Great Camps: Another Adirondack Paradox

        I have always found the moniker 'Great Camp' a little odd. In my mind, the word 'camp' is inextricably associated with tents, cooking on a camp stove, and waking up with the sun. As such, it seemed strange the huge compounds built by millionaires in the Adirondacks, such as Litchfield Castle, could also be called a 'camp.' A.L. Donaldson sums up this sentiment perfectly when he said "if ever an exact little word gradually went to seed and ran wild, not only in a wilderness of mountains, but in a wilderness of meanings, it is this one. If you have spent the night in a guide's tent, or a lean-to built of slabs and bark, you have lodged in a 'camp.' If you chance to know a millionaire, you may be housed in a cobblestone castle, tread on Persian rugs, bathe in a marble tub, and retire by electric light-and still your host my call his mountain home a 'camp'" (Schneider 242). After reading about the incredible luxury of William West Durant's Great Camps-Pine Knot, Uncas, and Sagamore (pictured below)- this juxtaposition of the word's definitions became even more striking.

         As if the expense of the compounds themselves wasn't striking enough, owners often had railroad lines built nearly to their camp's door! This presents another image at odds with my idea of a camp, one you set up after having trekked to the required location, carrying your supplies. The extreme permanency of these great camps belays that image. I suppose this duplicity presents another Adirondack paradox. The park was simultaneously host to both forms of 'camp.' If there is any intersection between the two, it is in their image as rustic places in which one could escape to the wilderness.