Thanks to the well-wishers who offered dining suggestions here in the North Country. I'm happy to say we fared very well in Alexandria Bay, N.Y., in large part because we got out of Alexandria Bay.
If you're ever up this way, you mustn't miss the Wellesley Hotel in Thousand Island State Park on Wellesley Island. It's an old boutique hotel with fine dining in a neighborhood of golf carts and pedestrians.
It's as if someone took the Hotel Fauchere in Milford, Pa., and dropped it into the middle of Ocean Grove, only with the St. Lawrence River instead of the Atlantic Ocean.
The menu includes barbecued duck breast and local perch, which was crusted in panko, fried and served with a soy sauce fortified with garlic, shallots and peppers. Perch, it turns out, is the only local seafood you can purchase in a restaurant here.
The dining rooms, with their antiques and fireplaces, look like something plucked from he 1930s, although my wife is pretty sure the chairs are from Ikea. Servers are young but earnest, running between the two dining rooms and the tables on the wraparound porch outside.
Considering our disaster of one night earlier, we were grateful for a good meal in a good place.
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