I was totally and completely wrong

This blog post will hopefully serve as both an apology and a correction.

Last Monday, I presented on the "pre-European" history of settlement in the Adirondacks. That is to say that I (attempted to) give insight on the history and culture of the League of Five Nations.

I am afraid that I did a very shallow job of giving cultural insight, and that I may have shared some of my own ignorance about the topic with others.

First of all, the peoples of the five nations do not refer to themselves as the "Iroquois." This is a European version of a perforative that was used to describe them by the Algonquians. Instead, the five nations refer to themselves as the Haudenosaunee, or "People of the Longhouse."

The longhouse was important to these people, not only because it acted as their main dwelling but also because it was a symbol for their cultural structure. The five nations were independent from one another, and yet they shared the same home. They divided up the space, inhabiting specific locations within the same region, while preserving their unique cultures--just in the way that Haudenosaunee families would share a great longhouse, while preserving their individual identities. The five nations shared the Great Longhouse, but each had a place--"a hearth"--which they tended. The Mohawks guarded the front entrance; the Senecas guarded the back. The Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida nations fell in the middle.

Image 1. Haudenosaunee Longhouse, with a cutout to display one of the hearths within.
 
Image 2. Geography of the League of Five Nations. Note its resemblance to a longhouse--the way it stretches over a long swath of land, with neatly delineated land settlements.

Another potential inaccuracy: I mentioned that The League of Five Nations emerged in the 15th century, but in fact, the league's origins dates back hundreds or even thousands of years prior. The exact date of its establishment is still debated, but there is a long and winding history of these people that is, in many ways, far more important than any "exact" date. One myth tells the story of a confederacy forming more than 1,000 years ago. The league has been constantly evolving ever since.

Image sources:

Image 1. "Haudenosaunee: "People of the Longhouse"" - Grand River Branch - United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada. Grand River Branch - United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Image 2: White, Craig. "The Iroquois Confederacy." Craig White's Literature Courses. University of Houston, Clear Lake, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Mining: Stories of Stability, Hope, and Legacy

I focused my presentation last week on juxtaposing mining in the Adirondacks with mining in the California Gold Rush. There were several points of comparison that I identified:

Stability: The development of mining in the Adirondacks was a long, arduous process of booms and busts, with high industry turnover rates, unstable company towns, and an economy that could hardly support those working in the Adirondacks.

The Gold Rush was a quick grab and go. It left behind huge profits, diversified cities, and a population that would continue to rise even after the rush.

Hope: Adirondack visitors had the highest hopes for tapping into the land’s resources, evidenced by the 1836 geological survey and the industrialists that continued to open up mines, despite the marks of past failures laying at their feet. The Adirondacks were a story of high expectations with little payoff.

The Gold Rush was quite the opposite – a story of small beginnings and low expectations, where the first to discover gold (James Marshall) practically stumbled into it. No one could have predicted that gold mining would become such a lucrative venture that would be the lasting image of westward expansion and the new frontier.

Legacy: Mining in the Adirondacks now seems to exist as just a part of history. It didn’t grow enough to change the landscape, but it’s certainly relevant to the history of the region as it was a means for cultural development, economic development, and potentially the beginning of conservation discussions.

By contrast, California cities grew exponentially and remain as huge metropolises, but only at the expense of irreparably destroying the landscape.

The big question that emerged from the discussion was: Was it worth it? Was it for the best that industry in the Adirondacks didn’t take off, considering the turmoil that laborers endured but also what the Adirondacks would look like now?

International Paper

I was particularly interested in one of the companies that had shown up in the readings, International Paper.  Schneider brought up the point that the company is pretty noteworthy for having owned the most land (besides the state) in the Adirondack park at the time of the publication.  There are around 60,000 employees currently employed for the entire operation of the company, and operate on every continent aside from Australia and Antarctica.  It's estimated they own roughly 18 million acres of forested area worldwide.  It originated as a local paper mill in Corinth, NY, and since has acquired an international perspective through merging around the Adirondacks and the New England area and then globally.

