from a couple of years ago, where one night, it started the forms that are, what we would call, the start of a sub storm.
But about 10 minutes later, it just stopped.
And I don't know why.
So it's still those kind of questions.
That's what science is, is as you sit and look at patterns and start to try to tease out why it's doing that.
It's just excitement to be able to say, "Well maybe today we'll see the aurora that helps us figure out why sometimes it starts there, and sometimes it doesn't start at all.
- The North Country is dotted with historic places and stories.
Many that we're familiar with, but some, we are not.
Our next segment is taken directly from our four-part.
docu-series called "Discovering Jefferson County."
and shares the history of beautiful Sackets Harbor (thoughtful music) - [Narrator] Historic Sackets Harbor, a small village on the border of the US and Canada on Lake Ontario, was significantly involved in the War of 1812.
The presence of soldiers there was key to the creation of Madison Barracks, housing for soldiers, and eventually led to the establishment of what is now Fort Drum.
Augusta Sackett, in whose honor the village is named, founded the village in 1801 as a potential trade site with Canada.
But his little village on the harbor soon became the center for military activity during the War of 1812 instead.
Sackett was a lawyer and hailed from New York City.
He was also an entrepreneur and land developer.
Like so many others at the time, Sackett saw the potential of developing land in northern New York.
After seeing the area, he and his business partners bought several parcels and began selling them off.
Sackett built his house there, which still stands today as the visitor center.
The founder eventually moved to Pennsylvania where he purchased and developed even more land.
With plenty of timber and a protected harbor on Lake Ontario, Sackets Harbor had long established a strong ship-building industry.
The attributes that enticed Augustus Sackett and other settlers to the harbor were the very same that brought conflict to its shores, namely the War of 1812.
- The USS Oneida was here, and the crew and the troops were to manage the embargo, which was here along the border with British-held Canadian side.
So, in Sackets Harbor, they already knew that this was the the best natural port on Lake Ontario on the American side.
Therefore, Sackets Harbor became the headquarters for the army, the navy and the marines.
- [Narrator] Two battles were fought at Sackets Harbor.
The second and more significant battle occurred in 1813.
In an attempt to destroy the American shipyard, a British Canadian force launched an attack on May 29th.
At that time, most American forces were across Lake Ontario, attacking Fort George.
The British saw an opportunity to take control of the Harbor and swooped in.
The historic battle lasted only three hours.
- At that time, most of the troops were in the Niagara frontier.
The British commanders realized and understood that the community of Sackets Harbor was not well defended.
They felt this was a good time to come over and capture Sackets Harbor.
- [Narrator] The remaining Americans drove off the enemy.
But their narrow victory was marred by a fire that destroyed their military stores.
During the remainder of the war, Sackets Harbor was an active station where naval ships were constructed and supplied.
This included an American warship known as the USS Superior.
It was nearly finished, save a massive hemp cable that would be crafted into her rigging and anchor ropes.
But with the British controlling the waters, there was no way it could be delivered by ship.
It would have to be delivered by hand.
Made in the shipyards of Boston, the giant cable stretched nearly 600 feet, measured 21 inches around and weighed almost five tons.
Unable to reach the harbor by water, the Americans landed their supply in Ellisburg, New York, where they successfully ambushed the British in the pivotal Battle of Big Sandy on May 29th and 30th, 1814.
After the battle, it was still too dangerous to return to the lake.
The supplies, including the massive hemp rope, would have to be taken the remaining 20 miles by land to Sackets Harbor.
Far too large for any wagon, it was decided the only way to get the five-ton cable to the harbor was to carry it.
In a feat true to American spirit, local soldiers, farmers, and merchants banded together to help carry the rope in an event that would later become known as The Great Cable Carry.
In 2014, on the 200th anniversary, North Country volunteers reenacted the event, carrying a less-heavy version of the rope along the same trail used two centuries ago.
- By carrying the cable and the cannon, after the Battle of Big Sandy, now we had the biggest ship on the lake.
Now we had superiority.
We had the largest ship, And that meant that no longer could the British free-wheel on the lake.
And so we now had control of the lake.
They went back to Kingston and stayed for the rest of the war.
It was something that was necessary for us to win the war.
