Indholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2025 i Adirondack Life

DEEPLY MISSED Betsy Folwell painted pictures with words. She had a unique ability to put words together that created images—of small towns, of nature’s wonders, of little-known Adirondack events. Her accessible language and creative turn of phrase transported readers back in history and into neighbors’ kitchens. The dog-eared copy of Short Carries in our Long Lake camp has been read and re-read by family and visitors so many times that we contemplated buying a new one this year (we decided to keep the old one). More than once, I have had to answer questions like “Can we sing Christmas carols in the truck next year?” or “When will it be the right time to search in the backyard for nightcrawlers or fireflies?” Betsy’s own image is indelibly printed in our…

Edward Zane Carroll Judson, better known by his pen name Ned Buntline, was one of the most famous—and controversial—figures of 19th-century America. A prolific writer, he played a key role in shaping the mythic narratives of the American West, particularly through his promotion of the legendary “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Buntline’s dime novels, a heady mix of adventure, romance and sensationalism, captivated readers across the nation and indelibly shaped the public’s imagination of the frontier. A man of stark contradictions, he was celebrated for his literary accomplishments even as his reckless lifestyle, personal scandals and problematic views on race and violence ignited public ire. His reputation was a patchwork of journalism that exposed corruption and scandal alongside a personal life marked by tumultuous marriages, public feuds and criminal entanglements—traits that embodied…

Oh, it’s just art.” That’s a comment Laura Rice, chief curator of Blue Mountain Lake’s Adirondack Experience, once overheard a woman exclaim as she walked into a gallery, took a quick look around and just as quickly retreated. It was a reaction that stuck with Rice, and a script she wanted to flip. “People know this is a history museum,” Rice says, “but they don’t always think of it as an art museum. How do you engage people who think [Adirondack art] is just a bunch of flat things?” The answer is Artists & Inspiration in the Wild, an exhibit that opened in 2023 after six years of planning. The show features about 250 works scattered through five galleries—an introductory space, followed by rooms dedicated to light, forest, water and…

EVERY ADIRONDACK SMALL TOWN has its own cast of characters whose presence becomes as familiar as its landmarks, and just as entwined with its sense of place. For the better part of five decades, the affable Keene Valley artist Frank Owen has played a recurring role around town, with frequent appearances at the Ausable Inn, where you may find him chatting up hikers, contractors and anyone else who happens upon the only local watering hole. Owen’s face was even more familiar than usual last August, at the reception for his Keene Arts retrospective, where life-size cutouts of his bespectacled and goateed mug were handed out to guests. The masks were a nod to the show’s tongue-in-cheek title, “Let’s Be Frank.” And who wouldn’t want to be Frank? The 86-year-old painter…

It is easy to imagine that spring in the Adirondacks is a concert. The trills of toads and background refrains of frogs and the choral fervor of coyotes. The staccatos and crescendos of waterfowl and the tremulous songs of meadow and forest birds. A white-throated sparrow whistling “Taps” at dusk while I sit in a rocking chair on the porch of my Long Lake cabin. Surrounded by the sounds of wildlife in spring, I tend to forget that if it is music I hear, portions express more than the joy I frequently feel at the passing of winter, including aggression and sexuality and probably various urges and needs beyond my comprehension. I mostly guess at the meanings of vocalizations by wildlife. I react to them and try to make them…

HIKE ENOUGH TRAILS, paddle enough lakes and something bad will happen. You’ll twist an ankle, get lost, capsize, wonder why you didn’t bring the crampons when the ice came earlier than was forecast. Murphy’s Law operates in the Adirondacks, and things go wrong. But there is, too, the kindness of strangers. My first calamity occurred in August 1970. Four of us had rented two canoes for the Old Forge/Saranac Lake route through the Fulton Chain and Raquette and Long Lakes. My three companions were from downstate suburbs, and I drove from Plattsburgh. The plan was to meet in Old Forge, paddle to Saranac Lake, leave the canoes for the outfitter and then hitchhike back to Old Forge and our cars. I was by far the most experienced canoeist. That means…

She interviewed hundreds of mid-20th century influencers on her popular New York City radio show. She wrote on topics from high fashion (she herself was a fashion designer) to 1930s politics in Germany for The New York Times and the Scripps-Howard Syndicate, where she was women’s editor. She acted in summer stock, was on the nominating committee for the Tony Awards, and was partial to opera at Carnegie Hall. She wrote a book on cooking and taught journalism. In 1950 she chaired the New York City March of Dimes and was on the board of trustees of the post-war International Rescue Committee; that year, her annual income was reportedly about $100,000, plus a chauffeur and five staff “girls,” ranking her among the richest working women in America. Not bad for…

In 1985 I bought 40 acres of wilderness at the very top of East Hill in Keene. The chain of previous owners included the philosopher William James, who attended the Glenmore Summer School of Culture Sciences, across O’Toole Road and Gulf Brook below, along with George Santayana, John Dewey, Freud, Jung, Felix Adler and other great minds of the early 20th century; Jack Paar, the original host of the Tonight Show; three Black cab drivers from Brooklyn, when there was a boxers’ training camp down the road; and the Murrays, who lived on Hurricane Road and sold the property and moved to Georgia because Mrs. Murray was allergic to blackflies. I was the first owner to do anything with it. It took two weeks to chainsaw out the view. It…