Category: The North Country

Author’s Note: The snowshoes pictured here are my dad’s vintage pair. He made them in Ranger School during his time at Wanakena. He graduated from Ranger School in 1961, two years before I was born. They are still sturdy, solid and strong. I have taken great care to maintain...

An Adirondack Outlaw Wandering Lost in Love’s Wilderness ********** Author’s Note: This story was featured in the February 13, 2022 online edition of The Adirondack Almanack ********** There’s a mystic trail in these mountains. Myths, tragedies, and harrowing rescue tales surround it. It’s not marked on any map. Oldtimers...

“Totally Adirondack – Totally Outlaw – Totally ’80’s” Saranac Lake’s 2022 Winter Carnival was great fun. A “Totally ‘80’s” trip down memory lane. **********           My wife Robin and I had already had great fun driving over together to enjoy Winter Carnival. We toured the Ice Palace. I went...

Christy Mathewson & Larry Doyle Big League TB patients Forever Inspiring Saranac Lake Youth League Baseball ********** There Once Was A Time When Every Town Had A Team Every Team Had A Star Every Boy Had A Dream ********** Author’s Note: This is the third in my planned series...

     I honed my trail maintenance skills as a young man on a DEC Trail crew team in the Adirondack high peaks.  There I learned a wide variety of valuable skills and techniques, everything from axemanship, to two-man blowdown clearing bowsaw skills, crafting freshly felled cedar trees into water...

There Once Was A Time When Every Town Had A Team Every Team Had A Star Every Boy Had A Dream ********** Author’s Introduction:  For me, baseball cards are a combination fountain of youth/time capsule. That musty bubble gum cardboard aroma transports me. When I hold one of my...

 Celebrating my Adirondack Bottle Diving adventure forward into 2022      This past year brought what appeared to be an exciting culmination point in my three- year Adirondack bottle diving adventure.      First, I discovered a one-of-a-kind vintage Saranac Lake “F.M. Bull” glass & wood stopper pharmacy bottle. Then, Historic...

A Season’s End Hunter’s Poem ********** Each Season’s End Harvests Hunter’s Reflections What Was What Wasn’t What Might Have Been **********   Fallen Waterfowl Feathers Fall Foliage Breeze Trail’s First Frosted Tracks Fresh Buck Rubbed Trees ********** Morning Pre-Dawn Stealth Silence Hunter’s Hart Prayers for Luck ‘Til That True Shot’s...

Author’s Note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s December 6, 2021 online edition under the title: “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, So Too, Is Life’s Circle”.      Truth is quite frequently stranger than fiction. Each day that I spend in life’s circle re-proves it.     At this point...

Author’s Note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s November 18, 2021 online edition.      Early one fall, several years ago, my wife Robin & I were planning our Christmas gift shopping list.  We asked my mom, who lives with us, and has everything; “Mom-What do you want for...