Questionable Intentions

Before leading Adirondack Adventure, this past August, all of the newly hired leaders watched a documentary about the Adirondacks and the cultural background of park. The film covered the art and the history of the great camps, focusing on the traditions born of early craftsmanship and living from the land, hailing the Adirondack Park for what it is: the world’s only inhabited wilderness. However, the film consistently referred back to the foundation of the park, citing how it was created as an experiment for balancing modern life with lands forever wild, and after reading Verplanck Colvin’s assessment and those of his contemporary, there was never any consideration for the inhabitants of the park, but rather, early proponents of the park concentrated their focus on maximizing future lumber output and maintaining the integrity of New York City’s drinking water. The local population was mentioned only as the group who failed at cultivating the harsh, rocky soil of the forest. The elected Park Commissioners shared his view and intended over time to buy up the private land and return it to future timber interests, effectively evicting the existing settlements (of which there were several) and displacing their populations. Just as the state acquired the Adirondack Park through lands from which no one could profit, the inhabitants maintained their place in the park because the state could not afford to compensate them for their land. By accident, it seems, such an experiment of settlement and wild land emerged by accident, despite the intention of the state.