Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i Adirondack Life

TIMELESS STYLE We want to thank all of you at Adirondack Life for the sensational At Home in the Adirondacks 2022 issue featuring rustic style. It was so wonderful to see in print and photos how your magazine values local artisans and the art of rustic. It is articles such as these that spur interest in handmade rustic furniture made in the Adirondacks. I’ve heard from a local interior designer that Adirondack rustic is “over.” We can testify that it is not. We are quite sure that your magazine will help keep the art of rustic alive and well. Joanne & Larry Post, L. Post Rustics Au Sable Forks, NY BACKGROUND STORY I was glad to read “The Standoff” by Adam Federman in your October 2022 issue. This article goes…

LET’S SAY YOU’RE NEARING A SIGNIFICANT BIRTHDAY. Let’s say you’re turning 55. And let’s say you have a group of friends circling the same drain. Let’s also put it out there that this group is pretty game. They like to do things. They welcome a challenge. Not marathon runners, but not the types who are ready to settle in for cards and cookies. Now, on top of that, let’s say it’s deep winter. And let’s add the fact that some of these 50-somethings have kids and spouses who are tolerant of adventures that only last so long. What could you do to unify all these themes into a relatively short and invigorating tussle with the elements? What challenge could you present that tricky knees and rising blood pressure could overcome?…

Initially, the Jamaican bobsled team’s presence at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary was viewed by many as a novelty—a team from a country without winter competing in the Winter Olympics. But the athletes showed their prowess in both the two-man and four-man bobsled competitions, holding their own against teams representing countries with long histories in the sport. Cool Runnings, a highly fictionalized account of the team’s story, became a box-office smash for Disney in 1993. The man who built the Jamaican team into international competitors, three time US Olympian Howard Siler, spent much of his adult life in the North Country. Siler was an athletic man, standing six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds during his years as a competitive bobsledder. He took up the bobsled while serving in the…

At Adirondack Life we get close to our contributing photographers. We come to know their favorite places and various adventures, and we get to know their families. We see them in photographs, we meet them on magazine shoots—they become part of an extended Adirondack Life family. That’s why, as we put together this issue of the magazine, photographer Jamie West McGiver’s furry, four-legged kid Blu, who passed away last week, is on our minds. For more than a decade we—and you—have watched him splash in Adirondack lakes and streams, sit statue-still on summits, and sprint alongside mountain bikes and backcountry skis, mouth open and lips blown back in a goofy smile. This photograph of McGiver with Blu and his very tiny sister, Bea, was taken on a wintry night in…

Lake Placid is the most wonderful town in the world,” says Giggles. “The people here are so friendly and giving—talking about it, I get tears in my eyes.” The 78-year-old, aka Sandy Pelski, graduated from the first clown class at Toby’s Clown Foundation and School, in Lake Placid, three decades ago. Today, and more than 1,000 graduates later, she’s an instructor there, teaching future clowns magic, pie-throwing, face-painting and how to make massive bubbles. “It’s just so rewarding,” she says. Giggles and her colleagues—Silly Willy, Supercute and String Bean, among others—often take Lake Placid walkabouts. In full makeup and clown attire, they step, some of them in oversized shoes, into the Winn–Dixie and other places in the community, chatting with locals as well as sightseers visiting Lake Placid, voted the…

Elda Benedict Cook opened the door to her home, her oxygen tube trailing behind her, a reminder of the tubercular lung that was removed so very long ago. At 96 years old, she is full of charm, humor and fascinating memories. I arrived at her cozy log home in Hogansburg, along the St. Lawrence River, to learn about her past. As a young woman, Cook was treated for tuberculosis in Saranac Lake, not far from her childhood home, but it might as well have been the moon. At her kitchen table, sun lighting her face, Cook spoke of a time in her life that must have included fear, pain and uncertainty, but she shared her memories with kindness and generosity. The history of Saranac Lake is based on the tragedy…

It’s one-one-two-two,” I remark as my husband and I climb out of his truck. January 1, 2022. He chuckles. “Let’s hope we make it to one-two-three-four.” I quickly do the math. “I’ll be 67 and you’ll be 74.” This gives us both pause. But we agree to spend New Year’s Day tramping through the woods like this for many more years. Drip … drip … drip. I look up through the spruce canopy and see millions of tiny water droplets and it takes a moment to understand why this seems odd. It’s uncommon in midwinter to hear rain fall here in the woods instead of snow. I smell balsam and damp earth and my husband’s wet wool jacket—so strange to smell anything in January. The forest seems especially quiet today,…

FOR NICHOLE GERDING, proprietress of Thankful Sage Farm School, in Willsboro, seasonal planning guides her way of life. From household to homeschooling, work and recreation, Gerding brings 18th- and 19th-century practices and sensibilities into the 21st century. She slows things down and makes space for cyclical routines that inform the lives of her family, her clients and customers, her community and herself. She is driven to capture memory and pass it on, often grounding it in the olfactory sense. Gerding works to “normalize heritage skills” of early America and bring them back into common use. Eleven years ago Gerding founded Thankful Sage Farm School at her kitchen table in Pennsylvania, making soaps and candles using traditional methods, materials and tools (“old good things,” as she describes them). Today her handcrafted products…

BIG MOOSE LAKE, EAGLE BAY, NY 1333 The Waldheim. Seventeen cottages with fireplaces overlooking scenic Big Moose Lake. Established in 1904, The Waldheim has changed little since. Rates include three delicious meals served daily in a central dining room. Unstructured opportunities allow guests to relax, recreate or be with family. 315-357-2353. www.thewaldheim.com. INDIAN LAKE, NY 12842 Timberlock. A rustic resort that enables its guests to connect to the magnificent lakeside setting and focus on time with family and friends, without the distractions of today’s fast-paced life. One of the oldest summer family resorts in the Adirondacks, surrounded in all directions by miles of NYS Forest Preserve. Rates include private cabin, three hearty, healthful meals a day plus a host of activities. 518-648-5494. www.timberlock.com. LAKE PLACID, NY 12946 Grand Adirondack Hotel.…