In the motor toboggan era – the time before the advent of the modern snowmobiles we know today – motor sleds had been too slow for racing excitement. As a result they remained strictly utilitarian vehicles racing only occasionally for promotional purposes. Motor toboggan and later snowmobile maker Polaris traveled each year at the end of the 1950s to trapper festivals at The Pas, Manitoba where they helped organize ad hoc races.
“We tried to rig them a little bit so we had a zig-zag effect,” David Johnson said, remembering one of the first informal races, “one guy ahead, and then the other, and so on, at a terrific speed of about 20 miles per hour.” In February 1959, Johnson won the first organized men’s race on an oval at The Pas and in 1960, the first cross-country race was held there. [Read more…] about A History of Snowmobile Racing in New York State
The Lake George steamer Sagamore may hold a unique record. At 224 feet and able to carry 1,500 passengers, the Sagamore was largest of the steamboats plying the lake for the Champlain Transportation Company – it also had a dubious record of groundings and collisions. 
The Lake George Land Conservancy (LGLC) has protected 150 acres of Bolton, NY uplands in Warren County through the use of a conservation easement, a tool used by land trusts that keep land in private ownership while protecting the land’s conservation values.
On October 2nd, 2005, the 40-foot cruise boat Ethan Allen capsized on Lake George with 49 senior citizens on board. Twenty were killed making it the most deadly tragedy in the history of Lake George and the Adirondack Region.
On July 30th, 1856 the 140-feet long John Jay (built in 1850) was delayed at Ticonderoga’s Baldwin Dock waiting on the stagecoach from Lake Champlain, where the large number of passengers required several trips to get everyone to the boat.