Finch Land Classification

I was researching the APA and found this article from February  2014 about the new "Finch Land Classification" that added 42,000 acres of Adirondack land to the forest preserve. I was struck by the amount of land that the state was able to acquire at once. The deal was made on the basis of the state's ability to preserve resources and allow for tourism. Since we were talking about the likely annoyance of upstate citizens with New York City in class today, this seems like a topic that will spark just that. The press release comments focuses on the human benefits that the state land will promote and provide. Governor Cuomo states, “I am thrilled to approve this land classification plan that will allow the State to both preserve the Adirondacks’ magnificent natural resources and provide public recreational and tourism opportunities that will help grow the region’s economy.” Furthermore, the article mentions "mixed use of Wilderness, Primitive and Wild Forest classifications," not the preservation of species and wilderness in the Adirondack region.

link to article: http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/02072014-finch-land-classification

READ THIS!

After dinner at Litchfield Castle, we will have a presentation of a legal case currently before the Court of Appeals of New York State. The case involves the right to canoe down a small stream that passes through the private estate known as Brandreth Park (which is near Long Lake.) Dennis Phillips has represented the Brandreth side, and he will be conducting a kind of mock trial, with Hamilton alum Eric Schwenker (who now works as a law clerk for a judge on the Appeals Court, I believe, and used to work for Dennis). Dennis has asked that we familiarize ourselves as much as possible with the case. I can tell you that it is a really interesting one, representing the conflict between private and public interests in a nuanced and complex way.

This is the first article Dennis would like you to read:
http://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/testing-the-legal-waters

Be sure to check out the maps in the article as well. You should also look up what you can find on Brandreth Park in our texts. I have an entire book on the park by Hamilton Emeritus Professor of Geology Donald Potter (who is part of the Brandreth family, and thus part owner of the Park), if anybody is interested...

There are lots of other articles on the Adirondack Explorer website about this case. You should note the fact that Phil Brown, the editor of the Explorer, is the defendant in the case! He deliberately paddled the route in order to provoke the lawsuit, as you'll see. Here's a link to other stories on this legal case, which has been ongoing for the past 5 years.
http://www.adirondackexplorer.org/legaldefensefund

Onno

Another Canoe Race, Another Connection

This past weekend, I raced my final race with Hamilton's Marathon Canoe Racing Team - I know, another post about canoeing...don't worry, last one! This race was on Long Lake. 10 miles and 1 hour and 40 minutes later, we had survived. Despite the fact that the rain held off for us, the winds were some of the strongest I had ever paddled in. In the first leg of the race, we had a tailwind - steering was quite an issue, but at least it felt like we were moving. It was quite a different story on the return home. At some points, I could have sworn we were practically stopped. As our boat made sweeping seesaw motions over the waves and as the wind whipped us from the front, I attempted to yell "hut" as loud as I could. The conditions were so ridiculous it was almost comical. In fact, I don't think I've ever laughed more while paddling. At this point, the 'race' turned into more of a 'lets just get back to the shore.' It allowed me to look around and observe my surroundings.

Unlike my feelings toward land in the 90, the land around Long Lake did not seem to be 'virgin forest' or 'untouched land.' We passed several houses along the shore - one house even had an open garage for a small plane! The body of water itself seemed to be disturbed as well, as two jet skis ripped past us. On the way home in the jitney, a truck full of logs zipped past us - going a little too fast if I might add. I immediately thought back to our long discussion of logging. I wonder what kind of trees they were? I even remember seeing a sign for Herreshoff road. "Hey," I thought, "I know who that is!" With each trip I take into the Adirondacks, the connections I am able to make to the discussions we have in class multiply. Its one thing to learn about things in your book, but seeing them first hand gives them a sort of credibility and really brings them to life. I am constantly thinking about how all I am observing in the Adirondacks came to be in the first place.

