Stillwater’s tower was climbable for the adventurous the last three decades, but now it truly is in proper shape to welcome visitors, thanks to the Friends of Stillwater Fire Tower.
From the Archives: An Interview with George Canon
Former Explorer Publisher Dick Beamish interviewed longtime Newcomb supervisor George Canon for the November/December 2007 issue. Canon died Sunday, June 18, at the age of 77.
Dannemora escape story reads like fiction
Writer Michael Benson tells the story of the 2015 prison breakout in the northern Adirondacks by inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt in his book, “Escape from Dannemora.”
Biking the Barns in the Champlain Valley
Champlain Valley’s many quiet, country roads are ideal for cycling, so it’s no surprise that the Adirondack North Country Association chose the region for a new annual event called Bike the Barns.
A mountain ministry
Publisher Tom Woodman interviews Rev. Philip Allen, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Indian Lake The Reverend Philip Allen is pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Indian Lake as well as St. Paul’s in Blue Mountain Lake and St. Joseph’s in Olmstedville. He grew up on the family dairy farm in Peru, New York, entered seminary in Ogdensburg, and spent his career in parishes of the Ogdensburg Diocese in northern New York. He has been in Indian Lake for three and a half years and has also served in churches in Saranac Lake and Ausable Forks, among other >>More
Amazing Grace
Four hikers pay tribute to an Adirondack legend while climbing the peak newly renamed in her honor. By Susan Bibeau Shortly after moving to the Adirondacks in 1996, I climbed Giant Mountain. Not only was it my first High Peak, it was the first time I’d climbed anything higher than the hill in the back yard where I grew up. While incredibly rewarding, the hike was harder than I had imagined even though I was a fit, thirty-year-old marathon runner. It was humbling. Nevertheless, like many others before me, I was hooked on the Adirondack Mountains, and I wanted more. That same year Grace Leach Hudowalski >>More
The law of the wild
Adopted fifty years ago, the Wilderness Act reflects the nation’s growing appreciation of unspoiled lands. By Philip Terrie On a warm September day in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed what is now recognized as one of the most significant legislative acts in American environmental history. This was the national Wilderness Act. Before then, federal lands, even those protected as national parks or national forests were expected to serve a variety of functions. The national forests, for example, permitted logging, mining, and grazing. The national parks were often centered on opulent hotels and other all-too-civilized amenities. The idea of setting aside >>More
Adding up the Finch deal
Governor Andrew Cuomo has touted the $47 million land acquisition as a boon for the Park’s economy, but questions and challenges remain. By Brian Mann TWO YEARS AGO, when Governor Andrew Cuomo revived the massive Finch, Pruyn land deal, first engineered by the Adirondack Nature Conservancy in 2007, he shifted the terms of a long-running debate over big land-conservation projects in the Park. Funding for open-space conservation had been under attack in Albany for years, including a moratorium on new spending. Even many Democrats were questioning the value to taxpayers of protecting more “forever wild” land in the Park. The >>More
Trains carry oil and risk
Hundreds of tankers regularly roll past Lake Champlain, raising fears about an environmental or community disaster. By David Sommerstein ON A SUMMER night last July, the charming French-Canadian town of Lac Megantic literally exploded. A tanker train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire, incinerating much of the downtown and killing forty-seven people. Other train explosions followed in Alabama and North Dakota. Now people are wondering if it could happen here in the Adirondacks. Since the disaster in Lac Megantic—located 180 miles northeast of the Adirondack Park, in Quebec—officials in northern New York have taken notice that similar >>More
A trainload of questions
By Brian Mann For more than twenty years, the Adirondack Scenic Railroad has struggled to create an excursion train from Utica to Lake Placid, an attraction that advocates hope will one day serve as a major draw for tourists, carrying passengers through some of the most rugged and scenic terrain in the East. “We view an asset like that as something you would never want to rip up,” Bill Branson, the ASR board president, said in an interview last year. But a nearly month-long investigation by the Adirondack Explorer, in partnership with North Country Public Radio, has revealed stark and long-lingering >>More