WATERWATERWATER

Last class we talked a lot about the resources that the Adirondacks have to offer, like mining, logging, farming, trapping, and tourism. At the end of class Janelle posed a question that really struck me, a question about resources that don't fall into these aforementioned categories: "Is it not useful because it's not useful to us?"

This got me thinking about all the natural resources that we tend to take for granted if we don't have an active part in obtaining them or if their utility to humans is not immediately obvious. Resources like lumber, crops, furs, and minerals have to be actively cut, farmed, trapped, and mined and once they're obtained they can be adopted for human use pretty much immediately afterwards--but what about all the ecological resources and services that humans don't play an active role in? Things like water filtration, the decomposition of wastes, crop pollination, and carbon sequestration to name a few, cannot be measured in crop yields or furs sold. And while their benefits for humans might not be as immediately apparent, they constitute some of the most vital services that allow us (and every other living thing) to inhabit this earth. It would be easy to look at how the Adirondacks is not conducive to crop cultivation, write it off as "not useful" and bulldoze the whole thing for development. But what we would lose then would be all the indirect, yet irreplaceable ecological services that don't have to do with people plowing land or excavating mountains.

What we sometimes don't think about is the fact that when you turn on a tap in someplace like New York City (which gets most of its water from the Hudson River and Catskill watersheds), there's a huge chance that that water was naturally filtered by wetlands in the Adirondacks, where the headwaters for the Hudson River are. Without the Adirondacks, it's unclear where Manhattan and many other New York communities would find enough clean water to support their growing populations--and that's just one example.

Thinking about all of this reminds me of Chris's presentation on mining in the Adirondacks versus the Gold Rush in California. Nowadays California is experiencing some pretty extreme water shortages even with all of the water diversion from the Colorado River and the various other projects they have to sustain their consumption. I think a lot of the reason that California is struggling to maintain their water supplies sustainably (aside from the ecological make-up of the land) is because they have huge populations around Los Angeles and the Bay Area that require huge amounts of water withdrawal. And since mining is a particularly earth-invasive process that can easily infiltrate watersheds and groundwater stores, it's a scary thought to think about what the region would look like today if mining had been as successful in the Adirondacks. With the pressures from what would have been larger populations accompanied by general waste, pollution, and ecological disruption, undoubtedly the landscape would look entirely different and the resources and services that the region provides would not be the same as they are today.

P.S. If you want to learn more about water conservation efforts in the Adirondacks, click here!
http://www.adirondackcouncil.org/uploads/special_reports_archive/1341942164_Adirondack_Waters___Resource_at_Risk.pdf

Organic & Local

Although we have finished reading Wandering Home by Bill McKibben, there was a recent article in the Adirondack Almanac that reminded me of a conversation the class had regarding the organic and local food movements. Speaking about the organic movement, McKibben writes, “For a generation, a certain number of farmers scattered across the country have managed to hang on by a growing organic food for consumers willing to pay more for a dinner free of pesticides” (45). A few lines down, McKibben also writes, “For two decades ‘organic’ had meant more than just ‘pesticide free’; it also meant ‘some local guy grew this with his own hands.’ Now that meaning was evaporating” (46). As large corporations entered the organic market, they quickly overshadowed local farmers, and became some of the world’s largest organic producers. The term “organic” therefore lost its original meaning. This caused a shift to the local foods movement, causing consumers to shift from supporting the organic movement to supporting local farmers.  

In the Almanac Article entitled The Farm Bill, Local Foods, And You, Laurie Davis describes the provisions of the recently enacted Agricultural Act of 2014, or Farm Bill. Davis explains that this bill significantly increased funding for programs in support of the local foods movement. For example, funding was tripled for the Farmers Market and Local Foods Promotion Program, which support not only farmers markets, but also community-supported agriculture, farm-to-institution, and food hubs. Additionally, the Value-Added Producer Grant, established in 2001, received an increase in mandatory funding levels from the Farm Bill. This grant will help small farmers to develop, process, and sell value-added items derived from their own farm products. Lastly, the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program received increased funding to support and promote local foods in the North Country. Although there is still some room for improvement, Davis mentioned that this bill made some “major inroads into support for local food.”