Back to the Roots

After being part of the pit crew for the 90 mile canoe race in the Adirondacks for two years I was itching to actually race. On Saturday the team arrived at Long Lake for a 10 mile race - a sprint in the marathon canoe world - and were greeted by a strong south wind. I immediately thought back to Terrie's chapter, "Life Was Hard on Long Lake" and continued thinking about that throughout the day. Due to a last-minute lineup switch, I ended up in a war canoe with 2 Hamilton teammates and 3 locals. We were competing for a beautiful trophy (pictured below) against one other boat filled with very experienced paddlers, most likely totaling in over one hundred years of experience among the 7 of them. Regardless, we were there to race.
Within 10 minutes of leaving the start line traveling downwind, riding waves, we were between sparsely shores with rocks jutting out, houses perched on some. If Long Lake was one of the more suitable places to settle, I wonder what the rest of the Park is like. 30 minutes out and there were only trees and rocks. Any houses out here could only be reached by boat. By now our war canoe was finding its rhythm and we were nearing the turnaround. This entire time we were never more than 50 yards behind the other boat we were competing against, which is a very close margin for a 10 mile race. Around the turn we closed in 20 yards and were slammed by the 20 mile per hour wind. The boat suddenly got much heavier. I thought to the beaver trade, and how four frenchmen would load up half a ton of beaver pelts into one boat and paddle it up Lake Champlain. If they were facing such a wind, I can't imagine how they could ever move! We were in a racing canoe: lightweight and designed to move quickly through the water. Also, we had carbon fiber paddles. The thought of the hardships endured by warring Natives and desperate settlers made me put aside my pain for the rest of the race and brought forth a motivation nearly unlike anything I've experienced in any endurance sporting event. For the next hour I paddled my hardest into the wind, never flinching at the waves cresting at the gunwales or the continuous rocking of the 26-foot long boat back and forth over the foot-high waves. We inched up on the other boat, and with 2 miles to go, took the lead for the first time and continued to inch past them. The intensity of the situation fueled me to yard on the paddle to propel the boat over the waves and onto the finish line, obscured by whitecaps in the distance. The houses on the shore were a mix of rustic cabins and larger, more luxurious rustic cabins that most likely served as second homes. One house even had a hanger for its seaplane and tracks running up the steep hill of the shore. On such a violent day on the water, life in Long Lake still seemed difficult and the history of the war canoe and life in Long Lake made the victory even sweeter.

Owen Brown and Social Isolation

The passage of interest that I read in class occurred very early on in Cloudsplitter and talked about Owen Brown's decision to write Miss Mayo as opposed to talking to her. The passage delves into Owen's old age and isolation and how "solitude" became the crazed man's "reward and nourishment" (5). It seems that in Owen's detachment from society he had lost the ability to connect with another person verbally. For me, this raised an idea about just how destructive isolation in a wilderness like the Adirondacks can be to a person who has no one else to communicate with and just how essential other people are to our individual well-being. In today's unbelievably connected and social world, we revere the Adirondacks and other landscapes that allow us to escape humanity. I believe it is important to remember the power of the wilderness and how transformative it can be on the mind of a socially detached person. We are incredibly social animals and humans require interaction with one another as a basic element to mental health. A balance between society and the wilderness should be sought after in order to respect the natural world and its power while maintaining an essential connection with other people.

The Infamous Feller Buncher

Since nobody has talked about feller bunchers yet, I will. This is a large feller buncher:

Image from John Deere (www.deere.com) wallpaper gallery

It accomplishes two tasks: cutting the trees off at the base and bunching them together before laying them on the ground in piles. This allows it to cut multiple trees in one pass. The process looks something like this:

 

 Feller buncher in action: if you skip through the video you can see it from a variety of angles

The specs for the machine are impressive: a John Deere 959K has a 9.0L diesel engine producing 330 horsepower and 1027 foot pounds of torque (for comparison the 2.0L engine in a Jetta Sportwagen TDI produces 120 hp and 236 ft-lbs torque). It has a top speed of 2.2 mph which seems paltry until you take into account that it is 13 feet tall, has a 285 gallon fuel tank, and weighs 82,850 lb. All of this power and bulk allows it to pick up 18,330 pounds of tree at the full reach of its arm (it has a 29.3 ft cutting radius). I should note that my pictures and specs are for a large feller buncher with a long cutting arm: smaller feller bunchers without arms, like the one mentioned in Schneider, are available. Still, feller bunchers are one of the more fuel hungry logging machines according to a report I found (see below), consuming an average of 26.2 liters per hour (6.92 gallons per hour) while working. There was a standard deviation of 9.5 liters per hour (2.51 gph) due to differing terrain and types of trees.

