Table of contents for July/August 2023 in Adirondack Explorer

Don’t boost Northway speed limits I would be greatly opposed to increasing the speed on the Northway to 70 mph (“Should I87 go to 70 MPH” May/June) for three reasons. First, there are safety reasons for not increasing the speed. With increased speeds, there is decreased driver response time. There is also increased stopping time relating to both response time and the weight of a vehicle going at an increased speed. Keep in mind multi-ton trucks traveling at the increased speed. Second, there is the noise issue. With increased speed there is increased tire whine. The Northway goes through lake areas and park habitats. Noise is accentuated over water. The road noise would be detrimental to both wildlife and vacationers. Finally, there is fuel efficiency, which typically decreases with increased…

Tick populations, once patchy in the Adirondacks, are now widespread. The highest density of ticks remains in the southern parts of the Blue Line, but researchers are detecting more in northern areas and at higher elevations. The Adirondacks used to be too cold for ticks. Warmer and wetter weather and less severe winters caused by climate change are partially responsible for their colonization in the park, said Lee Ann Sporn, a professor at Paul Smith’s College studying the tiny arachnids. The blacklegged tick, also called the deer tick, is the most common in the Adirondacks and is known for spreading Lyme disease. Dog ticks and lone star ticks are also found in New York. Tick-borne diseases Ticks are carrying more diseases. Sporn said she has found ticks infected with multiple…

AURORA PFAFF Age: 42 Birthplace: Massena Residence: Saranac Lake Occupation: Writer How I Got Here: I grew up in Plattsburgh, and came to the Adirondacks in childhood, hiking Silver Lake Mountain with my mother, freezing my toes in Chazy Lake, swimming in the Ausable, buying Nancy Drew books at The Bookstore Plus. When my now-husband and I had the chance to move to Saranac Lake in 2016, we didn't hesitate. Background / Accomplishments: I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in English literature and make my living writing for regional websites and magazines about extraordinary people and places in the Adirondacks. Favorite view: Anything with moss and ferns, such as at the Silver Lake Bog. Favorite Adirondack outings: Fossil hunting at Lake Champlain, flying over the mountains and paddling quiet…

Lake Placid Realtor Jodi Gunther wondered if she hadn’t sold her last house. It was March 2020 amid the breadth and severity of the pandemic. The work of real estate agents had been deemed nonessential and they were barred from their offices. Gunther remembered what she’d read about the real estate crash of 1926, which helped fuel the Great Depression, and feared a similar outcome. As a hedge she took a job buying groceries for the housebound. That was before buyers from San Francisco to Florida to Philadelphia to Puerto Rico descended on the Adirondack Mountains, as did a multitude of in-state refugees from the cities, and hastily formed LLCs that began collecting vacation properties like trading cards. “From March 18 until mid-May we were not allowed to go into…

For many, the story of the settling of the Adirondacks goes something like this: The area was a vast, uninhabited wilderness until white settlers came to start mining, lumbering and, later, vacationing. Yes, a few Native Americans traveled through the Adirondacks in pre-colonial times, but they never actually lived there. It’s a tale that has been perpetuated by everyone from Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem “The Adirondacs” to Alfred Donaldson, a banker whose 1921 two-volume book, “A History of the Adirondacks,” noted that “Indians never made any part of what is now the Adirondack Park their permanent home.” The problem, several historians and archeologists say, is it’s not true. And continuing this myth, they say, is an injustice to the Indigenous people who were—and still are—there. “The idea that…

Walking into the Westport train depot is like beaming into the 1880s: narrow amber-colored wood paneling, dark brown trim, wooden benches with bentwood armrests, a grated ticket window, its sign in a font that reminds one of handlebar mustaches and saloons. Historical displays complete the time warp boomerang. Outside, Amtrak has hired a contractor for compliance to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the addition of a platform, parking, lighting and a snow-melt system, says Kim Rielly. The project, she says, “will also respect the circa 1876 building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.” The station has been called the finest extant example in America of nineteenth-century small-town train station architecture. Rielly is executive director of the Depot Theatre, which has employed the former freight end of…

