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Raquette Lake

Recreation Highlight: Camp Sagamore Trail System

January 6, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Camp Sagamore Trail SystemWithin the 47,000-acre Blue Ridge Wilderness lies the Camp Sagamore Trail System. Located near and around the grounds of Great Camp Sagamore, a registered National Historic Landmark and one of few Adirondack Great Camps still in existence today, this trail system provides an immersive nature experience. [Read more…] about Recreation Highlight: Camp Sagamore Trail System

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Adirondacks, Blue Ridge Wilderness, Great Camp Sagamore, Hamilton County, hiking, Inlet, Raquette Lake

Along The Mohawk & Malone: Forest Fires & Logging South of Big Moose (1900-1920)

December 27, 2022 by Noel Sherry 2 Comments

Picture of Rev. John Fitzgerald, Born in England, John Gerald Fitzgerald (1850-1925) attended seminary in Troy, NY, accepting his first assignment as a priest in the Diocese of Ogdensburg. Following pastorates in upstate New York, Father Fitz – as he was affectionately called – was given the daunting challenge of establishing a parish in Old Forge, in the Adirondacks.

In 1896, Northern Herkimer County was a heavily forested region dotted by tiny hamlets, scattered lumber camps, and remote railroad stations along the Mohawk & Malone Railroad. For the next twenty-nine years, he got off the Mohawk & Malone at stations like McKeever, Carter, Big Moose, Beaver River, Brandreth, Keepewa, Nehasane, and Horseshoe Lake, carrying his bible and sacraments from these stops to remote lumber camps on snowshoes, wearing his trademark coonskin cap and woolen mittens. His parish stretched over a 200 square-mile area. [Read more…] about Along The Mohawk & Malone: Forest Fires & Logging South of Big Moose (1900-1920)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Article 14, Beaver River, Big Moose, conservation, Fires, Forest Preserve, Forestry, Fulton Chain, Gifford Pinchot, Herkimer COunty, Industrial History, Logging, Logging the Adirondacks, McKeever, Mohawk & Malone Railroad, Moose River, New York Central RR, railroads, Raquette Lake

Gibson: DEC & APA Should Reform Managing Adirondack Lakes and Ponds

November 5, 2022 by David Gibson 1 Comment

Chad Dawson speaking at Paul Smith's VIC Oct. 2022At Adirondack Wild’s October meeting at the Paul Smith’s Visitor Interpretive Center, lakes and ponds came under the spotlight in a panel discussion about Cooperative Stewardship of Adirondack Lakes. Of particular interest was a given lake’s classification and subsequent comprehensive study, planning and management.

If Adirondack waterbodies are considered part of the Forest Preserve, and for the last fifty years the State Land Master Plan talks about land and water, then the law requires that lakes and ponds be classified, just as forests are. That raises important questions. [Read more…] about Gibson: DEC & APA Should Reform Managing Adirondack Lakes and Ponds

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Adirondack Wild, Adirondacks, Big Moose Lake, boating, development, Essex County, Franklin County, Hamilton County, Lake Placid, Little Tupper Lake, Lower Saranac Lake, Lows Lake, nature, paddling, Raquette Lake, Saranac Lakes Wild Forest, Siamese Ponds Wilderness, State Land Master Plan, Thirteenth Lake, Warren County, water quality, wilderness, Wildlife, William C. Whitney Wilderness

Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

May 9, 2022 by Dave Waite 6 Comments

1885 Stoddard Map of the Adirondack WildernessThe adventure began with an exchange of letters in the spring of 1877 between a sportsman in Syracuse, NY, and Byron P. Graves of Boonville, a town on the western border of the Adirondacks. The purpose of this correspondence was to hire a guide and transportation for a two-week hunting and fishing trip into the Fulton Chain of Lakes for the man and his 11-year-old son Ned.

The sportsman was Ansel Judd Northrup, a 43-year-old attorney who would later write the book, Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks (1882), where this story was first told. The final communication from Northrup, in the form of a telegraph, simply read, “Engage Brinckerhoff, will reach Boonville, morning train, July 5th.” [Read more…] about Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Boonville, Brown's Tract, Eagle Lake, Forked Lake, Fourth Lake, Fulton Chain, Herkimer COunty, Marion River, Moose River, Old Forge, paddling, Raquette Lake, Seventh Lake, Transportation History, Utica

The Devil’s Due: Adirondack Gentrification & Environmental Justice (Part 1: Displacement)

August 1, 2021 by Eliza Jane Darling 11 Comments

Raquette Lake Rockets 1972“Just close the fucking thing.”