However, this is not the only big machine that is used for logging.There are delimbers, harvesters, skidders, chippers, firewood processors, and many more machines all made by a variety of manufacturers and employing quite a few people in their upkeep. Below are a couple more videos if you are curious:

Delimber: this machine removes limbs from trees and cuts them to length:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0HxwOHfueI
Harvester: this machine seems to be more capable than the delimber at moving trees around and cutting them into pieces, but wouldn't be as well suited to working with trees with a lot of limbs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMQvBwMKeHM&list=UU6piF0a9laW7Lny7Qw4jAYA
The firewood harvester (my favorite), cuts and splits logs:

I couldn't resist putting in the video...don't bother with the boring specs at the beginning, fast forward to the cool stuff

Looking purely at what these machines can do, they are pretty neat: they are capable of doing the work of many people in half the time and provide a safe work environment for their operators. So I would argue that the machines deserve some respect for what they can do, even if sometimes we disagree with what they are used for.

Citation for paper:

Smidt, Mathew and Tom Gallagher. "Factors Affecting Fuel Consumption and Harvesting Costs." Auburn School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, n.d. Web. 22 September 2014. web1.cnre.vt.edu/forestry/cofe/documents/2013/Smidt_Gallagher.pdf

Same Landscape, New Perspective

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
            -Marcel Proust

This is the last time that I will bring up marathon canoeing on this blog--I promise. But last weekend I raced in the Long Boat Regatta, a sprint-distance canoe race, which doubled as the New York State collegiate canoe championship. The course covers a small portion of the 90 Miler--you start in the town of Long Lake, NY and paddle five miles out to a buoy and back. The race was interesting for the brutal head wind we faced on the way back and the waves that sloshed up over the sides of our boat, but the most striking aspect of the trip for me was seeing how my perception of the Park had changed since I had last been there just 2 weeks before for the 90. I believe this change is attributable to my experience in this course so far because additional knowledge about the Park has made me more observant of my surroundings.

As I paddled the 90 at the beginning of the school year, my impression was that the park contained mostly untouched wilderness, with the exception of a few small towns. The second time around, the land seemed a lot less wild. I remember seeing a map in the Atlas indicating that the land surrounding Long Lake to the south had once been logged and cleared for agriculture. While taking in the views during the race, the forests seemed a bit thinner and the trees a bit scrawnier than I had remembered.
Then, as an emphatic reminder of logging that continues today, a truck filled with freshly-cut logs rounded a corner too wide and fast, nearly side-swiping our van as we drove home through Long Lake. Also, as I was looking out the van window at the landscape, we passed a sign for Herreshoff Rd. I thought this name sounded familiar, and then I remembered reading about Charles Frederick Herreshoff, the Prussian prospector who killed himself after his mining ventures failed. The more I learn about the Park, the more I notice about the environment--I'm looking forward to going back this weekend to climb Mount Colden as part of HOC's 46 peaks weekend to see what else I notice.

Oh, and we beat Paul Smith's.  

The Hudson River

I am from Brooklyn, so I see the Hudson River in it's final form (and the way most people think of the Hudson River)--a river (estuary) with a very strong current that empties into the New York Harbor. However, the headwaters of the Hudson River are located in the Adirondacks! There are a few rivers and brooks that feed into the Adirondacks: the longest source of the Hudson River is the "Opalescent River" on the west slopes of Marcy in the High Peaks, "Felspar Brook," and, most well-known, Lake Tear of the Clouds. I've been to Lake Tear of the Clouds, and it's amazing to think it could turn into the rushing Hudson River. 

The Hudson River connects New York City and the Adirondacks--A major urban area and the wilderness. The Hudson River is a main mode of transportation, both in boats, and because roads and railroads tend to be built along rivers. When traveling from the Adirondacks to NYC (or vice versa), it is likely that one will go along the Hudson at some point. The Hudson River is a powerful connection between the wilderness and metropolitan life. 

