Indholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2021 i Adirondack Life

TABLE TALK I read Niki Kourofsky’s “The Girls Next Door” (October 2021) with interest and some nostalgia. Holidays at our table were full of good spirits and laughter. My dad, Russ Murray, of Plattsburgh, often entertained us with a ditty about “the Cadyville Whore up on the Saranac River.” That is, he would try to sing it until my mom, Marguerite, would stop him after the first line, warning, “Russ, the children!” Well, we grew up, and finally were old enough to hear the rest, so Mom was mum when Dad started to sing. Poor guy, he could not remember the rest of the words after being cut off for so many years. Has anyone out there heard this song and know all of the lyrics? Meta R. Murray Queensbury,…

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO COMPLETED the Great Adirondack Life Challenge 2021! Kudos, especially, for the ingenuity shown in tackling Challenge #18: “Sport a lumberjack beard. If you can’t grow one, faux one.” Smooth-cheeked entrants fashioned facial hair using everything from crochet needles—like Amanda St. Pierre, above—to moss. Heather “Heron Seeker” Daly (Challenge #1: Choose Your Trail Name), of Montclair, New Jersey, won the grand-prize Adirondack Life Adventure Basket, with two passes to the Enchanted Forest Water Safari, in Old Forge, two registrations for BikeADK’s The Weekender event in Paul Smiths, plus a three-year Adirondack Life subscription and additional Adirondack Life loot. Other winners received passes to The Wild Center, in Tupper Lake; pottery from Sue Young, in Jay; autographed copies of Adirondack Ghost Stories, from The Bookstore Plus, in Lake…

BIG MOOSE LAKE, EAGLE BAY, NY 13331 The Waldheim. Seventeen cottages with fireplaces overlooking scenic Big Moose Lake. Established in 1904, The Waldheim has changed little since. Rates include three delicious meals served daily in a central dining room. Unstructured opportunities allow guests to relax, recreate or be with family. 315-357-2353. www.thewaldheim.com INDIAN LAKE, NY 12842 Timberlock. A rustic resort that enables its guests to connect to the magnificent lakeside setting and focus on time with family and friends, without the distractions of today’s fast-paced life. One of the oldest summer family resorts in the Adirondacks, surrounded in all directions by miles of NYS Forest Preserve. Rates include private cabin, three hearty, healthful meals a day plus a host of activities. 518-648-5494. www.timberlock.com. LAKE PLACID, NY 1294 Grand Adirondack Hotel.…

I do not know birds the way I wish I did. But luckily I have an ornithology-loving dad who today, in his 80s and living in the South, is teased by his friends on the golf course for pausing at the tee, looking up and proclaiming, “Roseate spoonbill” or “Black-necked stilt!” Somehow I retained a little bit of birding knowledge from growing up around the constant pointing and identifying. Back then, in the North Country, I learned to spot species such as evening grosbeaks—big-beaked finches in yellow toupees; juncos—half-dipped slate-colored Easter eggs; and belted kingfishers—stocky punk-rockers. A few months ago, on the last family float of the season down my favorite Adirondack river, we encountered kingfishers. First the sound of a rattle, like a machine-gun firing. Then flashes of blue…

In 1793 an ambitious young man named Elisha Bishop and his multi-talented wife, Tabitha, bought 400 acres of land along the Boquet River in Essex County and founded the community now known as New Russia. Over the next half-century, Elijah, along with his son, Lucius, and daughter-in-law, Anne Sheldon Bishop, built and operated sawmills, gristmills, orchards, taverns and a forge. For generations, the industrious Bishop family turned out physicians, artists, authors and scientists. Although it was customary for these pursuits to be the domain of men, Lucy Bishop, one of Elijah’s granddaughters (and my great-great-grandmother), was a rare exception. Born in 1825, Lucy received no formal education, but developed an unquench-able curiosity about the natural world, coupled with an eloquent command of the English language. In her youth, she explored…

When he was 12, Ash Anand’s youngest uncle took him to an open tract of land outside his home in West Bengal on the eastern side of India. “His motive was to inspire me to know that big things can be done,” Anand said. “This was that year he achieved success, and this was his proud moment. I asked him how far his land went, and he said, ‘As far as you can see.’” But lessons can be lost on 12-year-old boys. Anand couldn’t have known that his uncle would go on to subdivide the land into a lucrative array of apartments and event centers. Nor could the boy, who at the time had scant interest in history or the wilderness, have known that he himself would settle in a…

This November 2, New Yorkers will decide whether the state’s citizens have a constitutional right to clean air and water. If passed, the so-called Green Amendment would make New York one of only three states, along with Montana and Pennsylvania, to include a healthful environment among its inalienable rights. A Siena poll in July found that 80 percent of voters favored the amendment. House Warming Families of children facing serious illness can now enjoy an Adirondack vacation at Ronald McDonald House Charities’ first-ever family retreat. The cheerily renovated two-story Krantz Cottage, formerly the law office of the late Harold Krantz, can accommodate two families at a time for five-day, four-night stays in the village of Lake George. Everything, including outings to local attractions and restaurants, is available to guests at…

*unless otherwise noted John Henry Rushton was a trendsetter. The Canton-based boatbuilder, who made top-of-the-line watercraft in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was egged on by his famous customer George Washington Sears, aka “Nessmuk,” to design smaller and smaller boats for the diminutive adventurer. When Nessmuk talked up his ultra-light canoes in regular columns for Forest and Stream—including the pocket-size Sairy Gamp, weighing only 10.5 pounds—the fad caught on, though Rushton wasn’t entirely happy about it. “The trouble is, every damn fool who weighs less than 300 thinks he can use such a canoe too,” he wrote to Nessmuk in 1886. Great Camp pioneer William West Durant, who caught a glimpse of the Sairy Gamp as it was being built, was one of those eager to jump right…