It definitely pains me to see Rosslyn’s boathouse underwater (even 3+ decades after the fact), but it’s a reminder that we have made some headway over the last eleven years. Of course, there’s never any guarantee — and I’m well aware that flooding could bring the pretty boathouse to her knees once again — but I am optimistic that steady rehabilitation since 2006 has fortified this quirky old dock house so that it will better endure the next challenge coming it’s way.
I received this photograph from Dianne Lansing who doesn’t recollect whether she or her late husband, David Lansing, snapped the sad souvenir.
I don’t remember any of it. Don’t recall seeing the boat house in such disrepair. I’m pretty sure, however, that it was ‘normal’ spring flooding as I don’t recall any other event that would have caused the roof to collapse.
— Dianne Lansing
Despite the bittersweet nature of this photograph, receiving it from a lakeside neighbor who understands firsthand the woes of Lake Champlain’s high waters was a welcome gift. There remains something irresistibly fascinating about unfamiliar glimpses of Essex in general and Rosslyn in particular, especially those that fall outside of my own timeline and experience.
Thanks, Dianne, for this bittersweet illustration of Rosslyn boathouse’s wet-dry-wet-dry heritage. Fingers crossed that we won’t repeat history any time soon.
[You can read the original post “Boathouse Collapsing in 1983 Flood” as it appeared on Rosslyn Redux on August 7, 2017.]
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