January 12, 2024 – Theme Week Day 5

We’re closing out our theme week on Misnomers with something closer to home – the Thousand Islands! There are actually closer to 2,000 Thousand Islands, 1,864 to be exact. There is very strict criteria to count as one of the Thousand Islands: they have to have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round and support at least 2 living trees. One of those islands is Just Room Enough Island. At just 3,300 square feet, it’s the smallest inhabited island in the world. The island has a house, a tree, shrubs, and a small beach.
The region was an important part of the War of 1812 between the British Empire and the United States. There are many sites from the war, like Fort Wellington in Prescott, Ontario. Museums about the war can be found on both the Canadian and American sides of the river.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many distinguished visitors made the area widely known as a summer resort. Prominent families from cities like New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh vacationed at luxurious hotels or built their own lavish summer homes. Several stone castles were built at this time, which remain as international landmarks. Among the most famous are Singer Castle on Dark Island and Boldt Castle on Heart Island.
Thousand Island Dressing is indeed from the Thousand Islands, though there are several different versions of the its origin. One common origin story says that a fishing guide’s wife, Sophia LaLonde, first made the dressing as part of her husband’s shore dinner. Actress May Irwin tried the dressing and loved it, later requesting the recipe from Sophia. She then gave it to another famous resident of the Thousand Islands, George Boldt, who was proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He had the hotel’s head waiter add it to their menu in 1894.
In 2010, a sociologist and his graduate students at the University of Wisconson attempted to determine the origin of Thousand Island Dressing. They could that the story differed among the different villages and islands in the region, and that all the claims were based on oral tradition without any supporting written records. Today, Thousand Island Dressing is widely used at fast food restaurants and diners, often called “special sauce” or “secret sauce”. McDonald’s Big Mac sauce is a variation of Thousand Island dressing. Learn more here.