The state also make a pretty historic land purchase from the International Paper Company in 2004 for around 260,000 acres.  Estimations point to the total amount that the deal brought in for the company was around 20 to 25 million.  This was slightly controversial for several reasons.  The land in question was not in any sort of danger from the cutting habits and it could be seen as the state picking up the financial burden for the company, who would still be able to cut on the land.  Similarly, there were some large donations from the company to the funding of the politician brokering the deal.  Regardless, the deal went through.  Interestingly enough, International Paper Company has noted that the New York Branch is their highest cost state of doing business.  Rightfully so, they are placed with a significant amount of environmental restrictions when cutting in the area.

This whole company struck me as being bizarre. Seeing as how the Adirondacks has an image of isolation, to see a private industry of that magnitude that was in the park is unsettling.  After reading the land ownership quote mentioned in my first paragraph, I was expecting a sort of "United Fruit Company -1954 Guatemalan coup" vibe to International Paper's (and similar companies) stake in the land, but it isn't as black and white of a case as that.  The legal ownership an enormous amount of land by one international company in the Adirondacks is questionable, but this has to counteract the grants they give to the Adirondack residents, the employment they provide the area (on the mills they have closed, several ghost towns have appeared) and interest that is generated in the Adirondacks from this.

Loggers of Old vs Today

In chapters 17 and 18 of the Schneider reading, I found a surprising juxtaposition between modern loggers and the lumberjacks that predated them a century before. While the stories of early loggers made them seem romantic and enviable, the description of today's woodsmen made the job sound unprofessional and often despicable. 

In contrast with the long description devoted to the lives of early lumberjacks, Schneider designates only four pages to the lives of loggers today. The characters in chapter 17: Feller-Buncher are two men that seem to have a remarkably blase attitude towards the wilderness around them. They decimate trees with ease using the hydraulic claws of the feller-buncher and seem to pay little attention to the park regulations and permits designed to protect younger trees. Instead of adhering to state laws John prefers to go off his own judgement when deciding which trees to ignore, "I just know how to tell which ones to leave... when you've cut long enough, you just know what that many trees" (198). Reading this, I found nothing enviable in the apparent ease that they were able to cut through the forest. It seems all too mechanized, like they were forsaking any connection with the wilderness in favor of higher profit yields. The way they spent their free time burning live trees, too, seemed like a metaphorical middle finger to the land around them. John does explain that the burning doesn't hurt the tree itself, but the way Scheider depicts him lighting a tree too small to cut makes the action sound despicable.

The old loggers, by contrast seem to have done hard honest work and nurtured a connection with the nature around them. Schneider's writing seems to transform from judgmental to romantic when describing the old axemen. They worked long hours felling the trees by hand, their profits depending on the strength of their arms and the size of their resolve. They slept near the woods in which they worked, reinforcing the idea that there existed some intangible connection between them and the wilderness. It was not an easy life, but it seemed like the hard work put into their job granted them some entitlement to the wood that they were possessing. I found myself thinking that they had earned a right to log in the woods by the long hours that they spent carefully and skillfully honing their craft. Unlike modern loggers, I felt like these axemen knew the land and were deserving of the benefits that it offered.

Human Intervention

During class this week two things really struck with me. 

1. The darker markings on the new art building are supposed to represent trees.

2. We kill and replant replant the Dunham quad (and other trees and grass) at our leisure.

This weeks class has really brought to light the way that we try to control our environment on a large scale in the Adirondacks. Not only that, we do it on a small scale. A scale so small it can be seen on our campus' quads and state of the art buildings. I supposed Ive been living in ignorance, walking across campus on our green grasses without even thinking about the fact that every year we killed it, and every year we planted it again. I now realize that I have been living in oblivion of the way that we as humans have taken control of every inch of our surroundings, even our surroundings that we consider part of nature. 

In the summer I live in Pennsylvania in a small community that continues to become more and more developed. As more lots are built on, this quaint country house getaway has begun to feel more like a suburb. Lawns and kitchen gardens have become the norm. Some people growing vegetables and perennial flowers put up fences, others have called for a deer cull. Five years ago the cull started. My wooded getaway, which was once a place where deer roamed in the hundreds, has now become a place where I can go an entire summer without seeing one. And what for? So we can grow cucumbers in our back yard and black eyed susans in the front? What give us the right to play god? To determine which animals to kill by the hundreds in the dark of night?