With the Farm Bill enacted, it will be interesting to see how the local food movement will take off and which direction it will go. Unlike the organic movement, it will be harder for large corporations to take over the local food industry. For example, Tyson, one of the world's largest processors and marketers of chicken, beef and pork, has its headquarters are located in Arkansas. It would therefore be more difficult for Tyson to claim their products were “local” to consumers who are buying their products in New York. Tyson would have to open hundreds more factories to make this claim. For this reason, it seems to me that the local food movement has a greater potential than the organic movement ever did. It’ll be interesting to see how the Farm Bill contributes to the movement, and also how large corporations react.

What's Left of Timbuctoo

The history of Timbuctoo is something I have never read or heard about, which concerns me given that I've grown up in Central New York. The New York Folk Lore Society has built an exhibition to try and preserve the history of this little known community. Here's what I learned:


Gerrit Smith's motivation for giving the African American settlers land in the Adirondacks was that in order to vote in New York, a citizen had to own $250 in property. The freed slaves of the 1840s and 50s did not have the money or the resources to acquire that land and where therefore effectively prohibited from participating in American Politics. There were over three thousand African American "grantees"who received 40 to 60 acres of Adirondack Land in hopes of establishing a life for their families and community for their peers. In the end, 50 out of three thousand families moved north. Most families were from the slums of Brooklyn with no training and no knowledge of agriculture. It would seem that the lack of experience in agriculture and the rough land of the Adirondacks doomed yet another Adirondack utopia from taking root.
NY times article on the exhibit: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/nyregion/north-elba-journal-recalling-timbuctoo-a-slice-of-black-history.html
 The NY Folklore Society article: http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic29-1-2/exhibit.html

Useless Creatures (from the NYT blog, 9.13.14)

Here's a pretty great opinion piece (in my opinion!) by Richard Conniff,
on "Useless Creatures."
Well worth the read in the context of our discussions about wilderness, land use, and the human perspective.

Scale

Geological timescales are nearly impossible for humans to comprehend, as we can determine change during every single one of the 1440 seconds during a day. Geologically, a second isn't even a blink. The "relatively brand new" Adirondacks are ten to twenty million years old! (Schneider 129) The Adirondacks are relatively brand new to recorded human history - although Native Americans occupied the region for thousands - and that is only about 250 years; permanent settlement even more recent. A "geologically extreme rate" is three millimeters a year (Schneider 130). During a single geological period, the "Iapetus period," "Not one but two ranges of Himalayan-sized peaks rose and fell" (Schneider 128).

In our day to day lives our activity, mood, body temperature, cleanliness, appearance, and surroundings can change within seconds. If Emmons returned to the summit of Mount Marcy today, he would notice little change geologically. Aside from a well-defined trail, most of the large "erratics" would still be in the same exact place as they were when he summited the peak in 1837. Incredibly, humans have interfered with the primarily geologically-derived forces that drive climate patterns: temperatures have warmed enough to melt enough ice to detect change in ocean salinity, humans now account for half of the nitrogen fixation that occurs - all for fertilizer (previously also for explosives) - and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has more than doubled from its previously relatively consistent level of ~190ppm before humans started burning hydrocarbons. However, only 200 years have passed since the beginning of the industrial revolution and although the Earth looks significantly different on the surface, that is the only effect humans have had - on the surface. In only a few generations we have seen the entire reforestation of the Adirondacks and many other forests, such as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. If humans were removed from the planet, would there even be any evidence of our existence aside from a few bones, the moon rover, and Chernobyl in a few million years? Considering how little time humans have been around with respect to geologic time, I don't think so.

