Mike Prescott

Mike Prescott is a former history teacher and secondary school principal who found a new retirement avocation in paddling Adirondack waters and exploring their history. Mike is a New York State Licensed Guide, and also volunteers with the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, the Raquette River Blueway Corridor, the New York State Trails Council and with the Adirondack Mountain Club. Feel free to contact him at mjpaddler@gmail.com.

Gore Mountain’s Backwoods Ski Club: A Short History

January 18, 2021 by Mike Prescott Leave a Comment

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 Club provides a dinner buffet and beverages, and Club members mingle and merge with the lift operators, ski patrol members, ski instructors, snow makers, groomers, maintenance workers, concession and food service workers, office staff, and those who are constantly working to clean up the mess. [Read more…] about Gore Mountain’s Backwoods Ski Club: A Short History

Sacandaga River History: Piseco, Lake Pleasant Reservoirs

January 4, 2021 by Mike Prescott Leave a Comment

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.

The river is a provider of power and recreation, and a powerful force of nature. [Read more…] about Sacandaga River History: Piseco, Lake Pleasant Reservoirs

The First (Short Lived) Suspension Bridge Across The Hudson River

December 17, 2020 by Mike Prescott 1 Comment

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.

Each summer the wealthy Gilchrist family journeyed north to avoid the hot humid subtropical summers of Charleston. They stayed with maternal family members in the Great Northern Wilderness of New York. (The term Adirondacks is said to have been first used by geologist and surveyor Ebenezer Emmons in 1838 and took some time to come into general use). [Read more…] about The First (Short Lived) Suspension Bridge Across The Hudson River

Hudson River Dam History: The Big Hadley And Glen Dams

November 16, 2020 by Mike Prescott 3 Comments

One day as my wife and I and our dogs walked along River Road at Riparius on the Hudson River, my wife said to me in a folksy manner “just think all this water here, is on its way to New York City.”

It’s true the Hudson River has flowed out of the Adirondack Mountains for millennia, southward towards the Atlantic Ocean. And over the last two centuries or so there have been plans to dam the Upper Hudson for one reason or another. Most of those plans have dealt with using the water resources for some down state endeavor. [Read more…] about Hudson River Dam History: The Big Hadley And Glen Dams

An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

October 22, 2020 by Mike Prescott 2 Comments

Farrand Benedict, surveyor and professor of mathematics and engineering at the University of Vermont in Burlington, wrote a proposal for a canal across the Adirondacks in 1846.

His plan was to use the Black River Canal with its connection to the Erie Canal at Rome and build a railroad from Boonville, on the Black River Canal, to Old Forge. He was then going to utilize the Fulton Chain of Lakes, Raquette Lake, Long Lake, the Raquette River and the Saranac Lakes with various lock systems, dams, and inclines to the Saranac River for canal boat traffic. [Read more…] about An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

Dams, Canals, Locks & Inclined Planes: Farrand Benedict In The Adirondacks

October 20, 2020 by Mike Prescott 1 Comment

This is a story of a fascinating but rather forgotten individual from the history of the Adirondacks.

Along with his slightly older mentor Ebenezer Emmons, and his younger contemporary Verplanck Colvin, he was among the first to accurately survey much of the Adirondacks. He also proposed a number of early dams, canals, locks and inclined planes and considered using historic waterways and canals to traverse the Adirondacks by water. [Read more…] about Dams, Canals, Locks & Inclined Planes: Farrand Benedict In The Adirondacks

Extinction: Passenger Pigeons Once Darkened The Skies

October 8, 2020 by Mike Prescott Leave a Comment

In 1854, Samuel H. Hammond, a prominent attorney, newspaper writer and editor, State Senator and sportsman, wrote in Hills, Lakes, and Forest Streams: or A Tramp in the Chateaugay Woods (1854) about a sporting trip with his guide to Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks.

Hammond described a world that was considerably different than today, thanks to logging, blasting, damming, and flooding. He wrote in his diary: [Read more…] about Extinction: Passenger Pigeons Once Darkened The Skies

Dam History: The Proposed Oxbow Reservoir Project

October 7, 2020 by Mike Prescott Leave a Comment

The Raquette River, from Raquette Falls to the State Boat Launch on Tupper Lake, is one of the nicest stretches of flat-water anywhere in the Adirondacks. Paddling this river corridor under a clear cerulean blue sky, on a sunny autumn day with the riverbanks ablaze in orange and red, is exquisite. For me, though, the river’s history is as captivating as its natural beauty. [Read more…] about Dam History: The Proposed Oxbow Reservoir Project

Dam History: The Proposed Tupper Lake Reservoir

October 4, 2020 by Mike Prescott Leave a Comment

I am often dwarfed by the vastness of the landforms which surround me. The glacial lake basin that forms part of the Raquette River Valley is one such formation. The old meandering Raquette River from Raquette Falls to Piercefield Falls twists and turns, almost comes back upon itself for several miles, as it flows towards its mouth on the St. Lawrence River.

At one point it flows into a lake area and makes a series of rather long graceful turns. The already slow moving water slows even more, and the current of the river is almost unnoticeable. Such is the glacial river basin that forms Simon Pond, Tupper Lake and Raquette Pond. Here the particulate matter, which once came from the surrounding mountains, falls out of suspension.

The slowing of the river as it passes through these lakes, over centuries and centuries, over thousands and thousands of years, since the last glacier, allows for great deposits of earth (sand, mud and muck) to build up on their lake floors. [Read more…] about Dam History: The Proposed Tupper Lake Reservoir

An Unnatural History of the Raquette River

August 27, 2020 by Mike Prescott 2 Comments

The Raquette River flows from its source at Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks, to the St. Lawrence River at Akewesasne.

East of Tupper Lake and just north of Simon Pond is a place called “The Cut.”

“The Cut” was channel dug to “straighten the river” so that logs could be floated (driven) straight into Simon Pond, thus avoiding a shallow and meandering section of the Raquette River known as Moody’s Flow. [Read more…] about An Unnatural History of the Raquette River