It is said that the Finger Lakes were made by the impression of the hand of the Great Spirit on central New York State.
However there are six major Finger Lakes.
West to east they are:
Canandaigua,
Keuka,
Seneca,
Cayuga,
Owasco
and Skaneateles.
As told in Iroquois legend, the Great God Manitou wanted to reward the Iroquois Confederacy for their courage in battle and their devotion to the Great Spirit.
He decided to bring part of their happy hunting ground down from the heavens.
According to the legend, there are six Finger Lakes because the hand of Manitou slipped when he was pushing the portion of Indian Paradise down from the heavens, causing six indentations that later became the lakes.
Seneca Lake
Area:
43,343 acres
Length: 38 miles
Shoreline: 75.4 miles
Max. Depth: 618 feet
Volume: 4.2 trillion gallons
Max. Width: 3 mile
Elevation: 445 feet
Largest city: Geneva
Characteristics: The deepest and widest of the Finger Lakes and the second deepest lake in New York State. Has more wineries than any other Finger Lake and has frozen over only 9 times since the beginning of weather recordkeeping.
Seneca Lake was named for the Seneca Indian Nation, one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy who used to inhabit the area.
The word "Seneca" is derived from the Indian name "Assiniki," which means "place of stone" or "stony place".
Over 200 years ago, there were Iroquois villages on Seneca Lake’s surrounding hillsides. During the Revolutionary War, their villages, including Kanadaseaga ("Seneca Castle") were wiped out during the Sullivan Expedition
by troops that invaded their homeland to punish them for assisting the
British. Today roadside signs trace Sullivan and Clinton’s route along
the east side of Seneca Lake where the burning of villages and crops
occurred.
After the war, the land of the Iroquois was parceled out to veterans
of the army in payment for their military service. A slow stream of
white settlers began to arrive circa 1790.
Initially the settlers were without a market nearby or a way to get
their crops to market. The settlers’ isolation abruptly ended, though,
in the 1820s with the opening of the Erie Canal.
The Canal linked the Finger Lakes Region to the outside world.
Steamships, barges and ferries quickly became Seneca Lake’s ambassadors
of commerce and trade. The former, short Crooked Lake Canal linked Seneca Lake to Keuka Lake.
There are numerous canal barges resting on the bottom of the lake. A
collection of barges on the southwest end of the lake, near the village
of Watkins Glen, is being preserved and made accessible for scuba diving by the Finger Lakes Underwater Preserve Association
Seneca Lake has the steepest shoreline of all the Finger Lakes, particularly at the southern end. Two of the main inlets are Catharine Creek at the southern end and Keuka Lake Outlet, which becomes an inlet at Dresden.
The flow from many ravines goes into the lake, some of which have spectacular waterfalls, including the falls of Big Stream at Glenora, of Sawmill Creek at Hector, and the Silver Thread Falls on Mill Creek at Lodi Landing. The lake is also fed by many springs along its bottom.
Seneca Lake outlets into the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, which joins Seneca and Cayuga Lakes at their northern ends.
Seneca Lake is the deepest and widest of the Finger Lakes. Due to the large water volume, Seneca Lake has a pronounced moderating influence on the air temperature around its periphery. This is the principal reason that the lake has evolved into a prime grapegrowing area. Seneca Lake is rated as an excellent lake for fishing and is particularly known for lake trout.
The National Lake Trout Derby is held every Memorial Day weekend on the lake.
A picture from the deck of our cabin.