Mining in the Park, Mining in the West

The subject of mining in the Adirondacks has piqued my interest lately--I didn't know that the region had been mined and that there is still an operating mine in the park. I'm a bit conflicted on whether mining should be permitted in the park--while I see the importance of preserving wilderness, the econ major side of me attempts to see mining as another environmental cost that can be accounted for in determining the "socially optimal" extent to which the land should be exploited. I've been to a few abandoned mines in California and New Mexico and I've gotten the impression that miners in the west more did more severe environmental damage than miners have done in the Adirondack park.

I went on a backpacking trip a few years ago in the wilderness of northern New Mexico with a group from my Boy Scout troop. The land had once been owned by an oil tycoon and was the site of mining and oil drilling, but the tract was donated to the BSA in the middle of the 20th century and is now preserved as wilderness. My trail map denoted all the abandoned mines on the property and we were advised against entering unmarked abandoned mine shafts due to risk of collapse and norovirus. In addition to these abandoned mines, the ranch had also preserved (and presumably deemed structurally sound) a couple of old mine shafts that were open for tours. A staff member acting as a 19th century prospector led my group down an old a mine shaft (Cypher's Mine), which stands out in my mind as one of the creepiest experiences I've had. I'm typically not claustrophobic, but once the tunnel became too low to stand upright and the light at the end of the shaft faded to a speck, I grabbed my buddy's shoulder a little tighter--which we had to do anyway to make sure that we didn't lose anyone. Looking at the map of Mineville in the Atlas and hearing about the 45 minute commute to the mining site each day in the reading, I couldn't imagine working in a mine for a living as so many immigrants did in the park.

The highlight of my trip was reaching the summit of Baldy Mountain, a 12,500 foot peak in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. The most striking and beautiful part of the hike was the mile-long rock scramble to the top. It's a common misconception that the summit is bare because it's above tree line--however, this is not the case. The mountain was mined for copper in the 19th century, which left the summit devoid of any wildlife. I thought Ben's question about whether mining destroys wilderness was interesting and it made me think back to this experience. He pointed out that bats benefit from the newfound habitat in the form of abandoned mine shafts, and I would agree that there can be unintended benefits to mining based on the spectacular and uninhibited views from Baldy mountain.

My brother is a conservation biologist specializing in water who works in California and he has told me that the streams south of Yosemite are contaminated with mercury and arsenic from reckless gold mining in the 19th century. I get the impression that mining in the park has been conducted more responsibly than it had been in the west. I'd love to visit an old mine on our field trip to see how mining in the park compares to mining in the western United States.

My group, with the summit of Baldy Mountain in the background.

Giving Praise Where It Is Due

I just want to say, briefly, how much I am LOVING this blog. I really appreciate how specific, well-written, and observant your posts have been. And I'm thrilled that every time I look at it, I learn something new. Very cool!

the ethics of trapping

Trapping is a subject to which I've never given serious thought, perhaps because I grew up in a city and was never exposed to hunting and trapping. On the one hand, I guess I had always dismissed modern day trapping as somewhat cruel, while on some level buying into the romantic notions surrounding trappers like Davy Crocket and Daniel Boone. And trapping was certainly never something that I associated with the Adirondacks; to me, the Adirondack Park has always been a totally untouched, natural place. However, chapter 4, "The Price of Otter in China," and chapter 5, "The End of an Era," in Schneider's book corrected a few of my misconceptions surrounding trapping and the Adirondacks.

My first misconception was that trapping is an inherently cruel practice. Instead, as Toby Edwards explains, trapping, when practiced responsibly and in accordance with regulations, is more in harmony with the wilderness than most farming. In a way, trapping might reinsert humans into the "natural order" in the least destructive way possible. Schneider acknowledges that New York State "relies on trappers to control the burgeoning population of beaver" (72) and that "in the Adirondacks at least, conservationists have never won a major battle without the support of the trappers and their far more plentiful brethren, the hunters and anglers" (73).

