Not everything exciting that goes on at Wilson is centered around the Yacht Club, The Boat House Restaurant, or Main Street. But everything of special interest is near by the water, and usually connected with it. It takes a careful, experienced, and patient eye to catch all the real action at Wilson. Take the scene below, captured by our Lockport Page photographer in the late afternoon looking on the Lake from the quaint little observation shelter off Lake Street.
This
is exactly where he was seated later on listening to a VHF monitor radio with one ear and
broadcast FM with the other. Visual targets varied between the beginning of a
setting sun, birds on the beach, a long delayed read of Jimmy Carter's An Outdoor
Journal and...boat traffic along Lake Ontario (aided by one of those mini
binoculars).
Our man was on holiday, so to speak. His trusty camera back in the car because, after all, he'd taken pictures of everything around here of note. There would be nothing new. He was relaxing in his folding chair under the shelter roof near the memorial to Lt. Michael Witkop, the Wilson boy who lost his life on October 25, 1968 in the skies over South Vietnam. It was late Spring and tourist traffic around Wilson was still light.
The radio traffic on the marine band was sparse. But throughout the afternoon, a couple short clips of what sounded like Chinese caught his interest. Just as it was too late, his eyes glanced out on a large boat heading into the harbor area from the east. After a grab of the binoculars, those two oriental passengers on board sure seemed to fit in with the radio traffic he had heard an hour earlier coming from the west. Oh, dear, this interesting incident seemed to be just what he didn't have a picture of: "Tourists" from the the northwest making Wilson their new Port Of Entry to the USA! And his camera in the car! Their garb was indeed expensive looking and fashionable. But they wouldn't be stopping at the Yacht Club, The Boat House Restaurant, or anyplace else around town to raise attention. Shortly after the boat would leave port, they'd be on their way to Niagara Falls and points south in the late model SUV that appeared to be a Blazer and which had apparently been waiting in the parking lot of the Boat House Restaurant. The scene all looked like what he had been hearing about...some minor tourist traffic coming into Niagara, The County Beautiful, without the formalities of a visit to U. S. Customs.
Formal recognition of Wilson as an authorized "port of entry"
ceased on June 30, 1907. The marker shown below commemorates that Wilson Harbor was
first named a port of entry on September 25, 1851. Today, this little village and
just about anyplace else along the lake and Niagara River is back on the map again as a
desirable destination for people-
smugglers who route third world inhabitants through Canada and into the USA. It's
relatively easy to get them into Canada but a bit more difficult to get them to the USA.
That's where Wilson and other destinations without an active customs or Coast Guard
watch finds favor with this new wave of "tourists." (6/20)
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