Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i Adirondack Explorer

Land trust partners for Indigenous center expansion BY MIKE LYNCH | The Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center took a big step toward a planned expansion, acquiring 333 acres in October from its new partner, Adirondack Land Trust. Home to more than 3,000 artifacts, the center is located on county Route 60 in Onchiota, about 12 miles north of the village of Saranac Lake. Its mission is to educate the public on “Haudenosaunee culture specifically, and Native American history in general.” For nearly 70 years, the Fadden family, members of the Mohawk Nation, owned and operated the facility as the Six Nations Indian Museum on their land. The six nations, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora, comprise the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy. In 2020, the family…

Barns contain stories and memories Thanks for the story that rekindled many memories from my childhood of our old barn and outbuildings (“A tale of two barns” November/December). They were built, perhaps in the 1870s, and stood neglected, like so many other similar structures, until the relentless Adirondack weather finally loosened some metal roofing, let the moisture in, and rotted the beautifully crafted mortise and tenon beams. Sadly, the entire barn collapsed in the 1960s. Our barn was large and was built high enough to provide a large open dry storage pit for loose hay, which took up about one third of the space. In the middle third was a floor of rough planks accessed by two large swinging doors, probably for wagons, threshing and other uses. The other third…

New York’s Olympic mountain, Whiteface, boasts an iconic peak reaching almost 5,000 feet into the sky, creating the highest vertical drop in the East of 3,430 feet. Still, it’s not immune to the vagaries of climate change and weather, so before skiers lay down a fresh track, someone lays “the product”—the term used by the snowmakers to describe what they provide. It’s hard work—dragging hoses and snow guns through krummholz up to the knees in deep snow on a steep mountain. Water for thousands of guns and hydrants is pumped through over 20 miles of pipe. Over the last two summers, almost nine miles of new pipe was installed as part of a multi-year upgrade with new waterlines to the summit and most of the race trails on Little Whiteface.…

As accreditation entities continue months of review of the proposed merger of Paul Smith’s College and Fedcap, an employment preparation organization based in New York City, a turnaround team already has begun looking to the future. The Fedcap Group started taking control of functions and inserting influence on operations by this fall. Still, few details about how the relationship will work have been shared publicly by the college. “I really don’t quite understand it all,” said Joan Weill, a major donor to the school, who in late October met with college and Fedcap officials in Saranac Lake during a weekend of Hall of Fame, alumni and board of directors’ gatherings. Fedcap’s top officers are members of the Turnaround Team, Interim College President Daniel Kelting wrote in a memo to colleagues…

As the climate changes, so will the Adirondacks. The brilliant fall foliage of our northern hardwoods will give way to the duller hues of southern forests. Our back-country-ski season will be shorter, if it survives at all. The alpine wildflowers of the High Peaks may vanish entirely. If you hike, ski, paddle or otherwise enjoy the Adirondacks, you can’t be happy with this prospect. But what can you do? Perhaps you should stop buying outdoor clothing derived from petroleum. That polyester T-shirt that wicks away sweat? That fleece jacket that keeps you warm? That nylon shell that wards off wind and rain? They’re all plastic, products of the fossil-fuel industry, which is largely responsible for climate change. What’s more, synthetic clothing contributes to the insidious microplastic pollution that has contaminated…

Hemlocks are dying near Paradise Bay. The Lake George cove is lined with their lacy branches dangling dark green above the water. Steps from the shore and into the forest, the canopy thins. Brown needles have fallen from branches leaving behind brittle skeletons. Nibs of lime green, the sign of new growth, cannot be found. Mark Whitmore looks up. Then he looks down to forage mushrooms, disappearing for a while. There must be some good news in a place called Paradise. Alas, on this October day, he comes back mushroom-less. Instead, the entomologist is holding a hemlock limb dotted with white puffs. These are the tree killers. Whitmore is the principal investigator of Cornell University’s New York State Hemlock Initiative. He has studied tree-eating insects for over three decades. The…

The shine of steel once again glimmered against backcountry foliage as an Adirondack Railroad train whooshed along secluded portions of the rail. Inside the train car, sunshine beamed through dusty air as chatty volunteers entertained passengers. The volunteers, older women with big smiles, told silly jokes and delivered winks at the punchline. Curious children jumped on seats and smeared small, greasy handprints on the windows as they looked out at the passing wilderness. The ride bumped at times as the train jerked and lurched and metal scraped and screeched. This past autumn the Adirondack Railroad hosted its inaugural rides from Utica to Tupper Lake. First, on Sept. 13, a special ride took dignitaries and regional politicians over the recently reconstructed track to Tupper Lake. On Oct. 16, media members, other…

