Old
Gould Lumber Camp 9. |
 In my Adirondack travels I have spent over half a century wandering the Adirondack Mountains, bushwhacking to out-of-the-way places, rummaging (with the help of native mountaineers) for old photographs and interviewing oldsters for my own interest. I was intent on recapturing the feeling of the Adirondack guide era and the pioneers: the fur trapping, rural farming in America's oldest mountainous region, men and women settlers, the mountain-hunters and anglers period. These time worn men and women had first person stories of adventure and exploration -- tales I wanted to collect. In all I have talked with over three hundred old timers - trappers, farmers, packers, hermits, great camp caretakers, loggers, bush pilots and cooks who had wandered the forest, rivers and mountains that greeted them in their daily living in the dawn of the 20th century. Tripping from isolated hamlet to hamlet, river valley to river to marsh,
Early spring in the Adirondack Mountains. |
looking around and asking the questions that interested me, I talked to septuagenarian survivors of the isolated lumber camps who endured numbing winters, rough labor and isolation needed to survive in this once harsh land backpackers now gleefully hike. There were octogenarians who farmed the rough land, packed deer and black bears great miles and those who carried water pails of blackberries great distances from burnings - the best berrying spots. Several zesty ninety-year olds with the enthusiasm of middle age guided me to "secret" places they longed to revisit one last time.
The Petty Boys, 1913. |
As I listened to my elders acute portraits of an age I could never experience, I developed a healthy appreciation of how education, science and technology is changing our lives -- and that of the earth's environment. No one will ever be able to recapture the day before yesterday. And, the truth is not everyone would want to, nor do we all have the time and resources to travel where we wish.
As an armchair tripper, books have taken me on classic adventures. Maurice Herzog wrote: "The world will never be conquered so long as the
Green-timber lean-to. |
zest for conquest, for adventure, is in men's hearts." A bit of wild left in our world is important. I prefer experiencing to conquering. Virtual traveling to the Adirondack Mountains via the Web is a substitute for sampling the real thing. Take a step in the direction I have traveled. Be a virtual tourist. Come to the ancient Adirondacks and enjoy the challenge of miles of trackless trails. The wilderness and "experience" will energize your body and refresh your spirit. GO FOR IT!
Adventurers all share a restless, pioneer-like
spirit. |
As a tourist to my region you will see the men and women I have known. To be sure they are all common, plain-living folks but their individuality leaps out of a page in history. I have tried to be an observant reporter, and a writer of the region's diverse landscape - its wild, trout-filled waters, rounded old mountains - some with open summits, jade-green meadows seen from rocky outlooks above, black bears, moose and white-tail deer feeding in mountain meadows, the deep forest muffled by windfalls, moss and deep snow.
Wild south branch of the
Moose River. |
Adirondack Traveler is an accurate, eye-witness perspective - a memoir of a land on the brink of change. It is a journal of my interests and my happiness in a patchwork of wilderness that has gained world wide attention -- attracting visitors from all corners of the earth. So strap on a pack and head off to the woodland... as a virtual traveler!
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