Description
The shores of Skaneateles Lake are in three counties: Onondaga, Cayuga, and Cortland. The village of Skaneateles (population about 2500) is at the northern end of the lake. Summer cottages appeared in 1881, increasing to more than 2000 residences around the lake in 2002. Generally new homes now are built for year-round occupancy rather than summer use and many summer cottages are replaced. The transient and seasonal population of this tourist destination and summer resort surges during the warmer months. Skaneateles is noted for its performing arts and amenities.
Skaneateles Lake is separated from two other nearby Finger Lakes, Otisco and Owasco, by ridges some 600 feet above the waters, affording magnificent prospects on both sides. Much of the highland terrain is forested, with several large public preserves. Once more cultivated, this region was known for the teasel industry until 1930. Teasels were employed commercially by woolen mills to raise the nap on the material. Although some dairy farms remain in the highlands, occasionally remaining in the same family after many generations, much of the land no longer serves agriculture. There is some experimention with introduction of vineyards, which have proved so successful on the more western Finger Lakes. Skaneateles Lake, however, at elevation 863 feet, may offer a less salubrious microclimate than larger, deeper and lower lakes, like Cayuga Lake, at elevation 382 feet.
A large die-off of bass in the spring of 2007 was later confirmed to be due to viral hemorrhagic septicema (VHS), a virus-caused fish disease that has killed millions of fish in the Great Lakes since its presence was noticed in the region in 2005. This is the second of the Finger Lakes found to be contaminated with the virus, after its presence was detected in the westernmost of the Finger Lakes, Conesus Lake, in 2006. The virus and disease are not a threat to human health, but the state of New York is working to slow its spread to other lakes. New state bait regulations were announced on June 6, 2007, aimed at curbing the spread of VHS. VHS can be spread between bodies of water through live or frozen bait fish, roe, live wells, and ballast water, among other ways. Boats and fishing equipment should be disinfected before transfer from Skaneateles Lake to other bodies of water.
Read more about this topic: Skaneateles Lake
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)