These words of quiet despair were uttered twenty years ago in the aftermath of a meeting at the Raquette Lake School, whose imminent demise was increasingly apparent to the people of the village. The atmosphere at the Tap Room, the unofficial community center where attendees had decamped to face the inevitable over a beer, was raw.

The man who issued the fatal prognosis relished it neither as a parent nor an alumnus. But the writing was on the wall. Pupils had dwindled to single digits, too few for a play or a baseball team, never mind the district budget for utilities, maintenance, transportation and salaries. With no babies on the horizon, the current crop of children would age out, and there would soon be none left to educate. [Read more…] about The Devil’s Due: Adirondack Gentrification & Environmental Justice (Part 1: Displacement)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondack Gentrification, Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, anthropology, APA, Cultural History, development, Economic Development, Economic History, Education, Environmental History, Hamilton County, Housing, Labor History, Mario Cuomo, Political History, poverty, Raquette Lake, Social History, Tourism

Barbara Linell Glaser Named ‘Conservationist of the Year’

June 11, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Adirondack CouncilThe Adirondack Council will present its Conservationist of the Year Award to Barbara Linell Glaser, EdD, during the organization’s Forever Wild Day celebration on July 9th at Great Camp Sagamore, near the Adirondack hamlet of Raquette Lake. [Read more…] about Barbara Linell Glaser Named ‘Conservationist of the Year’

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Adirondack Council, Adirondack Park, Clarence Petty, conservation, Environmental History, Great Camp Sagamore, Great Camp Uncas, Hamilton County, Historic Preservation, Raquette Lake, Saratoga County, Saratoga Springs, wilderness

Naming the Lakes of the Eckford Chain

March 14, 2021 by Mike Prescott 3 Comments

Ebenezer-Emmons-1-216x300In 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.

Our conversation (and questions) turned to the name Eckford Chain of Lakes. [Read more…] about Naming the Lakes of the Eckford Chain

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Blue Mountain Lake, Eagle Lake, Eckford Chain of Lakes, Navy, paddling, Raquette Lake, Raquette River, surveying, Utowana Lake

Long Lake Receives Grant for 5 Historic Markers

December 8, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Buttercup Long Lake Historical SocietyGrants for five historic roadside markers have been awarded to the Town of Long Lake.  Funded by a grant from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, the signs commemorate the Raquette Lake Rail Bed, Raquette Lake Hotel, Raquette Lake Train Station and the Raquette Lake General Store and Supply.

A sign in Long Lake will commemorate W.W. Durant’s Buttercup Steamboat which was deliberately sunk in 1885 and recovered in 1959. [Read more…] about Long Lake Receives Grant for 5 Historic Markers

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Historic Preservation, Long Lake, Raquette Lake, William Pomeroy Foundation

Police Chase Winds Through Adirondack Park

July 23, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

NYSP logoNew York State Police report they were involved in a pursuit from Utica into the heart of the Adirondacks 90 miles away.

Police say strip spikes were deployed twice, but did not stop the driver. The pursuit ended at Blue Mountain Lake, in Hamilton County. [Read more…] about Police Chase Winds Through Adirondack Park

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Mohawk Valley Tagged With: Adirondack Park, Blue Mountain Lake, Crime and Justice, Indian Lake, Inlet, Old Forge, Raquette Lake, State Police, Town of Webb

Poetry: A Definition of Time

June 27, 2020 by George Cassidy Payne Leave a Comment

A Definition of Time

On a dead-end block in
a Raquette Lake cabin,
she lays down to drink
alone, not giving a damn
about being married
in the finest old oak casks
or being distinctive with
a hint of perfect smoke
and peat. She just lays there.
While outside her bedroom
window, a slow-rolling plastic
scrapes loose the hard gravel.

Read More Poems From The New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Arts Tagged With: Poetry, Raquette Lake

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