Gunboat Island

 

Gunboat Island, also known as Garden Island, is part of the Lake Champlain Islands Management Complex (LCIMC).  The island is located just south of Valcour Island in the Town of Peru, NY. Gunboat Island juts sharply out of the water with 15 to 20 foot bare limestone cliffs and has no recreational facilities. At less than 1 acre in size, it is one of the smallest of Lake Champlain’s islands.

 

Gunboat Island was known as Petite Isle at the time of the Revolutionary War. British ships had to sail around Gunboat Island to attack the American fleet commanded by Benedict Arnold.

Legend has it that the British fleet mistook the island for one of Arnold’s gunboats and opened fire on the island. This mistaking of the island for a gunboat is how the island got its name. This story is very similar to reports of British bombardment of Carleton’s Prize in Vermont.

Other notes:

SUNY Plattsburgh maintains a data buoy southeast of Valcour/Garden Islands in Lake Champlain. The buoy collects information on surface weather and lake water temperatures (from the surface to a depth of 50m). Data is provided here for general use, but attribution to SUNY Plattsburgh and our funding agencies is requested for any further distribution. Support for the data buoy comes from NOAA Lake Champlain Sea Grant, the Lake Champlain Research Consortium, and SUNY Plattsburgh (Center for Earth and Environmental Science and Lake Champlain Research Institute).