Schneider next dispelled my romantic notions of the frontier trapper. I had always thought of frontier trappers as totally self-sufficient and one with the wilderness (as corny as that sounds). In my imagination, the Davy Crockets and Daniel Boones weren't indiscriminately killing off the deer and wolf populations just for a bigger payday. But, as Schneider notes, "The shooting of kittens and fawns and pretty much anything else that moved was fairly standard practice in what was a particularly gluttonous period of wildlife removal. In the Champlain Valley bounties would not be paid on wolf puppies whose eyes were not yet open, but only because the towns figured pups that young wouldn't survive long without their mother anyway" (83).

However disturbing such descriptions of past trappers may be, the newfound sense of ecological responsibility in modern day trappers such as Edwards and Inslerman is encouraging. Of course, the occasional alignment of trapper and conservationist agendas does not indicate that all trappers are environmentalists who love the wilderness. But, acknowledging that sustainability can be in people's best interest for reasons other than sentimental ones is a step in the right direction.

Anyone Can Find Gem-Quality Garnet! Big Fun For All Ages!

After today's presentation of garnet mining, I decided to learn more about the Barton mine. One of the first websites that came up was aimed at tourists (http://www.garnetminetours.com). I was surprises and interested in the way the mine had been turned into a tourist attraction:

I felt that this was an interesting extension of mining in the Adirondacks. It is an attempt to use mining to bring tourism into the Adirondacks. It's interactive, "ANYONE can find a gem quality garnet without using tools," "Treasure Hunting in the Garnet Mines Big Fun For All Ages"! It is interesting to see an example of the transformation of an economic resource in the Adirondacks into a tourist attraction. It's definitely cool to see that one mine can have so many different uses. But, for something to be economically successful in the Adirondacks, does it have to be appealing to outsiders?

The Importance of the Adirondacks for Even Just a Day

Wilderness Writing is a freshmen seminar taught by Professor Isserman, in which they explore the adventures of Lewis and Clark, and read many texts about other famous mountaineers. In this seminar the class goes on two field trips facilitated by the Hamilton Outing Club, the first of which is a canoe trip to the West Branch of the Sacadanga River in the Adirondacks. This past weekend I helped to lead this trip with Andrew Jillings and two other HOC leaders and I absolutely loved being part of many of their first experiences in the Adirondacks. The forecast was for cold, windy, and rainy weather all day Saturday so we started by helping all the students get outfitted for the weather and then headed off. I was really unsure of what to expect since the weather was so horrible and it was many of their first times ever paddling, but I was surprised when they really used these tough circumstances to better understand the experiences that Lewis and Clark may have had.
As I was completing the reading for class today, the section about Ebenezer Emmons really caught my attention because I felt like the experience that many of these freshmen had related well to his new found relationship with the Adirondacks as he documented for the first time ever many of the peaks that he hiked. Even though it was only a day and we just canoed along a very calm river, the views were beautiful and many students told me afterwards how amazing their day had been. This is the perfect example of why I think wilderness is so important and why getting younger people out to experience the magic of the Adirondacks is what will protect them in the future.

Is "preserving" the same as keeping wild?

In today's class, and continuing for next few classes, we discussed the concept of wildness in relation to the mining and logging practices that have taken place in the Adirondacks over the last two centuries. Many arguments against the practices, obviously, invoke the age-old ideology of "Forever Wild" that rules the area. In response, of course, are those who are reliant on the jobs and industry that the practices bring with them. The real debate boils down to the environmental impact that the mining and logging have on the area, but it's not nearly so black and white as it might seem. The simplified issues an outsider might see are these: People need jobs and the area needs a sustainable economy, BUT the logging and mining in the area drastically alters the landscape in (presumably) a negative way. But at closer investigation the argument gets muddy. While clear-cutting timber does aggressively change the landscape, the wildlife don't always suffer for it. Deer flourish in sparsely-wooded areas, fallen timber is scavenged by beavers who can't necessarily fell a big hardwood, small rodents and medium-sized predators tend to prefer scraggly undergrowth to hide and hunt in over bare-floored forests. As we discussed today, some mining operations (garnets) accrue very little waste, and most of that is re-purposed for road-building. Sustainable timber practices are becoming the norm. Even unsightly mining shafts become the perfect habitat for bats (which control the insect population) and other nocturnal creatures. Obviously this debate is far from over, but I believe there is an attainable compromise in the near future. Yes, mines aren't necessarily pretty, but they're often out of the public eye, and shallow mine pits can be re-covered with soil once they've stopped producing, which would greatly increase their rebound rate. Brutal logging may have a drastic affect on the forest but regulated, sustainable logging can encourage future growth, and young forests actually encourage the diversity of Adirondack wildlife. The Adirondacks are a precious commodity for those of us devoted to wilderness, but we can't deny the profitability of the space. In a country and a time that needs all the economic help it can get, pretending our wilderness isn't a source of jobs and resources is only detrimental to a place that deserves plenty of attention.

