The Holland Land Company is known for its role in settling the western part of upstate New York by acquiring land grants and selling off lots to prospective settlers in the early nineteenth century. Yet its activities in the last decade of the eighteenth century were of a different nature, as the stories of Gerrit Boon and Jan Lincklaen show.
In the last decade of the eighteenth century, two young Dutchmen, Gerrit Boon and Jan Lincklaen, traveled through the densely forested lands of Upstate New York. They eventually identified locations fit for the founding of the new villages of Oldenbarneveld (now Barneveld in Oneida County) and DeRuyter (in Madison County). [Read more…] about When Two Dutchmen Tried To Create A Maple Sugar Industry
It’s that time of year. The sap is running and the buckets and tanks are filling. Backyard syrup makers large and small have been taking advantage of the recent sugaring weather to fire their arches and settle into the ancient and accepted rite of watching the boil.
To a highly mobile species like humans, the fact that other animals relocate their families – or entire populations – isn’t a big surprise. We know historical migrations have been the norm, though the fossil record shows that generally these changes happened at a snail’s pace.
Over the years I have put my canoe into Adirondack waters at the Lows Lake Lower Dam (Bog River Dam, 1907) and paddled the meandering Bog River Flow upstream to Hitchins Pond. From there you can carry around the Lows Lake Dam (Upper Dam, 1903*) and out on to Lows Lake.
As I start to write this, it’s raining and 50°F outside. Several days of above freezing nighttime temperatures are in the forecast, as well. It appears that the 
I don’t think there’s a more magnificent forest tree or more glorious shade tree than the sugar maple (Acer saccharum); a deciduous tree that matures in 30-50 years, generally growing to between 70 and 90 feet tall, with a crown that turns a brilliant, fiery yellow, orange, or red at summer’s end. The sugar maple is the official state tree of New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. It’s also the national tree of Canada. And the maple leaf is the Canadian national emblem.