book review

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In the summer of 1894, in the midst of a frightening drought, New York State convened a constitutional convention. Along with such issues as judicial and civilservice reform, education, and home rule for cities and villages, the delegates considered the future of the Adirondacks. They were meeting in Albany, near the banks of the Hudson…

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Tim Rowland’s High Peaks: A History of Hiking the Adirondacks from Noah to Neoprene is an impressionistic review of those aspects of Adirondack history that helped form the landscape that modern-day hikers traverse. Rowland, a humor columnist for the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Md., began visiting the Adirondacks in the 1960s, staying at his grandfather’s camp…

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In 1988, Cornell University Press published The Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State. The book, which sits before me, filled 552 pages with maps, text and elegant line drawings of every bird found courting prospective mates, hatching eggs or raising young in the Empire State. The culmination of more than 200,000 hours of…

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Have you ever wondered about the origins of the Adirondack Park? Have you ever found yourself guessing at the difference between the Park and the Forest Preserve? Well, your guessing is at an end, because America’s First Wilderness by Norman Van Valkenburgh answers all those questions and more about the origins, history and development of…

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The sixth edition of The Adirondack Book is a treasure trove for visitors to the North Country, with information about 1,300 hotels, restaurants, stores, recreational opportunities and other attractions. Authors Annie Stoltie and Elizabeth Folwell, both editors at Adirondack Life, write well, often with wit, and are objective in their evaluations. They tell you the…

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Nineteenth-century railroad tycoon Thomas Durant. Modern-day wilderness- preservation star Howard Zahniser. Pioneering Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. Cover girl /poet/confidante of the glitterati Jeanne Robert Foster. Tory sympathizer Sir John Johnson. They may not seem to have a lot in common. Each of these disparate characters does, however, have a tie to the town of…

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The weather was nasty. The British were sailing up Lake Champlain, ahead of a blustery north wind. The Americans, drenched by waves, were lying in ambush in the mile-wide channel between Valcour Island and the mainland, manning a small, hastily constructed fleet. The British expected to sweep away the Americans so they could freely move…

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Adirondack Birding: 60 Great Places to Find Birds is just what the title suggests—a guide to birding hot spots within (in a couple of cases just outside) the Blue Line, written by veteran birder-naturalists John M.C. (“Mike”) Peterson and Gary N. Lee. The selected sites range from the Four Brothers Islands and Ticonderoga Marsh in…

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Some of my favorite canoe trips are included in Adirondack Paddler’s Guide, a highly welcome guidebook by Dave Cilley, the owner of St. Regis Canoe Outfitters in Saranac Lake and Floodwood. The Lower Osgood is one of them. I’ve paddled and written about it many times, though only once did I choose to start from…

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The written word has been fundamental to the story of how Americans have interacted with the natural world. Nature writing comes in a diverse range of genres, from travel and exploration narratives to poetry, from the literature of contemplation and reflection to polemics. In a new anthology, American Earth, editor Bill McKibben has collected the…