July/August 2022

Adirondack Life

Adirondack Life magazine is your source for the best of New York's Adirondack Park.

Adirondack Life3 min read
Box410
I am far from ever being an artist, but I enjoy great work when I see it. The colors, the stories and the tone of James Prosek’s “A Beautiful Miscommunication” (June 2022) brought me back to my childhood. I will admit, I was spoiled as a child. I had
Adirondack Life3 min read
Northern Lights
FOR 50 YEARS, Saranac Lake’s Willard Hanmer Guideboat Races celebrated the region’s signature conveyance, in honor of one of its premier local craftsmen. On July 3, after a 10-year hiatus, the people-powered competition is back. Sue Dyer, former exec
Adirondack Life3 min read
Berry Nice
I am a berry picker, raised by a berry picker. Every summer of my life I have spent making and consuming hand-picked berry upside-down cakes, jam, conserve and pies. As kids, when our extended family went picking, we were required to fill a cup of be
Adirondack Life5 min read
Musical Revival
Joyous music fills the calm atmosphere of a July afternoon. Children are playing, bellies are full and the lights of the Ferris wheel illuminate Sherman’s Amusement Park at Caroga Lake, in the southern Adirondacks. Hundreds of people sitting in camp
Adirondack Life3 min read
This Old House
In the shadow of Fort Ticonderoga, on the shore of Lake Champlain, lies another extraordinary historic site—the Pavilion, a mansion with stunning gardens and a story intertwined with the fort’s 270-year saga. While Fort Ti draws more visitors each ye
Adirondack Life3 min read
Solitary Man
The search for a “colporter missionary for the Adirondack Mountains” was advertised in Baptist newspapers as far west as Chicago in June 1904. Placed on behalf of the American Baptist Publication Society by the Lake George and the Essex and Champlain
Adirondack Life5 min readRegional & Ethnic
Villa Vespa
In the early 1970s my father, George Vespa, had a dream of opening an Italian restaurant in Lake Placid. After hiring a chef from New York City’s Little Italy, the Villa Vespa on Placid’s Saranac Avenue got its start. Over the years, my father made s
Adirondack Life1 min read
Hikes + Paddles
Part of the Huntington Wild Forest, managed by SUNY–ESF, this 1.9-mile trail leads to a fire tower on the summit with 360-degree views of the High Peaks and the Essex Chain Lakes. It’s a moderate hike with a 1,053-foot elevation gain. The trail-head
Adirondack Life8 min read
As Adirondack As It Gets
It’s not just a self-deprecating joke. Newcomb, a town of around 400 that’s at least a 20-minute drive from the nearest community, is conveniently located to the stuff that brings people to the Adirondacks. The first thing drivers heading west into t
Adirondack Life1 min read
History + Nature
Hike, bike or ski to the camp, or call Larry Newcombe to reserve a horse-drawn wagon ride (518-480-1743). Tours are available daily in summer at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. The preserve has eight first-come, first-serve campsites and two lean-tos. San
Adirondack Life1 min read
Adirondack Life
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Lisa Lincoln CONTROLLER Joni Manning EXECUTIVE EDITOR Annie Stoltie EXECUTIVE EDITOR Annie Stoltie SENIOR EDITORS Lisa Bramen, Niki Kourofsky DESIGNER Mark Mahorsky MANAGER Linda Bedard SALES Rob Igoe Jr. COORDINATOR Karly Garren
Adirondack Life3 min read
One Sweet Tour
FOR MOST ADIRONDACKERS, a trip to the local soft-serve stand is a ritual filled with nostalgia—summer isn’t complete without that cold, creamy cone. Last year, wearing elastic-waistband shorts, I took on a mission to visit soft-serve stands across th
Adirondack Life2 min read
Causing a Stink
EVEN IF YOU DON’T SEE A STRIPED SKUNK WADDLE by, you can certainly smell it. When threatened, house cat–sized Mephitis mephitis, wearing that unmistakable coat, can spray a thiol compound from its anal glands as far as 20 feet, and with great accurac
Adirondack Life4 min read
JUSt KIDDiNg
The Wild Center (518) 359-7800, www.wildcenter.org 45 Museum Drive, Tupper Lake To sample the paddling life without all the packing and planning, try a guided canoe trip through the Raquette River’s oxbow. The mile-long trips—which run once a day, ev
Adirondack Life7 min read
Good Time Charley
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a larger-than-life man named Charles R. Wood—better known to all as Charley—who dedicated his life to fun. He strode onto the North Country’s mid-century scene with little more than a smile and a hammer, but managed to bui
Adirondack Life2 min read
Real Simple
SUMMER WAS JUST ABOUT OVER. We’d squeezed in every hike, campfire and river float we could before the kids went back to school. Apparently, my teenage son and his friends felt the same panic, so they’d had a slumber party and pulled an all-nighter. T
Adirondack Life4 min read
Dad and Me
One of my fondest and earliest memories of my dad as a forest ranger was me as a kid riding along with him in his red ranger truck, while all of his equipment rattled and jangled around us. He had all this stuff packed away in his truck—things to be
Adirondack Life11 min read
A Fork In The Trail
It’s early April, which is to say mud season in the Adirondacks. Too late for Winter 46ers; too early for the warm-weather crowd. But on a Zoom meeting, a dozen animated callers are discussing the future. The call is about the destiny of the Cascade
Adirondack Life2 min read
Fine Dinning And Lodging In The Adironback Region
The Waldheim. Seventeen cottages with fireplaces 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,
Adirondack Life4 min read
Fair Decision
For much of the 20th century, country fairs were the Super Bowls of their communities. Fair buildings were temples, and the area rock stars were the farmers who raised the finest Ayrshire and Jersey heifers. At the 1929 iteration of the Essex County
Adirondack Life3 min read
Lost Landscapes
Charles Ethan Porter, a painter from Connecticut, may have been the only Black artist to have visited the Adirondacks in the 19th century. Though he was born free in 1847 in the North, the Civil War wouldn’t begin for another 14 years; uncertainty wa
Adirondack Life1 min read
Back Page
Why did the turtle cross the road? Wildlife rehabilitator Debbie Philp is less interested in the answer to that question than with what happens to them while they’re there. Cars are the number one cause of injuries to her patients at Dancing Turtle R
Adirondack Life2 min read
Good Migrations
May 6th was the day when hundreds of swifts, traveling from South America, appeared in Northville’s skies in an inky puff of synchronicity. They swarmed the trees near Ray Hubbell’s glove factory and, at dusk, as if on cue from the heavens, filtered

Adirondack Life

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