Mid-Lakes Navigation Company Beats the Odds at 40 years!
SKANEATELES, NY. May 30. The experts say only about 60% of new businesses are still operating after just one year. Mid-Lakes Navigation Co., Ltd. founded 40 years ago in 1968, is still cruising full speed ahead.
In the summer of 1968, Peter Wiles Sr. bought an antique 20-passenger tour boat called Pat II to take passengers on the daily mail delivery trip on Skaneateles Lake. He didn’t really need a boat; he was busy with Mid-Lakes Country Club, the golf course he was developing in Borodino on the east side of the lake. But the Pat II’s owners offered him a generous arrangement – and the new boat company was born.
At the suggestion of Curtis Feldmann, the young captain Wiles hired to make the mail run, they began serving full sit-down dinners each evening aboard the little boat. The dinners were prepared at the club restaurant, packed in individual Styrofoam boxes and driven to the shore in an old jeep. The romance of the antique craft, the hospitality of her crew and the beauty of the lake charmed passengers.
After a couple successful seasons, Wiles looked toward the Syracuse market and began cruising Onondaga Lake and the Erie Canal with another antique boat called the Packet I. Overnight cruises on the canals came next, and finally a fleet of canalboats that charter by the week out of Macedon, near Rochester. Each venture built on the natural attraction of passengers to the heritage and beauty of the waterways of New York.
Forty years after the first little tour boat, the Mid-Lakes fleet includes 12 boats on New York’s canals and two on Skaneateles Lake, still owned and operated by the Wiles family, Sarah, Peter Jr., Hattie Beck-Andersen, Libby Wing and Dan (plus assorted third generation members).
“Dad had unusual vision”, said Peter Wiles Jr., president of Mid-Lakes Navigation. “He saw his company not only as a way to make a living, but also as a tool for teaching his children and a means of contributing to the success of the region. He knew that all those things were connected and working toward any one of his goals benefited the others.”
Today, the Mid-Lakes fleet accommodates up to 140 dinner passengers on Skaneateles Lake and 60 on the Erie Canal out of Syracuse. Besides the dinner cruise, they offer luncheon and sightseeing cruises as well as wedding and other special occasion cruises.
In addition, each season about 20 two- and three-day cruises depart from Buffalo, Macedon (near Rochester), Syracuse and Albany carrying a total of about 800 passengers.
The company also sponsors cruises for school children each spring in the Rochester area focusing on the role of the Erie Canal in the history of New York and the nation.
Mid-Lakes Erie Macedon Marina on the Erie Canal near Rochester provides a host of services from summer and overnight dockage, fuel and pumpout to canoe and kayak rentals and rustic campsites. The marina is also a base of operations for the fleet of 11 Lockmaster canalboats.
On Saturday, June 21, Mid-Lakes will celebrate their 40th Anniversary with friends, food and music at their dock at Clift Park near the gazebo in Skaneateles. The festivities will also include the unveiling of a bronze plaque honoring Peter Wiles for his vision and contribution to the community and the region. The plaque, to be located in the brick walk at the head of the dock, is being donated by regional tourism colleagues of the Wiles family through contributions to the Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance, of which Mid-Lakes has been a member for four decades.
“We look forward to sharing this event with the community,” said Sarah Wiles, marketing director for Mid-Lakes Navigation. “We hope to see some old friends and make some new ones at our open house event. This time the Judge Ben Wiles will stay at the dock so there’s no chance anyone will miss the boat!”
40th Anniversary Event
Saturday, June 21, 2008 1 – 7 PM
Dock in Clift Park, Genesee St. Skaneateles
Food, Music, Boat Rides, Cash Bar, Memories and Fun
1:00 – 7:00 PM Open House aboard Judge Ben Wiles at dock
2:00 - 2:30 PM Plaque Ceremony
3:00 – 6:00 PM Boat Rides aboard the Barbara S. Wiles
3:00 – 5:00 PM Dick Sheridan Dixieland Jazz Band
5:00 – 7:00 PM Joe Whiting & Loren Barrigar
Mid-Lakes Navigation Company Milestones
1968 Founding of company with purchase of Pat II to deliver mail
1969 Dinner Cruise serving a full dinner aboard the Pat II
1972 40- passenger Packet I offers Dinner Cruise on the Erie Canal
1974 Emita II offers 2 and 3-day canal cruises
1984 First excursion by Wiles family to UK to study canals
1985 Keel laying of Judge Ben Wiles on New Year’s Day
1986 Launch of the Judge Ben Wiles on July 3
1987 First Lockmaster canalboat offers weekly self-skippered charters
1992 Lockmaster canalboats cruise the Okeechobee Waterway in Florida
1995 Passing of Peter Wiles Sr.
2000 Building of Mid-Lakes Erie Macedon, marina in Wayne County
2006 Passing of Peter’s wife, Harriet.