Like most of the Adirondacks, the Hudson River has suffered from human activities. In the mid-20th century, something called PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl) were widely used as dielectric and coolant fluids. General Electric manufacturing facilities at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward discharged tons of PCBs into the river from 1947 to 1977. PCBs settle at the bottom of the river, so the sediment at the bottom of the Hudson River is especially toxic. The PCBs caused extensive contamination of fish in the river, so in 1976 the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation banned all fishing in the upper Hudson due to health concerns with PCBs. 

Like the Adirondacks, there have been many recent efforts to clean up the Hudson River. In 1983, the EPA declared a 200-mile stretch of the river, from Hudson Falls to New York City, to be a superfund site requiring cleanup. This shows growing concern for the effects of human activity all over NYS. The concern for the health of the Hudson River helps extend environmental awareness from New York City to the Adirondacks. 

Adirondacks, The Frontier, and the Pastoral Ideal

In Russell Banks' novel Cloudsplitter, on page 198, Owen Brown recounts the arrival of Richard Henry Dana: a writer and abolitionist from Boston who had gotten lost in the wilderness below what is now called Mt. Marcy. The real Richard Henry Dana wrote a book that described being taken in by John Brown and his family, and the novel from Owen Brown's perspective describes Dana as idealizing the Brown family for settling down in the wilderness. He looked up to them as the "ideal American Christian yeomen"--echoing what we now think of as manifest destiny, and the scramble to find uncharted lands in the West. It is easy to forget that the Adirondacks also had completely uncharted land in the 19th century, and that people settling there faced just as many hardships as those trying to move westward.

In a course I took last year, "Interpreting the American Environment", we talked a lot about what we called the "pastoral ideal". In short, the pastoral ideal was that the United States could ultimately be a nation of farmers, and people who settled down on a plot of land and built a life for themselves, rather than grouping together into crowded cities. The reverence that Dana had for the Brown family, and his connection between living off of the land and being an "ideal American" was an interesting connection to the mindset of the rest of the country at this point in history, and the image of America as a country of people coexisting with "wilderness".

I read a review of Cloudsplitter in the NY Times called 'Cloudsplitter': What Abolitionism Cost John Brown's Family. It essentially dismisses the novel as being of no historical value, arguing "In fact, as a history, it is a very bad book indeed: characters and incidents have been altered, rearranged and reinvented, and speculative analysis, ungrounded in the historical record, has been slathered over Brown's entire life." These comments seem overly critical to me, considering that Banks never makes any claims of historical accuracy. On the contrary, his book was marketed as a novel, and he had motivations other than accurately portraying John Brown's life. It is difficult to make a strong argument about the book, since I only read the assigned passages, but, from what I gathered, Cloudsplitter focuses more on psychological issues and the relationship between people and their environment. It is interesting that John Brown's life is largely fictionalized, while the setting, down to the farms proximity to different mountains, is quite accurate. To be fair, Kakutani, the author of the NY Times article, does not totally disagree. He writes, "But while Owen's account is long-winded and self-indulgent, it does accomplish Banks' end: it immerses us persuasively in his father's world, and it makes us understand, in a very visceral way, the familial repercussions of living with a visionary and martyr." He does not, however, mention the environment in the entire review.


http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/daily/cloudsplitter-book-review.html

Self-Preservation of the Park

In class today we discussed Amy Godine's essays in the Adirondack Park magazine, but we didn't have time to get around to what I thought was one of her major points. The last line in her "Peopling of the Park" essay makes a poignant statement that I took away as the main point of the piece, "In the end, the park's most renewable and enduring resource turns out to be the park itself." (59) While all the other resources in the park - soil, timber, bark, garnet, iron - wasted away and left the workers wanting, the park itself still stood tall. Even after farmers, loggers, tanners, hunters, and miners declared the land worthless and depleted of resources, the land continued to be incredible. Mere decades after being hunted out, clear-cut, and strip-mined, the land has reverted to wilderness as though it never bore those scars. This is a fact that can not be forgotten in the continuing battle surrounding the forest's resources - our efforts to be sustainable in resource acquisition, combined with the forest's own ability to renew its landscape, result in a beautiful expanse of land that can be carefully and happily utilized without lasting damage to the land or the creatures in it. Yes, logging tends to be an ugly practice, but it is a necessary one. I would rather see pricier lumber come out of sustainable practices in our beloved forest than from clear-cut, lumber-ravaged South America.