The dirt on the Adirondacks

Soils have always interested me. As a child playing in my mother's garden, I probably ingested more dirt than was healthy. As a geology major at Hamilton, I probably still ingest more soil than most (Soil scientists usually taste a dab of the soil they're dealing with in order to determine texture-I promise). And so, it was with great interest that I read Briggs' chapter on Adirondack soil. We've discussed how the poor quality of Adirondack soil played a major role in discouraging agriculture in the area. In general, river valleys with their finer-textured soils are the most viable areas for agriculture. It is no accident that the Champlain Valley proved one of the few agricultural success stories of early settlement in the Adirondacks. And no wonder! Briggs outlines the many characteristics of soil that contributes to its ability to support plant life, which range from its parent material (helps determine mineral content) to topography (influences the amount of drainage) to texture (coarser soils are more tough to farm in than finer soils). Most of the Adirondacks are host to coarser, poorly-drained and poorly-sorted soil deposited by receding glaciers, making farming a difficult endeavor for even the most experienced of farmers (which many early settlers were not). To make matters worse, “the complex nature of glacial deposits, coupled with topography, translates to a high degree of variability for soils within the Adirondack region” (Briggs 54). So, while we can agree that Adirondack soil is, in general, a farmer’s worst nightmare, we should also realize that some areas were more agriculturally viable than others. In fact, Briggs writes that topography could vary so much in a small area that a certain plot of soil might be able to support crops, while a plot 50 feet away would not be able to. And, soil science not being as developed in the 1800’s as it is today (although I’ll bet the 19^th century farmers would take a chomp of dirt to test its texture, who knows), settlers had little way of knowing which plot was which, or even that such variability existed.

 This conundrum reminded me of the difficulty presented to early Adirondack settlers looking for iron deposits. Though the park is host to a large amount of iron ore, a lot of it is tainted with impurities that made early extraction a tasking and expensive process. To make matters worse, miners had no way of determining ore quality until they had mined it, making each choice to mine in a certain area a gamble. Similarly, many Adirondack farmers didn’t realize the difficulty of their situation until the land had been cleared and tilled and crops planted only to later fail. Early settlers were already making a gamble by moving into the Adirondacks and trying to make it living. The variability of the soil and iron quality only made the gamble that much more likely to fail.

PS: an interesting side note/tie in between one of my geology courses and this course. One of our earlier readings (a Godine essay, I think) mentions how, in the summer of 1816, the vast majority of Adirondack crops failed due to frost and snow in June! This year has become known as “The Year Without a Summer” and was due to a huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia the previous year. The immense amount of sulfuric dioxide spewed into the air by the eruption blocked up to 2 percent of incoming solar radiation, effectively lowering temperatures around the globe! Pretty crazy how an event half a world away so deeply affected Adirondack settlers. 

The loggers are changing my opinions

After reading about the existence of the logging industry in the Adirondack Park, I started to draw a parallel between the loggers and our old friend Toby Edwards. These are people that were simply trying to make a living, just like Toby. Just like I had no problem with Toby trapping in the Park, I eventually didn't have a problem with the loggers chopping away at spruce. Why not use our natural resources to bring economic growth to the region? This sentiment brings us back to the overarching question, how will we define the Park going forward? Wilderness or not?

There are so many other places in the country that had natural value, which we destroyed. We were on our way to ruining a lot of the Adirondack Park. But we didn't because we decided we wanted to work to conserve it. It is important to realize before the notion of preserving the Park came about, none of the things done were viewed as "wrong." That is a moral perspective that we have brought into the equation of the future of the Park. The moral perspective that was created over 100 years ago is that same view many of us follow today. But what if you were one of those loggers, living in those camps and existing in that setting? It is no different than living in Manhattan working at a bank. It could be argued that every place we have urbanized could have been wilderness, but they aren't because progress was made before these moral compasses led us in a new direction. The conservation direction. 

I am going to play devil's advocate and say that after reading about people that made livings in the Park, I am for people continuing to do so, because who are we to not take advantage of our resources? It is only after social pressure and moral constructs that we stray away from this original attitude.