The history of the Adirondacks, as it’s usually presented, is blindingly white. Nearly all of our stories—logging, tourism, the Saranac Lake TB nexus, you name it—have familiar iterations, and they seem to involve only white people. Reading, or … [Read more...] about Blacks in the Adirondacks: A History
The Stranger in the Woods The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
Adirondack camp owners and bushwhackers will love this book. And so will people interested in the meaning of extreme solitude—who can tolerate it, who can’t. I’m not talking about the sort of solitude we all appreciate when we have an afternoon or … [Read more...] about The Stranger in the Woods The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
The Snake and the Salamander: Reptiles and Amphibians from Maine to Virginia
Once I had the pleasure of meeting Al Breisch, then New York State DEC’s de facto Herpetologist-in-Chief, at a lecture he gave for the Wild Center before it had even been built. Breisch impressed me. He was precise and as armed with accurate … [Read more...] about The Snake and the Salamander: Reptiles and Amphibians from Maine to Virginia
Big, Wild, and Connected: Scouting an Eastern Wildway from the Everglades to Quebec
The mission of John Davis is not entirely dissimilar to that of the biblical Noah. Davis is out to protect a broad platform of species in an unconventional way that faces both long odds and more than a few arched eyebrows. The central idea is … [Read more...] about Big, Wild, and Connected: Scouting an Eastern Wildway from the Everglades to Quebec
Western Trails
With this year’s publication of Western Trails, the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) completed the most recent overhaul of its Forest Preserve Series of hiking guidebooks—and the club is already hard at work on the next edition of the series. ADK’s … [Read more...] about Western Trails
Bogs and Fens
Bogs and fens are wetlands. At least they are if you can call a wet place with nothing but peat, or sphagnum moss, underfoot “land.” Such features, not quite land and not quite water, dot the Adirondack landscape. Whenever and wherever we hike, we … [Read more...] about Bogs and Fens