Beginning of the American Dream

Amy Godine does an excellent job through her essays portraying the immigrant community in a different light than what is commonly thought of. I spent, like many people I would assume, growing up with the idea of America being a "melting pot", where all ethnicities and groups come together. Godine's discussion of immigrants in the Adirondacks gives us a different perspective on the relationship between virtually the old and new immigrants. While reading I was angered by the discrimination against the newer immigrants, but the more Godine discussed the more I could see that maybe these more isolated communities with decent jobs and land availability were what they had been looking for. 

Manifest Destiny was concept that originally came about in the 1940's, it has been used historically to explain the American need to colonize and expand westward across the continent. As a concept that is extremely common in most basic level American history classes, this came to mind as we have been reading about settling the Adirondacks. The people who headed North to these areas were fighting against a lot of odds similar to the settlers going out west, but in both cases some prevailed. The Adirondacks doesn't have the same grand tale that the west does, no gold rush or cowboys, but it is still important to think about the immigrant experience in the Adirondacks. The way in which Godine describes this experience gives us a great view into their relationship with the land and their purpose for traveling all the way to the far reaches of upstate New York. These hopes led into what became the American Dream, the ever hopeful idea that the New World will provide what the Old World could not. 

Logging, Its costs and benefits, and Tupper Lake

Logging: A word that strikes the environmentalist’s heart with anger and derision. In many cases, they are correct in their sentiments. In the Terrie book, a man traveling through the Adirondacks compares the torn down and desolate landscape to hell. When I hike through the Adirondacks, I often cross ugly and overgrown old logging roads, with remnants of corduroy laid across them. However, I really appreciated learning more about the history of logging from the readings this week, especially the Schneider book.

On page 215, Schneider describes the Adirondack wilderness as becoming a “great, hydraulic wood-delivery machine.” Although often destructive to the environment, I found the whole system of log delivery to be fascinating. It is a great example of mankind’s ability to manipulate the wilderness for economic gains and greater efficiency. Schneider also gives us a bit of perspective on logging’s impact on the Adirondack forests on page 217. According to Barbara McMartin, the impact of logging on the Adirondack forest before 1890 was “minor.” Despite the photos of logjams and descriptions of ravaged landscapes, logging was (finally) a profitable use of the land, and created many jobs. The question is, was it worth it? As a wilderness purist, I still say no, although not quite as vehemently as I would have said before the readings this week.

We are seeing a similar fight nowadays with the Tupper Lake resort case. Creating the resort would create many jobs and provide an economic boost to a depressed area. Yet would it be a suitable use for “forever wild” land? Would it set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the park?

The Cost of Beauty

During our last class we were discussing the impact of tourism on the Adirondack Park and used the castle, built from the granite excavated during road construction, on top of Whiteface as a prime example. I looked into it further and found this website: http://www.whiteface.com/activities/memorial-highway . I was surprised and bit saddened to see that there is also a restaurant as well as a gift shop on top of the peak. I do recognize that at this point in time tourism is one of the most consistent aspects of the Adirondack's economy but these installations seemed a bit absurd. I have personally never climbed Whiteface so I decided to search online to see the view as compared to a relatively unpopular member of the 46 peaks, Marshall. As you can see in the photos below the heavily wooden summit of Marshall pales in comparison to the breath taking expanse visible from Whiteface. There are other differences between the two peaks, one being a large distance between Marshall and any maintained roads. But in my opinion it is undeniable that the view from Whiteface has cost it some of its natural beauty. It is clearly a view that people value and would be willing to pay to see. Interestingly enough, I will be leading a 46 peaks trip to Marshall this upcoming weekend but was originally supposed to lead a trip to Whiteface. The switch didn't bother me despite the view because I was looking for an adventure in the Adirondacks with some friends for a night or so. I feel that regardless of where you are in the park you can find beauty in the environment but unfortunately for Whiteface the apparent beauty of its vista has turned the mountain into a commodity of sorts. When I hopefully reach the summit of Marshall this weekend I will not be disappointed by the lack of a "view" because the value of reaching the end of a journey often comes from the travels that take you there and back again. I feel that those tourists, who have driven to the top of Whiteface, may not fully appreciate or recognize that fact due to the convenience of such a "beautiful" view. That being said the perception of beauty in nature and attempting to place a value on that beauty are definitely topics I would love to discuss going forward. 

