Fort Stanwix- A Special Place - Day 168

  Fort Stanwix is one of the truly special places on the NCT. For one thing, it's one of the few National Park Service sites along the trail. You can get your parks passport books stamped with the NCT logo. But that's just fluff.

The original fort was built by the British in 1758. But why here?

For the answer, we need to look at the waterways which were the interstate highways of 300 and more years ago. Oneida Lake (which barely showed in the distance of a photo a couple of days ago) is connected to Lake Ontario and thus, all the Great Lakes. A navigable creek flows into Oneida Lake, called Wood Creek. At Rome, NY, via a short portage known as The Great Carry, or De-o-wain'-sta, boats could connect to the Mohawk River which connects to the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean.

The British wanted to control this crucial transportation way.

Since I was last here, the city has created a small scale map of all these water connections in the sidewalk. It's hard to get a picture, but it's an extremely cool and visual/tactile way to show the importance of the place. The squiggle is Wood Creek and the blob ahead is Oneida Lake. Beyond that are the Oneida River and Lake Ontario. You'd need a drone to picture the whole thing.

There is also a monument to the Iroquois tribes.

So, back to the fort. You might think it doesn't look like the walls are very tall. Here's a closer view. It has a deep revetment surrounding the main fort. There are four corner bastions. There is a stockade wall blocking entrance to the ditch, and if an attacker did get down there, the ways into the fort were blocked by those posts sticking out of the fort wall. Sorry, I can't remember their correct name right now. Defenders could fire on attackers from multiple angles from the bastions. Storming a fort was not an easy mission.

However, the fort was captured from the British during the American Revolution. The British tried to retake it, but their seige could not get close enough to successfully fire on the fort.

For some reason, the Visitor Center was not open. They did have a model of a bateau outside. These were the standard boats used to carry trade goods.

I took a picture of the excellent tableau of perhaps a trading session through the window. It's a bit hazy, but you can get the idea.

Some year, I'm going to get here for a Revolutionary War reenactment! More canal miles today, and then road walk. I pounded it out quickly.

Miles today: 16. Total miles so far: 2169.6.

I have reworked the Adirondack plan to do more miles on the days when there is a lot of road walk. I need to make a few phone calls about logistics, but I'm liking this plan better. I will need at least one more day off to repack for backpacking and getting supply drops set up.

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