We had to have that superiority - [Narrator] In December of 1814, the Treaty of Ghent officially ended the War of 1812, and the Lake Ontario fleet was placed in storage at Ship House Point.
These significant events in Sackets Harbor are part of what led to the eventual establishment of what is now known as Fort Drum.
- [Announcer] The historic piece you just watched comes from an original four-part documentary series called "Discovering Jefferson County."
The series was produced right here at WPBS.
If you'd like the entire series at your fingertips, you can order your own copy and enjoy all four parts in the comfort of your own home.
(graphic whooshes) - Finally, tonight, regional musicians have so much to offer, and we wanna showcase those musicians as often as possible.
Tonight, we highlight Warden and Co. Based in Saratoga Springs, One band member has roots in La Fargeville.
Here is Warden and Co. with their original song "Somewhere."
(drums riff) - My name is Seth Warden.
I actually grew up here in the 315 outside of La Fargeville, New York.
I'm a singer-songwriter for a group called Warden and Co. We're a folk rock group based out of Saratoga Springs area.
Warden and Co. is a trio on paper.
Brian Melick is a percussionist.
Doug Moody is a violinist and viola player.
And we've been playing together for about 12, 13 years now.
Just finished a new recording that will be coming out March of 2022.
So a few of the songs that you'll hear today are gonna be off that new album.
The inspiration behind the song "Somewhere" is that we're all from somewhere.
I grew up here in the Thousand Islands and came home a couple years ago for a summer vacation.
And so I saw a lot of faces and friends that I hadn't seen in so long.
So actually this song is dedicated to the 315ers and about my experience coming home and seeing friends and faces that I haven't seen in so long.
But I was very happy to see.
Hi, we're called Warden and Co.
This song is called "Somewhere."
(gentle folk rock music) ♪ Sometime later on ♪ ♪ I hope to see you again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road ♪ ♪ Somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ When time is on our side ♪ ♪ And our paths cross again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road ♪ ♪ Somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ Sometime later on, I hope to see you again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ When time is on our side, and our paths cross again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ And what's meant to be ♪ ♪ What's meant to be ♪ ♪ Is happening ♪ ♪ Is happening ♪ ♪ And what's meant to be ♪ ♪ What's meant to be ♪ ♪ Will be ♪ ♪ And what's meant to be ♪ ♪ What's meant to be ♪ ♪ Is really happening ♪ ♪ It's still happening ♪ ♪ And what's meant to be ♪ ♪ What's meant to be ♪ ♪ Will be ♪ ♪ Sometime later on, I hope to see you again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ When time is on our side, and our paths cross again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend ♪ (music ends) - That does it for us this Tuesday evening.
Join us next week for a fresh look inside the stories.
- I've met people.
I've gone to places that I wouldn't go to before.
I've been all over the Great Lakes.
- What's it like to work on a tall ship?
We'll take you to Brockville, Ontario, where the tall ships festival attracted thousands earlier this summer.
And One World Kitchen is where it's at as we share a Tuscan soup recipe that really is out of this world.
Also discover the music of Aaron Taylor and Company.
This Fort Drum soldier shares his original music from a recording studio in downtown Watertown.
Meantime, we wanna tell your story.
If you or someone in your community has something meaningful, historic, inspirational, or heroic to share, please email us at wpbsweekly@wpbstv.org, right here, and let's share it with the region.
That's it for now, everyone.
We'll see you again next week.
Good night.
(exciting music) - "WPBS Weekly Inside The Stories" is brought to you by the Daisy Marguis Jones Foundation, dedicated to improving the wellbeing or communities by helping disadvantaged children and families.
Online at dmjf.org.
The Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, a free resource offering confidential business advice for those interested in starting or expanding their small business.
Serving Jefferson, Lewis and Oswego Counties since 1986.
Online at watertown.nysbdc.org.
Carthage Savings has been here for generations, donating time and resources to this community.
They're proud to support WPBSTV.
Online at carthagesavings.com Carthage Savings, mortgage solutions since 1888.
Additional funding provided by CSX, the Oswego County Community Foundation at the Central New York Community Foundation.
the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, and The Badenhausen Legacy Fund at the Northern New York Community Foundation.
♪ Sometime later on, I hope to see you again ♪ ♪ Somewhere down the road, somewhere around the bend.
♪ (fresh music)
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WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories is a local public television program presented by WPBS