                     

The Castle on top of Whiteface Mountain

Marker at the top of Mount Marshall

View from Whiteface Mountain

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. 

I'm just one person, like everyone else

I really enjoy reading articles about the little things that make up nature. Sometimes I think we forget how incredibly complex the world is around us, until we can read paragraphs about the soil of a specific landscape. The world is, and the Adirondacks in particular, is a big place filled with little pieces that all create the environment we live in today. While the science of these interactions, be it photosynthesis in the forest canopy, may not be particularly interesting to everyone, the intricacy of these interactions makes you realize just how delicate these places are. Everywhere you touch you leave your own footprint and a butterfly effect coursing through it. Sometimes we think that the world is too big for one person to make such a difference but we could say the same about the particles of dirt or the leaves on the trees. We are all part of a complex ecosystem that we have inserted ourselves into in many cases and we must sometimes remind ourselves of how big a role the little things, such as ourselves, play in the grand scheme of these ecosystems and the world around us.

Miners who Mined in Mineville

I just stumbled across an article about a movie "Mineville" that is set in Moriah and is about the Irish immigrants who mined "Mineville's ore deposits in the early 20th century." It was a low budget, Indie film that came out in 2010. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1648214/.) I was amazed that filmmakers were addressing this relatively obscure part of Adirondack history, which in turn highlighted the significance of immigrants to the development of the region. This made me think about Amy Godine's article "The Peopling of the Park," which also addressed the presence of immigrant laborers in the Adirondacks at the end of the 19th century.

Before this course I wasn't even aware of the major mining industry in the Adirondacks, let alone of the large immigrant presence in the Adirondacks. For instance, the histories of cities like Troy are strongly based on the immigrant laborers who sought to make a living by working in various mills. While I have always been aware of these histories, the immigrant labor force in Adirondack history seems to be largely overlooked. Godine, herself, writes that "the ethnic makeup of the region has always been a richer brew than the image of the lean-jawed, dead-eyed Adirondack guide admits," (Godine, 57).

Godine specifically discusses the immigrant history of Moriah, which was a town complete with schools and stores by the end of the 16th century. Around the Civil War, the Irish arrived to Moriah, and in a second wave of immigration in the 1890's, Eastern Europeans and Italians arrived. It is interesting to note that the Irish rose to managerial status over time and were already well established by the second wave of Europeans came. An article from the Adirondack Museum (http://www.adkmuseum.org/about_us/adirondack_journal/?id=365) states that the Irish mine workers in the late 19th century lived in the best company housing whereas the new immigrants lived in tenements with other families. There is even evidence of the Irish managers forcing the Italian workers of paying for their own tools, conveniently omitting the fact that the company provided tools for free. This is only a small sampling of the anecdotes and accounts that center around the immigrant labor population in the Adirondacks in the 19th and 20th century. This piece of history, not matter how small it is, should no longer be overlooked, but rather explored as it is a vital piece of Adirondack history.

                                Miners from Mineville, Moriah township (from www.miningartifacts.org)

Innocence Lost

I feel as though I have lost some sort of innocence after completing these readings.  Though I suppose that is the nature of education, for some reason this feels different.  I spent the summers of my childhood in the Adirondacks and it has always held a magical quality in my mind.  I have always been in awe of its pure beauty, so to learn of its former violation is upsetting.  Of course this is to be expected though, as it is the pattern of human intervention.  Nature in and of itself did not warrant the respect it now does when the settlers arrived because it existed in such abundance.  It is truly amazing to think of the magnitude of the impact that the loggers had on the forests when all they had so little machinery.  The man-hours involved in the removal of the forests are truly impressive.  Although what they did to the forest is unfortunate, their work ethic and doggedness especially considering the conditions is quite impressive.  They may not have had the best interest of the Park’s future in mind, but the settlers who made the Park their home were certainly men and women to be admired.  Though some of my youthful ignorance may have faded with these readings, I am certainly learning to appreciate the park on a much deeper level, both in its power to heal itself and the sacrifices that were made so that I am able to enjoy it today.