The yellow-bellied flycatcher is a small (chickadee size), migratory, boreal bird that flies under the radar for most people. Little is known about this elusive species nicknamed the “moss tyrant” (“tyrant” taken from the flycatcher family name Tyrannidae and “moss” given its habitat preference). Within its genus, Empidonax (from Greek “master of the gnats”), it is the most distinctive species member in appearance, with a yellow belly and a yellow-white, complete eye-ring. Other flycatchers in this genus have such similar appearances that it can be difficult for people to tell them apart by sight. Vocalizations are often the only way to easily differentiate the species. The yellow-bellied flycatcher is late to arrive in spring and early to leave in mid-summer. It has one of the shortest stays on the breeding…

In the summer of 1998, a professor of natural sciences at Paul Smith’s College, Curt Stager, celebrated the slow return of moose to the Adirondacks in a column in a newly launched magazine, Adirondack Explorer. The animals, nearly eliminated by hunters during the 19th century, Stager noted, were up to about 100 in the park. “With all the hot air blowing over the issue of reintroducing wolves to the Adirondacks, it’s refreshing to watch moose quietly come back on their own,” Stager wrote. In that same issue 25 years ago, an article argued the pros and cons of jet skis on Adirondack lakes—the noted author and environmentalist Bill McKibben arguing against, and Mark Denny of the International Jet Sports Boating Association writing in favor. Freelance reporter Jim Gould interviewed the…

Five years ago, the average home price in a broad slice of the Adirondacks was $178,000, according to the New York Association of Realtors. By 2023, that average sale had ballooned to $284,000. Even this number is misleading, because it includes homes outside the park (Plattsburgh, for example) and many dwellings that sell for below-average prices are handyman specials needing perhaps $100,000 of work. Assuming a homebuyer has the 20% down payment of $56,000 for a $280,000 house, the monthly payment including taxes and insurance is still beyond affordability for the average household. Jay Realtor Mike Straight said local young families can generally afford a house costing $120,000 up to maybe $150,000. But the inventory of livable homes in this price range is gone, maybe forever. “These are good kids,…

The American three-toed woodpecker was always rare in New York, but warmer winters in the Adirondacks—probably the bird’s only stronghold in the state—may have pushed this winter-tolerant species farther north forever. “The three-toed woodpecker is gone from the Adirondacks only in the last decade,” ornithologist Jeremy Kirchman, the curator of birds and mammals at the New York State Museum, said in a recent interview. The bird, he said, may be the first to leave New York because of a warming climate. As Kirchman and others monitoring climate change in the Adirondacks realize, this small, unflashy species will also probably not be the last boreal bird to dwindle in the Adirondacks and then disappear from the region. Fifteen years ago, if you asked almost any ornithologist about the biggest threat to…

On Oct. 12, 1912, Ray Collins of Colchester, Vt., took the mound for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, facing the New York Giants and future Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson. With a 4-2 eighth-inning lead, Collins got pulled for a reliever in an error-filled contest that ended in a tie, called on account of darkness. By 1922, Collins was out of pro ball, but was still a local hero. He sailed on a Vermont ferry bound for New York where a thousand of his closest friends intended to pack the stands in a game pitting the Green Mountain Boys, with Collins on the mound, against Plattsburgh. In this small chapter of the long history of North Country baseball, Plattsburgh fans pushed back. “It is now the duty…

“Damn” I thought as I wiped the mucus dripping from my nose with the palm of my hand. It was about 8:20 a.m., and I just finished running from the Pilot’s Knob trailhead up Buck Mountain, overlooking Lake George. I forgot how hard it is to run directly uphill. I had not considered the more than 1,900 feet of elevation gained over three miles. Please do not judge me. I am a retired competitive distance runner with an easily bruised ego. At times during the Buck run I thought I would have been faster if I were walking, but my stubbornness persisted. There was no one at the summit when I arrived, I could hear the propeller planes above me, with their bird’s eye view. I waved like a kid.…