Easy Wilderness

         We’ve explored the idea before that the history of the Adirondacks might have been vastly different, had the region provided more farmable land, and it’s no new concept that fertile land will be utilized as the precious resource that it is. So I wonder, then, why the Adirondacks is celebrated as such an enormous feat, to be a park so wild and so well-protected, as far as state or national parks go. Yes, settlers moved into and out of the Adirondacks over the centuries, but due to the nature of the environment and the characteristic geology of the park, most industries didn’t stay for long, and neither did a lot of people.

The Adirondacks are a rising geological dome, with valleys at higher elevation than other mountain ranges, making it much less passable for travelers. The soil isn’t fertile except for a few areas around the edges of the park. Mines were rich, but very localized and sometimes hard to find. The weather is rather unforgiving. Industries that were more likely to see success in the Adirondacks, such as logging and trapping, are lonesome and dangerous occupations. Isn’t it obvious, then that the Adirondacks were fairly easy to revert back to wilderness?

With the tone of some of the Adirondack material we read, it’s easy to believe in the ‘human accomplishment’ of creating the Adirondack park and preserving its wild, as if finally we have learned to protect a bit of this Earth and live alongside it because the Earth is so delicate and fragile. We are doing nature a disservice in forgetting its power. The Adirondack Park is not to be seen as an environmentalist achievement, as it is sometimes viewed. The accomplishment of the Adirondacks is rather the ability of nature in this specific region to remain so intensely and indisputably wild insofar as to stave off repeated attempts of humans to settle and industrialize the area.

I like calling the Adirondacks ‘easy wild,’ in the sense that we couldn’t settle it, so we made it wild again. Unfortunately, this made it seem like an environmentalist miracle, when in reality, the Earth had quite literally refused to let humans take over. However, I feel that this is perspective not often encountered and sometimes it’s frustrating to get the sense that humanity has begun to believe that it ‘made the wilderness happen’ as if we own what wilderness the Adirondacks have become again. The Adirondacks are easily kept wild and we are not as challenged with keeping it this way as we think we are, because we don’t lose much by leaving the Adirondacks alone. By contrast, the plains of the Midwest are not so easily wild; where every inch of land has been appropriated in neat squares and vast agricultural plots blanket miles upon miles. Every plot has been constructed for human use. Take this land and try to revert it back to it’s natural state, where crops don’t grow in tidy rows, and then I might be impressed. But the Adirondacks are easy wild; it will always be wild not matter how humanity tries to make it otherwise. Every piece of the Adirondacks is wild, down to the very core: the rocks, the weather, the animals, and the people who have dared to stick around so long. In the end, it is the wild itself that shaped the history of the park, and that’s what sets the Adirondacks apart.

Works Cited

Schneider, Paul. The Adirondacks: A History of America’s First Wilderness. New York: H. Holt, 1998. Print.

Terrie, Philip G. Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum, 1997. Print.

Jenkins, Jerry, and Andy Keal. The Adirondack Atlas: A Geographic Portrait of the Adirondack Park. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2004. Print.

Success

While many of the first settlers of the Adirondacks would have claimed the land to be a loss, a region that would yield failure instead of crops, the fact that the park has proved to be so hostile towards agricultural progress is in fact a success for our society. However, many people would not automatically assume so.

We define success by how much we can profit from something. When we consider profit we are often driven by a promise of our own gain. This pursuit creates a mindset where we focus on ourselves, and not our role in society as a whole.  In this way we have become individualists in how we think and act.

The Adirondacks sets the stage for a new form of thinking, allowing us to see that we can be successful without exploiting our environment. In this way we must reevaluate our notion of success and profit.

To start, the legacy of loss in the Adirondacks allowed it to remain unsettled and essentially undisturbed by mankind. While there are a few that continue to live off the land, the park remains for the most part, wild. In a world where population growth and overconsumption are threatening our resources, this is one of the last remaining pieces of land that has remained sheltered from the harm we have done to the rest of the world. If the Adirondacks had not proved so hostile to the first settlers of the land, we would have exploited the land just as we have done with the rest of the planet. In this way we must consider our own personal loss of profit in the greater scheme of things.

Additionally, we can look at some of the inhabitants of the Adirondacks to gain a new perspective of success. The abolitionist John Brown settled struggled with the rough conditions of the Adirondack land for many years. However, Brown was not concerned with the potential monetary profit of the land. And while he failed in his efforts to create farming communities of fugitive slaves, he was able to help many runaways escape to freedom. Instead of viewing the Adirondacks as a resource for his own profit, Brown sought out the unsettled land as a route for the Underground Railroad. His efforts brought success for, not only himself, as a fervent supporter of human rights, but also the fugitive slaves that he helped bring to freedom.

Brown’s success was only possible because the land he was working in was so uncharted and uninhabited. It was a blessing in disguise that the Adirondacks was considered so unprofitable, for it allowed figures such as John Brown to become successful in their own ways.

Works Cited

Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter: A Novel. New York, NY: HarperFlamingo, 1998. Print.

