Racket on the Raquette
By Philip G.Terrie
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Phil Terrie |
In 1931, Henry Abbott, New York watchmaker
and passionate angler, was fishing the Raquette River. About a mile
below the foot of Long Lake, opposite the mouth of Cold River, he
camped “on a high bank in the shade of balsam and hemlock
trees.” Far from the clatter of motorboats, he spotted a mink
“humping himself from stone to stone near the water’s
edge.” Upstream, a flock of black ducks settled into a backwater,
while nearer he sighted a raccoon and a beaver. That night he caught
a fleeting glimpse of an ermine.
Abbott had no patience for motors in such
a spot. Neither should we.
The Raquette River is both a destination for those seeking solitude
and a corridor to similar delights beyond. Passing up and down the
Raquette on their way to or from the lakes of the central plateau,
paddlers find the few miles of flatwater between the outlet of Long
Lake and Raquette Falls, along with the wilderness of the Cold River,
to be the quintessential Adirondack paradise. Casting for trout,
quietly watching a great blue heron in the reeds, lounging around
a late-night campfire, they contemplate these few miles of river
and discover Eden.
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Since the adoption of the State Land Master
Plan in 1972, the special wilderness values of this place have been
statutorily, though inadequately, acknowledged. The Cold River,
for all of its roughly 15 or16 miles, is officially designated a
Wild River. That means, among other things, that all motorboat use
is prohibited. This rule is generally adhered to, with a few exceptions:
When the water is high, people occasionally take small boats with
motors up the Cold as far as the Calkins Creek lean-to. Either they
don’t know any better, or they do and figure they can get
away with it. In either case, what they’re doing is illegal
and an offense to the sensibilities of any poor soul who happens
to hear them.
The recently released Unit Management Plan for the High Peaks Wilderness
Area, which completely surrounds the Cold River and its watershed,
calls for a new regulation explicitly and specifically proclaiming
the prohibition on all motors on the Cold River. It also calls for
the erection of a sign at the confluence of the Cold and Raquette,
announcing this prohibition to one and all; the sign was installed
a year ago. Whether it will make the desired impression on those
tempted to motor up the Cold remains to be seen.
With the Raquette, designated a Scenic River from the outlet of
Long Lake down to the state boat launch east of the village of Tupper
Lake, things aren’t so clear. And the High Peaks Unit Management
Plan is disappointingly silent on the topic of motors, perhaps because
the State Land Master Plan is itself a bit dodgy: “Motorboat
usage of scenic rivers will not normally be permitted but may be
allowed by the Department of Environmental Conservation, where such
use is already established, is consistent with the character of
the river and river area and will not result in any undue adverse
impacts on the natural resource quality of the area.”
The SLMP is thus a perplexing guide. Declaring that motorboats are
not “normally” allowed on Scenic Rivers, it then backtracks
and provides that under certain, exceedingly vaguely defined conditions
they may be. What if there is indeed a history of use but that use
is clearly inconsistent with the river’s “character”?
On the Raquette, both above and below Raquette Falls, there is such
a history, but there is also widespread, deeply held feeling that
it’s time to end this history, as the use of motors patently
is both inconsistent with the Raquette’s character and adversely
impacts the river’s chief “natural resource quality,”
its capacity to provide the sense of serenity and solitude so sorely
needed in the post-9/11 world.
This is the Adirondacks at its best—a lovely, winding, remote,
easily paddled river. The bird and wildlife populations remain varied
and splendid. What would you rather hear—the whirring click-click
of a kingfisher, or the smoky cacophony of an Evinrude? The snort
of a startled deer, or the outrageous whine of a jet ski? There
are few places in this country, even in this remarkable Adirondack
Park, where motors don’t obliterate the often subtle, delicate
sounds of nature. As of this moment, both the Evinrude and the jet
ski are perfectly legal. They roar up and down the Raquette; they
defeat your search for peace. Is this right?
From Long Lake to the falls, the Raquette should be motor free.
Philip G. Terrie, a professor of American studies,
summers in Long Lake and has written three books about the Adirondacks.
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