On almost every stream, pond or lake in the Adirondacks there is still evidence of lumberman’s dams and lumbering operations. In the mid-to-late 1960s however, there was a controversial plan to dam the Upper Hudson River in order to supply water and hydro-electric power to the parched, urban, metropolitan area of New York City.
In the early 1960s there had been a severe drought along the entire northeastern seaboard. One of New York City’s answers to the drought problem was to tap the Upper Hudson to supply its seemingly unquenchable need for water. [Read more…] about Plans To Dam The Upper Hudson Would Have Been Catastrophic
In the summer of 2017 I decided to paddle the Eckford Chain of Lakes in the Adirodnacks. We set out one fine August morning from Raquette Lake, crossed the lake, and proceeded up the Marion River, through the carry, putting back in at the Utowana dock, continuing through Utowana Lake into Eagle Lake, and then into Blue Mountain Lake before pulling our boats out at the Blue Mountain beach.
Many years ago I paddled past what appeared to be many rather unnatural clearings on Long Pond in the St. Regis Canoe Area. Here and there, partially underwater, I saw a piece of water pipe or an old rusty dock support. They are the remains of tent platform sites.
There is an annual tradition near the end of every ski season at Gore Mountain – a party sponsored by the Backwoods Ski Club for the workers and volunteers who make the season happen.
The Sacandaga River valley has been used as a transportation and communication corridor since before Europeans arrived. It was a native trail, a military road, and a proposed canal and railroad route. Today it’s home to Route 30.
Robert Codgell Gilchrist was born into an extremely wealthy well-connected Charleston family in 1829. The oligarchic families of South Carolina had made their wealth on tobacco, rice, indigo, and shipping and Charleston harbor was one of the centers of the southern slave trade. Robert Gilchist’s father had received a federal Judgeship from President Martin Van Buren and he owned an opulent home.
One day as my wife and I and our dogs walked along River Road at Riparius on the 
This is a story of a fascinating but rather forgotten individual from the history of the 
In 1854, Samuel H. Hammond, a prominent attorney, newspaper writer and editor, State Senator and sportsman, wrote in