Island Girl

When I was in high school my family and I lived on an island. Governor’s Island, the third largest island on the Winnipesaukee, is attached to land via a bridge: a glorious arcing bridge, which my friends and I used to tackle head on by going at full speed, feeling the car just sort of jump into the air at the top, like the General Lee.

Life on the island was pretty great, except for all of the rich people. One old man who looked exactly like Alfred Hitchcock (at least in my memory) used to stare at young women in their swimsuits. One group of fifty-something women had dibs on a particular spot on the beach, and if you tried to sit there, they would just move in front of you. Maybe it had nothing to do with their money--maybe they were just jerks--but there was a sense of entitlement.

The island had a sandy beach that all of the residents could use, which had both clay tennis courts and the regular kind, plus a clubhouse and a raft you could swim out to. The Island itself was great for walking, biking or jogging, with lots of hills, scenery, and little car traffic. In the winter my father and I cross-country skied on the many acres of conservation land. We lived in the center, away from all the millionaires, but everyone at school thought I must be rich because we had a Governor’s Island address.

Here are just a few of the things that happened while we lived there:

1. A pair of ninjas (I am not kidding) broke into a lakefront mansion with the intent to kidnap an entire family. The police had to cordon off the Island, and as I left for work one morning in my pancake house uniform they stopped me and checked to see if I had a ninja hiding in the back of my Mazda 323. I am not making this up, and I have a link to prove it.
2. A weirdo tried to abduct me when I was out jogging at twilight one evening.
3. Our neighbor across the street was an ex-airline pilot who lived in a tent in his living room. My whole family had a theory that he murdered his wife because she disappeared one day, but this was never verified.
4. Lee Majors (the six million dollar man) had a vacation home there. I never saw him, though. Apparently Brittney Spears had also been planning on buying a home on the water there as well, but it didn’t happen.

I tell you all of this to introduce my topic for this post: the Islands of the Winnipesaukee. Every source cites a different number of islands: 244, 280, 320, 365…I have lost count. Of those, six, like Governor’s Island, are connected to the mainland by bridges, some rickety, some secure. The largest, Long Island, is 1,186 acres and the smallest, Becky’s Garden, is about ten feet long. Becky’s Island has a fairy-tale legend attached to it, too: the youngest, nicest, and prettiest of several daughters of a man who owned several islands on the Winnipesaukee, Becky chose the smallest island so her evil sisters would be less envious of her. Despite this, Becky’s Garden became the most popular island of all and a dollhouse was erected on the island each year to commemorate her purity and unselfishness. Way to suck up, Becky.

Some of the island names are great: Little Vixen Island, Jolly Island, October Eve Island, Spider Island, Black Cat Island. Not all of the islands are residential: Three-Mile Island is owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, and Stonedam Island houses a 140-acre wildlife preserve—you can take a boat out there and hike to the top to get a great view of the lake and islands, bring a picnic, use the beach, and take a rest in the for-public-use log cabin.

One of the larger islands, Rattlesnake, actually had rattlesnakes living in it as late as the 1940s; their skins are preserved at a local museum. Diamond Island used to be one of the stops of the old Mount Washington; it had a hotel there in the late 1800s which was reported to contain a brothel, where men from Boston could enjoy a discreet weekend. Bear Island apparently is most known for a series of brutal bear attacks on surveyors, who, it should be known, shot at the bears before they were attacked. Here is an excerpt from one of the surveyor’s journals, courtesy of the Lake Winnipesaukee Historical Society:

Down came the four maddened bears almost in­stantly, wounded and prepared to fight. There was no time to reload guns, so they were cast aside. Knives were the only weapons that could be used. The bears were met with long hunting knives. Some of the men were struck and sent sprawling, but were up again quickly and others were seized in the bears' terrific embrace and bitten and clawed unmercifully.

In the end the men won, after stabbing and drowning those poor animals, but I am not alone in thinking that this story reeks of fabrication. Bear Island used to be called “Big Bear Island, “ but now it’s just plain old “Bear.”

Island animals sometimes outsmart the humans, though. My favorite story is the one about how Horse Island got its name. A man had tried to transport some of his belongings (including his horse) out to his island and a storm caused a shipwreck in transit. However, the horse managed to get to their destination and was living happily, the whole island to himself'; Horse Island was to him as I had always wished Governor's Island to be: deserted, and all mine.