Grace Peak, and the Naming of Mountains

On June 12 this past summer, the US Board of Geographic Names accepted a long-standing petition to rename East Dix as Grace Peak. East Dix and South Dix, two of the 46 Peaks over 4,000 feet in the Adirondacks, were named for their proximity to Dix Mountain, the 5th largest peak in New York. Schneider wrote about Ebenezer Emmons and his historic ascent up Mount Marcy--the first recorded ascent of the tallest mountain in the state. Emmons named Marcy's neighbor Dix Mountain after the Secretary of State, John Dix, who had been one of the strongest supporters of the geographic survey to the high peaks region.

http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2014/06/17/grace-peak

I hiked up East Dix this summer about a week before it was renamed, and I remember sitting at the summit and thinking that it was one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen from an Adirondack peak. I had a brief thought that it deserved a name of its own rather than sharing a name with a neighboring mountain, but it didn't stick with me until I read about the renaming. Grace Hudowalski  was the first woman to summit all 46 of the high peaks and was "a mentor to thousands of people as she shared her enthusiasm for the Adirondacks with everyone". Today, Grace Peak and Esther are the only two high peaks named after women.

When I read Schneider's passages about the naming of the Adirondack park, and the naming of peaks within it, it seems pretty arbitrary how massive geologic features can be labeled by whomever got there first. One man got to the top of Marcy before anyone else did, so he had the ability to give a name to every other mountain he could see. In Emmons' case he gave titles to people who helped him get to Marcy, which is a very admirable way to name the peaks. He did not even name one after himself--someone else did that later. However, despite his good intentions, I wish that more of the mountains were named after something other than 19th century government and corporate officials, even though they have been around for millions of years. There are definitely exceptions to that trend--Skylight and Gothics are named for their physical features, Algonquin and Iroquois are named after Native American groups, and I think that Grace Peak is also an exception in the sense that Grace was a role model and an Adirondack local rather than a landowner from far outside of the park.

View from summit of Grace, taken by John Pikus

Source: http://adk46er.org/news.html

State of the Park 2014

Check out the Adirondack Council's recently released "State of the Park 2014," which is tagged with the phrase "far from finished"...

Reviewing Re-Wilding

The phrase re-wilding is fundamentally a lie. The process by which much of the forested landscapes of the Adirondacks have regenerated is not the pristine, innocent, primal restoration often advertised. The process is fueled, controlled and limited by the human presence past, present and future. The relics of human structure do not flee with their creators: buildings still remain and mines still expose mountains.  Such obstacles are not necessarily impassable for the existing wildlife, and ruined mines or stone structures lose their human scent after a certain amount of time, but the physical presence remains indefinitely beyond the re-wilding process. The present re-wilding process is mandated by the state, entirely run by humans. We choose which species to bring back and where to release them. We select what we deem as wild and natural, and there’s nothing more unnatural than that. Many of our choices are technically speaking not native, and by our own definitions invasives which compete with the remaining native populations. We exclude the wolf from what was its former stomping ground, leaving it’s historic position atop the food chain unfilled and it’s absence seen throughout the ecosystem. Top-tier predators maintain the populations of smaller but equally profound creatures and without them, animals with incredible impact (especially beavers) can change their environment unhindered. And the reason we leave out the wolf is for its competition in hunting: “they’ll take my deer.” Here, human selfishness and fear for the future intermix to ensure re-wilding remains domestic and tame.