Growing up, Charlotte Staats heard stories about Adirondack trail work from her mother. “It was like a fairy tale to me,” Staats said. Others might have thought it a nightmare—the swarms of biting insects and the deep mud—but Staats was enchanted by the idea of moving huge rocks and creating beautiful trails made of stone and wood. Staats, 27, is now the trails manager for the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), the first woman to hold the position. She’s responsible for hiring, training and outfitting 19 seasonal employees as well as overseeing the trail steward and lean-to adopter programs and supervising volunteers. She designs, advises and educates on all matters involving sustainable trails. In 2019 Staats was the trail master for the ADK pro trail crew. “Char was an amazing crew…

A community must be heard In January 1991, Placid Memorial Hospital, including its emergency department, elected to consolidate with General Hospital of Saranac Lake creating what eventually became Adirondack Health. Neither hospital 32 years ago was projected to be successful on its own. Other community hospitals statewide were experiencing similar challenges. While this resulted in Placid Memorial merging its assets with the successor Adirondack Medical Center, Lake Placid required that the agreement provided for 24-hour emergency room services. This continued until 2013 when Adirondack Health eliminated night ER hours in Lake Placid. Village leaders addressed a letter to Adirondack Health’s trustees seeking consideration of the issues that would be created by such change. Adirondack Health replaced the former hospital with a new facility that provided for a part-time ER among…

One winter day, my wife Debbie was skiing with our teenagers Ned and Tasman when they spied two porcupines perched in plain view in an aspen tree. They know I’m keen on porkers, so back home after, they filled me in on the sighting. Two weeks later, they returned and brought me with them. In the same tree on the same trail at the same time of day, we found the same two porcupines. Gazing up at the prickly rotund rodents, which suggested a pair of oversized and seriously lost sea urchins, we might have concluded that porcupines exist in a state of suspended animation in winter. They do not move, or they don’t move much. Once my naturalist friend Joan Collins, who writes the Adirondack Explorer’s bird column, kept…

In June, state workers marking boundary lines in Ferris Lake Wild Forest noticed something awry with the beech trees. The leaves were curled and falling to the ground. Beech leaf disease had reached Herkimer County in the Adirondacks. This ailment has the potential to kill off large swaths of American beech trees, whose nuts are a key food source for wildlife. First discovered in Ohio in 2012, beech leaf disease has been spreading in New York since at least 2017. As of September, it’s been found in 36 counties statewide, blanketing western New York and moving rapidly through the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island. It’s only been found in one Adirondack location, but it’s been known to spread quickly. “I’m told that practically every beech tree in Westchester County…

When Adirondackers think of Camp Gabriels, they may envision the former prison eight miles north of Saranac Lake, and may see a missed opportunity for housing development. Restoration of the historic buildings and repurposing the campus has proven to be complicated and efforts in Albany to smooth the way have stalled. The state, which owns the camp, attempted to sell the property by auction three times, first in 2010, but no one bid at the opening price of $950,000. Members of a Jewish Orthodox community with hopes of creating a summer camp successfully bid $166,000 in fall of 2013, but the deal fell through when title insurance could not be obtained due to the property being in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The site has been in limbo ever since. To…

During my time as an Adirondack Mountain Club summit steward, I have taken pictures of bachelor parties, religious groups, families and even an engagement. I meet people who live locally and who travel from great distances to bask in the Adirondack greatness. People are extremely pleasing to talk to on the peaks. I have had wonderful, diverse and spirited conversations with hikers. People want to engage, and learn what is around them, and why I am up there in the first place. Most people have no clue about the alpine vegetation. I point out the species that inhabit this living natural history museum: mountain sandwort, alpine goldenrod, three-toothed cinquefoil and bog bilberry. I also identify the other summits around us. I teach the importance of the “rock walk,” where hikers…

Things quiet down by late summer and fall as many of the Adirondack breeding bird species head south. But as winter arrives, birds to our north irrupt into our area delighting local birders and bringing tourists to our region. Each year, the mix of irruptive birds is different. All these movements are based on food sources. The “Winter Finch Forecast” is published each year in September by an ornithologist in Ontario. He predicts northern bird movements based on tree seed crop ratings collected from birders in northern states and Canadian provinces. It’s a challenging puzzle. I rate the trees in northern New York each year for him. This year, there is a bumper ash tree seed crop and lots of fruit sources in the Adirondacks. These wild foods tell me…