Adirondacks as a Culture

I used to think about the Adirondack Park as a wilderness, categorized by its mountain ranges, vast forests and other topographical features. However, after starting this class I have expanded my notion of the park to include not just its geographical features, but the culture it represents. Although the park is not densely populated now, nor has it ever been, the park always seems to have its own unique culture. The people who live in the Adirondacks are in some ways typical, but in many ways they live a lifestyle of rugged individualism that I argue not even the west can capture. 

While the landscapes of most of what once was the Wild West got filled in by the steady advance of people away from the East Coast, the Adirondack state park has retained a certain wildness about it. It seems to me that at least in the past, the Adirondacks attracted two types of people: the extremely stern minded and the extremely desperate. Amongst the determined was John Brown. He used the abundance of land to try and establish a farming community of black men and gave each of them enough land so they were eligible to vote. Although he failed and although he was one of the more extreme examples of the kind of people who settled in the Adirondacks, his determination still exemplifies the kind of will necessary for someone to survive in such an un-forgiving area. He also represents the anti-slavery movement that occurred in the Adirondacks. While most of his white neighbors were unwilling to help runaway slaves, John Brown and others facilitated the development of an underground railroad through the park. The escaped slaves represented the other type of person who inhabited the park: the extremely desperate. With the strict enforcement of the fugitive slave act, slaves, although to a limited extent, sought out escape to Canada through the park because slave catchers often would not enter the Adirondacks.

Thus, the park creates a unique breed of man: one who is tough enough to survive or desperate enough to try. The Adirondacks represents the extremes of life and a culture build around it. I am starting to see that in many ways the Adirondacks are not just an area but a people. They sought to live in an area that the Native Americans avoided because the land was too harsh and from the sides of the mountains they took what they needed to survive and tried to fulfill their dreams of individualism and self reliance, that could not exist in the more crowded parts of the country.

Sources Cited:

Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter. New York, NY: Harper Flamingo, 1998. Print.

The Downfall of the Moose

            Weighing between 800 and 1,200 pounds, moose are quite tough for most animals to take down. That is why once they reach adulthood they have few natural predators. It is estimated that between 500 and 1000 moose currently call the Adirondack Mountains their home. Unfortunately, this figure is dropping because of global warming. Warming temperatures account for longer summers and shorter winters, allowing ticks and parasites more time to reproduce and latch onto moose. While large predators such as wolves and coyotes have a difficult time bringing down a gargantuan moose, it is actually quite easy for ticks and parasites, especially with the assistance of humans.

            It has been scientifically accepted that humans are contributing to our planet’s warming. Temperatures have risen in the past years, polar ice caps are melting at extreme rates, greenhouse gas emissions are rising, and more extreme storms and weather and now standard. Unfortunately for moose, these effects are proving to be deadly, with little sign of improvement. Moose thrive in cold climates with abundant fresh water such as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, upstate New York, Minnesota, and Wyoming. Alas, as global warming has been making summers longer and winters shorter, moose are losing a high percentage of their habitat and experiencing numerous consequences. Longer warm seasons allow for ticks and parasites to latch onto moose and remain there into the winter. As cold weather mammals, moose are not adapt to handle numerous parasites, as they like to spend most of their lives in extremely cold weather where parasites cannot survive, but as temperatures warm, deer are beginning to invade moose territory. Usually deep, thick snows have kept deer and moose populations separate, but with a lack of snowfall, deer are starting to co-mingle with moose. Along with increased competition for food and resources, deer bring warm weather parasites that they are better suited to handle. These parasites usually live within deer without any repercussions, but moose have been reacting much more adversely to these parasites. One parasite in particular, Parelaphostrongylus tenuis, or brain worm has been especially deadly, causing moose to become brain dead and either die as easy prey or from lack of food and water. Ticks have also been a major dilemma for the moose community, covering some moose from head to toe and sucking all the blood off of moose. The moose cannot eat enough to maintain adequate nutrition levels and end up cannibalizing their own muscle as they slowly die.

As global temperatures continue to rise, parasite and tick populations will only grow, further endangering the livelihood of moose in the ADK and across the country. The only feasible solution at this time is to reduce deer populations in moose habitats, and control the breeding of ticks. Ultimately, the future of the moose, the largest species in the deer family, rests on the ability for us to assuage the impacts of warming temperatures, while dispelling parasites that currently are rampant among moose. It does not look bright for the majestic moose, which is likely to be one of the many casualties of our ever-warming planet.

Works Cited

Carey, John. "The Deepening Mystery of Moose Decline." National Wildlife Federation. N.p., 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.

"Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?" Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.

Iacurci, Jenna. "Moose Die-Offs Prompt Population Count in Adirondacks." Nature World News RSS. N.p., 01 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.

"Moose." Wilderness Classroom. N.p., 29 Nov. 2008. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.

Xu, Daniel. "Warm Winter Results in Tick Infestation, “Ghost Moose” in Idaho." OutdoorHub. N.p., 12 Apr. 2015. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.