A domesticated wilderness, however, is not necessarily entirely negative. In an industrial society, just creating an area of wilderness, despite its human construction, is infinitely greater and more beneficial than no wilderness at all. Knowing that the state of New York has taken six million acres of land under its wing and vowed to protect it shows a general respect for the necessity of wilderness and all that it can provide. And if an unnatural re-wilding process is what we need to experience some semblance of wilderness, than I’ll overlook the wolves, the mines, the bureaucracy, and spend a few days wandering through the woods.

French Aristocrats/Refugees in the Adirondacks?

Among all of Schneider's talk about settlers struggling in the Adirondacks, his mention of Castorland, the exclusive community for French aristocrats, stuck out in bizarre juxtaposition to his previous descriptions. As Steph mentioned in her blog post, French aristocracy seems complete out of place in the Adirondacks, which is exactly why this passage surprised me. While this is not a really significant part of Adirondack history, it stuck out as an unusual instance in which people were not trying to necessarily make a living like other settlers in the Adirondacks but they were refugees from France, who were escaping imprisonment, and even death, during the French Revolution due to their aristocratic affiliation and status. In 1792, Pierre Chassanis, a French nobleman, purchased 600,000 acres to build this community on. The Castorland corporation planned to build two cities complete with houses, markets, churches, roads and bridges.

Up to this point, we've seen settlers mostly come from surrounding areas, drawn in by promises of fertile land and natural resources. However, it seems as if the primary concern for the French aristocracy wasn't for farming but rather for escaping potential execution. It seems hard to believe that there is a connection between the Adirondacks and the French Revolution, but there was, even if it was short lived. The Adirondacks have seen such a wide range of cultures, people, intentions, successes, and failures.

Although this community was ultimately a failure, the corporation entered the land with the same hope and optimism as so many other settlers. This is manifest in the commemorative coin that the corporation produced. On one side is Cybele "who personified the earth as inhabited or cultivated," (105) and on the flip side was the goddess of agriculture, Ceres. Ceres was a goddess first worshipped by the Ancient Greeks, but here we see her altered to include Adirondack imagery including a maple tree and a beaver. Through this imagery, we see the aspiration of the French corporation to make the Adirondacks as great as the civilizations of classical antiquity, and although the addition of local symbology to a pagan and classical goddess seems odd, it really expresses the romantic and utopian opportunity that the Adirondacks seemingly held to these refugees and to many other settlers.

The History Before the History

History did not begin when Europeans mistakenly stumbled upon North America.

Literature about early settlement in the Adirondacks makes little mention of the people that inhabited the northeastern region before "western civilization" took hold. To their credit, books point out that natives in fact existed, and they traded with the Europeans before dying off in great numbers. However, their accounts paint a dim picture of the people that were once intimately connected with this land.

There is a long, rich history that has helped to shape and set the foundation for wilderness culture as we experience it today. This history began with natives, who survived in the Adirondack wilderness before it became American property.

The Iroquois was a league of indian tribes who controlled a large stretch of land that included much of the Northeast, the Great Lakes area and bits of the south. These tribes banded together between 1450 and 1600 in order to quell their incessant skirmishes and feuds. Once the peace treaty was established, the Iroquois tribes became the foremost power in the region.

The downfall of the Iroquois can be directly attributed to the Europeans, although their descent from power was not instantaneous. At first, the indians and the Europeans traded goods. The Dutch, French, and English capitalized on the native peoples' hunting acumen and knowledge of the area. The natives purchased weapons, among other western tools, textiles, and vestments.

Eventually, the Iroquois and other native peoples developed a dependance on European goods. The tribes therefore fought to keep their hold on the fur trade, which served as the main link between the tribes and European goods. Ultimately, the pressure for control of the land was so great that native tribes all but annihilated each other. The remaining natives were decimated by disease and ultimately pushed out of their homelands by European settlers.

