Niska Isle

Niska Isle, despite its name, is not an island, but a peninsula in the town of Niskayuna, New York. Niska Isle is along the Mohawk River's south shore, with a back bay and swamp that surrounds it to the south.HistoryNiska Isle was prior to 1915 a.5mi by.25mi highly defensible hillock at the junction of the Lisha Kill (creek) and Mohawk River and was once the site of a Native American village. A trail led from the village to the Normans Kill and Helderberg Escarpment. A rope ferry was started in 1790 by Eldert Vischer connecting Ferry Road on the Niskayuna side to the Ferry Road on the opposite bank. The ferry was replaced by a short-lived bridge from 1900–2. The damming of the Mohawk River for the creation of the New York State Barge Canal in 1915 caused the mouth of the Lisha Kill to become a back bay and this required the building of a bridge to connect Ferry Road to the "mainland". The bridge, despite getting a new deck in the 1980s, was showing its age by 2008 when it was proposed that Niska Isle be abandoned. This was rejected due to a projected price tag of over $6 million to buy out the landowners. A new bridge, costing almost as much, was built in 2010.DemographicsNiska Isle is home to roughly nine households. Most of the peninsula is home to two families, the Schoolcrafts and the Burgers. The Schoolcrafts, who occupy most of the land south and east of Ferry Road have been there on a resident basis since 1937 though owned land as early as the early-20th century; while the Burgers have been residents since 1947 on most of the land north of the road to Lock 7 though they worked and later rented the land starting in the late-19th century. Some other families live in houses over-looking the Ferry Road bridge.