Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2025 i Adirondack Life

HEALING WORDS “The Healing Woods” (Short Carries, February 2025) was a very inspiring article. Those of us who are lucky enough to enjoy the Adirondacks can well identify with its healing powers and can just imagine the joy that Martha and Fred shared during their camping trips. My husband saw me reading the Adirondack Life article and—using the magic of the Internet—tracked down Martha Reben’s book for me for Christmas. The book has yellowed pages but otherwise is in good shape and I can’t wait to read it. An added bonus: the beginning of each chapter has a beautiful woodcut illustration by Fred Collins. Angela Fink Navarre, FL and Long Lake, NY THE STOOGES I worked 30 seasons at Gore (“Learning How to Fall,” February)—I never thought my photo would…

Woodstoves are the heart of home MY FIRST ADIRONDACK HOME was a boxy farmhouse built just after the Civil War, where rooms were added as kids multiplied and as plumbing moved inside. By the time we lived there, more than 20 years ago, the wooden floors were a jumble of various-sized planks and if you dropped a marble it would roll to a sagging corner. Exposed beams made up the low ceilings and our front door was a piece of plywood until, in a Vermont barn, we found a “coffin door” to fit the space—in the 19th century some entryways were extra wide for home funeral services. The house had leaky windows and cold air drifted through spaces in the floorboards. It also had a massive cast-iron woodstove that, when…

PLACED BY THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAIN CLUB and the New York State Conservation Department on the 1937 centenary of the first ascent, the bronze plaque on Marcy’s summit names 15 in the first climbing party. Setting aside a few historical hiccups (the mountain was not “also known by the Indian name Tahawus” and a few of the named climbers were not part of the group), the sign recognizes a little-appreciated event in the history of science. Many of the names are known to anyone familiar with Adirondack history: Henderson, Cheney, Holt, MacIntyre, for example. Most of the others are hardly household names, although two—Redfield and Emmons—are recognized as Adirondack 46s. But the party that set foot on Mount Marcy on August 5, 1837, may have been the most distinguished assemblage of…

BIG MOOSE LAKE, EAGLE BAY, NY 13331 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. LAKE GEORGE, NY 12845 Huttopia Lake George—Adirondacks. Experience the perfect blend of nature and comfort at Huttopia Lake George - Adirondacks. Stay in cozy, ready-to-camp accommodations and enjoy a heated pool, on-site dining, and complimentary activities and entertainment. With hiking trails starting right from the site, Huttopia is your perfect escape into the heart of the great outdoors. canada-usa.huttopia.com. LONG LAKE, NY 12847 Paddler’s Rest is the perfect destination for your next Adirondack vacation. Nestled among towering pines…

The woodcock’s mating dance, venison recipes, Great Camp china, reading winter skies, the history of the Adirondack Park Agency, balsam pillow–making, wolf genealogy, growing hops, skiing blind, antler science, blowdown aftermath, invasive species, antique boats. Was there anything in the park Betsy Folwell didn’t know about or write about? Nope. She was an Adirondack legend. My life changed when Betsy hired me at Adirondack Life 25 years ago. Though I’d grown up near the Adirondacks, I’d been at a mainstream women’s magazine in New York City—the antithesis of Adirondack Life. Betsy’s regional fluency was intimidating. And then there was this big and complicated park. Her way of mentoring me was to send me out of the office at least once a week to hike mountains, explore towns, attend events, meet…

April 12, 1976, 19-year-old Steve Thomas made a cup of Darjeeling tea at a lean-to on the trail to Mount Marcy, told his hiking party he was taking a walk, then vanished. Thomas’s brother, Bob, climbed Marcy hundreds of times looking for Steve. On one of those searches he helped discover the remains of George “Buddy” Atkinson in Panther Gorge. But he never found his brother. Atkinson, a 20-year-old from western Massachusetts disappeared on March 15, 1973. The day he arrived in the Adirondacks he called home to say he’d gotten there safely, parked his dad’s aging Lincoln Continental at the Adirondak Loj, signed the Van Hoevenberg trailhead register, and then he was gone. Atkinson’s sister, Pat Atkinson-Sirois, says that when her brother set off all those years ago, he…

BOBSLEDS WERE BORN in the Swiss town of St. Moritz in the 1870s as a gimmick to entice summer tourists to return in winter. Initially they were unsophisticated wooden platforms not far removed from an old-fashioned toboggan, but with steerable runners. (Steering, perhaps the first innovation, was developed to shush the howls of pedestrians who had been clipped by sleds speeding down Main Street.) As the sport developed over the years, Lake Placid became an outsized player, boasting “one of the most challenging and historical tracks on the planet,” said bobsled promoter John Morgan. World-class bobsledding will return to Mount Van Hoevenberg March 6–16 for the IBSF Bobsled and Skeleton World Championships, once again turning the eyes of the sporting world to the scene of the 1932 and 1980 Winter…

Betsy, who was born in Racine, Wisconsin, didn’t get her first glimpse of the Adirondacks until 1976, when she was driving to a job interview at what was then the Adirondack Museum, in Blue Mountain Lake. She described the experience in a 2009 interview with North Country Public Radio: “Coming down the hill and seeing the view unfurl in front of me, that was one of those defining moments, ‘Oh, I’ll stay here.’” She was 23. Betsy landed the job as the museum’s first education coordinator and she did stay, for almost 50 years. In 1980 she moved to the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, also in Blue, acting as its director until 1988. She wrote her first article for this magazine in 1988, joining the staff a year…

UP UNTIL 1836, first Slide Mountain in the Catskills and then Whiteface Mountain were considered to be the highest mountain in New York. In that year, a sighting from above Lake Colden revealed that Marcy was the highest peak in the state. Marcy was first climbed the next year, 1837, a full 195 years after the first ascent of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. As of the year of Marcy’s first ascent, there was already a bridle path up Mount Washington. By the time guide Old Mountain Phelps had cut the first crude trail up Marcy in 1861, there was a carriage road to the summit of Mount Washington to serve the two hotels located there. And construction had already started on the cog railway that was finished in 1869.…

Griffin Smith was born into a snow family. He’s been skiing from the time he could stand. Before that, his parents toted him around in a backpack through the snow. His dad runs Dewey Mountain Recreation Center, a small cross-country-ski and snowshoe establishment in Saranac Lake. Smith, now 23, is carrying on the winter sports mantle. He’s a member of Paul Smith College’s celebrated Nordic ski team. (A documentary about the team, Coach Matt and the Outdoor ’Cats, premiered in Utah during last year’s U.S. Biathlon Youth and Junior team trials.) But key members of the team have graduated and the squad has a lot to prove this season. Then there’s the issue of snow. Smith is young, but he can see that winters aren’t the same as they were…

Meet Smokey, the youngest member of the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department. At four months, she’s already begun her training, though Head Firedriver Rick Yorkey says she’s got some work to do. “She’s dropping, but she’s not rolling.” This pup—with a “calm and sweet” disposition, says Yorkey—continues the firehouse’s tradition of a Dalmatian mascot. Back in the day, Yorkey explains, the dogs “ran with horses and wagons to protect the horses and keep them in a straight line.” Photographs show a Dalmatian with the village’s fire wagon in the 1800s; from then on there was a Smokey on and off through the years, becoming more of an ambassador of education after horses gave way to engines. Today, during fire-prevention classes, Smokey’s job is to ease kids’ nerves and exhibit what…