Yield

One of the most interesting things I found in the Terrie reading was this pervasive sense that humans are apart from (and in most cases, superior than) the natural world around them--and even worse, that during the time that the Adirondacks were being settled, people didn't even realize this humans-over-wilderness complex. For the settlers coming to populate the wild north country, the Adirondacks represented "both a resource and an obstacle to their own prosperity" (Terrie, 29). People viewed the forest they migrated to as a means to achieve the not-yet-named American Dream and used the land as a tool for human progress. At first, these early settlers didn't so much work with the land as they worked to make the land fit their needs--as seen by their insistence upon farming the mostly infertile soils and by physically and visibly altering the landscape. According to Terrie, "every family's goal was to secure a good living by eliminating at least that part of wilderness around their home farm" (Terrie, 42). The people of this time (and many today as well) viewed the Adirondacks equally as a land of opportunity for human gain and, unfortunately, as an unnecessary and begging-to-be-changed "impediment to personal comfort, material success, and cultural advancement" (Terrie, 42). Both of these viewpoints feed into the idea that humans are entitled to using (and abusing!) the landscape for their own personal advancement, an interesting thread in the Adirondack narrative considering Terrie's discussion of land ownership. When considering whether the poor migrants actually working the land or the fat-cat but entirely absent men who laid financial claim to the land should technically own the lots, Terrie asked what I found to be an incredibly probing question relevant to more than just land ownership: "who should control the land--those living on it or someone else?" (Terrie, 25). Ultimately what this question made me think of is who, as in what beings or forces of nature, should control the land? Should humans be allowed to manipulate nature to their advantage or should we learn to live with the land rather than on top of it? To me the answer is clear and points to a solution of successful integration and cohabitation instead of a completely one-sided urbanization in some parts and pure wilderness in others approach--a proposal much easier said than done. If nothing else, however, I think today's reading serves as an important reminder that people and their landscape will never successfully thrive together as long as humans expect the land to "yiel[d] to civilization" (Terrie, 42).

Agrarian Idealism in the Adirondacks

In reading both the Schneider and Terrie books, I was struck by the idea of the American dream in the Adirondacks. Families moving up to the North Country with the hopes of finding fertile farmland seems like a precursor to westward migration and the gold rush era in California. Unfortunately, it seems most families experienced hardship rather than success in the Adirondacks, much like those who journeyed to California to mine for gold.

People moving to the Adirondacks were lulled by reports of an agricultural paradise.  John Brown’s names for his proposed towns encouraged optimism and hope for idealist communities. Instead, they found mostly barren and rocky soil. As I was driving through the park today, I tried to imagine what the land I was seeing now was used for 200 years ago. It is definitely evident that the Adirondacks are not quite the agricultural strongholds of the Mohawk and lower Hudson valleys. Open fields and meadows now populated with dense brush are all that remain of former farms in many spots. It will definitely be interesting to keep learning about the history of the Adirondacks and other, more successful industries there.

The American Dream in the Adirondacks

A recurring topic that we have addressed in class is the notion that the history of the Adirondacks is defined by the narratives of those that inhabit it. Contested Terrain gives us brief glimpses into the lives of many of the park's earliest settlers and these collective stories provide a broader picture of the struggles and rewards of pioneering the Adirondacks. While reading, I thought of the possibilities that the early Adirondacks provided and imagined the horizon of opportunity that lay before its inhabitants if only they could dream it. The notion that they could aspire to be anything in the Adirondacks seemed, to me, to be the perfect example of "The American Dream."

The notion of an "American Dream" is something that is explored by many writers including F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book The Great Gatsby. While reading Contested Terrain I found many parallels between the early settlers of the Adirondacks and Jay Gatsby. Like Gatsby, these settlers were dirt poor, but had the desire for a grander life and the will to make it happen. One of the things that makes The Great Gatsby such an influential novel is that it defines what it is that makes America unique from the rest of the world; the "American Dream" is an idea that seems to be validated by the lives of these early settlers. The men of women who first moved to the area, "generally poor, hardworking laborers with no capital," (24)  were able to use the opportunities that the land provided to cultivate livings as farmers, store owners and entrepreneurs. 

