NewsMatch has awarded the Explorer a matching dollar-for-dollar grant up to $25,000 for donations given between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2018.

It might come as a surprise that one of Wendy Hall’s favorite spot in the Adirondacks isn’t the most scenic. It’s a brown field in winter. But driving along Route 22 a few years ago, Hall spotted short-eared owls in the fields on the farmland in that area—making the place infinitely more scenic. She pulled the car over to watch the owls through the fence of a local farm. The area is a perfect place to see winter raptors this time of year, she said, including threatened harrier hawks during the day and endangered short-eared owls at dusk, in the >>More

One of Dave Fadden’s mosaic paintings. Photo by Mike Lynch. A painter, he comes from a family of artists. His grandfather did beadwork; his father is a painter; his mother, a wood carver, potter, and bead artist. Both of his brothers are also painters. He hid Darth Vader’s face—and two other Star Wars images—in one of his mosaics. Dave never told a story in front of his grandfather, though he knows he heard him tell one once from another room. He is working with the Wild Center to redesign an exhibit to reflect the Native American philosophy toward the environment, >>More

If you read every card and map and studied each artifact covering nearly every square inch of the Six Nations Indian Museum, it would take you days to complete—at least a day for each of the four rooms (someone did it over two days once, Dave Fadden said). Look up to the ceiling and there’s more: maps, feathers, drums, and artwork. The challenge for the museum is finding a place to add anything more. “We’re grappling with adding on without losing the sense or essence of the place it is,” Fadden said. The museum has two thousand visitors from July >>More

The Village of Lake George on Thursday received a $4,273,923 grant from the state to rebuild its wastewater-treatment plant, a $17 million project. The Lake George grant is the largest of the $44 million in grants announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support 24 essential drinking water- and wastewater-infrastructure projects. The grants are funded through New York’s Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, as well as the new Intermunicipal Water Infrastructure Grants Program.

She is an artist—a printmaker—and serves on the board of BluSeed Studios. Her art is about climate change, which species are vulnerable to changes in temperatures and flooding. She has traveled extensively in Central America, Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, and India—exploring parks and meeting people. She has a bachelor’s of science degree in wildlife ecology and art from Cornell University and a master’s in environmental science and education from Antioch University. Before her work with the Wild Center, Kretser was director of education for the Adirondack Mountain Club for seven years. Her younger sister, Heidi, also returned to the Adirondacks >>More

Jen Kretser, from Vermontville, is an example of an Adirondacker who traveled the world and then returned to the place that inspires her. “It gives me the strength to do the work that needs to be done and the work I want to do,” she said. The blueberry-laden field she took us to at Norman Ridge is behind her childhood home, where her parents still live. It has awesome mountain panoramas, and the trail leads to a lean-to built by her father where family and friends congregate for campfires. “I grew up here running around catching snakes and building forts,” >>More