We have discussed, in class, how the narratives of the Adirondacks address a larger theme about what it is to be American; what makes us unique from the rest of the world. The way in which the Adirondack landscape provided its inhabitants both with obstacles and boundless opportunity is a notion that has been present all throughout American history, from its founding, to the roaring twenties when The Great Gatsby was set to the present day. These opportunities encapsulate not only what it is to be an Adirondacker, but also what it is to be American.

46 Peaks

In two weekends Hamilton's outing club will send upwards of one hundred and fifty students into the Adirondacks in an attempt to summit the 46 tallest peaks in NY state. 46 peak weekend has been a Hamilton tradition since 1995 which means that this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the event if my math is correct. The sign ups for the event are tomorrow and from what I have heard the trips fill up extremely quickly. I hope to participate this year if fate allows and the weekend was definitely on my mind as I was reading Contested Terrain this morning. On page 42 I came across a passage that I believe connects deeply with the nature of the event. (No pun intended) Discussing the settlers' perception of wilderness, Terrie comments "...it (the wilderness) was a feature of a landscape they came to love. In this respect it was associated with home, family and shared experiences, including both the trials endured while establishing new communities and the individual pleasures of exploring and getting to know the forests and lakes" (42). Terrie encompasses not only why over one hundred college students feel the urge to conquer these mountains, but also one of the major reason why the Adirondack Adventure program and Outing Club in general have been so successful over the years. Though I do recognize the tremendous impact we have had on the Adirondack park over the years due to these events, for the sake of this post I am going overlook that aspect in order to focus on this relationship between college student and wilderness.
You would be completely justified in arguing that our relationship with the wilderness as Hamilton College students is inherently different from those original settlers. But I would like to assert that the concepts of home, community, family and shared experience are sought by most if not all human beings. Though during Adirondack Adventure and 46 peaks weekend students are only immersed in the "wilderness" for a matter of days, the driving force behind their decision still centers in a search for personal exploration as well as shared experience with fellow members of the Hamilton family. I believe that even on a small scale the wilderness allows us to have a genuine feeling of self sufficiency and creates situations where we often have to rely on those around us. I would really be interested to hear any other opinions on why events and programs that involve very brief exposure to wilderness are so successful in fostering a sense of community and home.

Who Told It Best?

The word, "narrative", comes up in our understanding of the Adirondacks quite frequently.  The way we understand a place such as the Adirondacks best is through narratives of the land and people occupying it.  This becomes clear from hearing stories about experiences in the Adirondacks, whether it be one of the original settlers, an urban dweller escaping city life, McKibben, or any one of our peers.  Even the Atlas tells a cohesive narrative about land usage in the Adirondacks through use of comprehensive graphs detailing mineral deposits.  As Terrie references towards the end of our reading in response to the seasonal sporters who came to resort-like places in the Adirondacks, 

"This is not to say that one of these sets of perceptions was somehow superior to or more genuine than the other.  The point is that the development of a culture of tourism added a complex new narrative thread to the story and nature in the Adirondacks." (40)

But this raises the question, "How do we decide what to do about the Adirondacks?"  In evaluating things such as laws, land usage, animal population regulations, what narrative do we believe?  What narrative is the most pervasive? Where do we put the most trust in?  There lies points of contention between any two narratives.  The one that stood out in my mind the most was concerning the deer hunting in the 1800's.  The settlers hunted deer without reserve; it was crucial for their sustenance.  However, environmental laws prohibited the hunting of the certain type of deer commonly hunted.  How do we deal with the differences between those two lifestyles?  It seems to make sense to commonly default to the benefit of the inhabitants of the land, but there would lie heavy implications to the frequent hunting and cutting down of trees if everyone was left to their own devices.  How can we rectify the infinite points of contention between the narratives that comprise our image of what is the true Adirondacks?