Category: Essays & Stories

There’s always something magical about that first night in camp. Our family’s first foray into camp came a bit later than usual this year. That was in large part due to the upper locks rebuild, but also in part simply because of how our effort to make camp reservations...

The Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage My Cottage Caretaker Guided Photography Tour Followed by a Presentation on the Renowned Author’s Life & Works Hosted by the folks at Historic Saranac Lake ********** I grew up in the shadows of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage. We called it the...

Whether folks call them jackknives, penknives or pocketknives, there was a time not too far past when any Adirondack Outlaw worth his salt didn’t consider himself fully dressed in the morning without one. How many folks out there still carry a pocketknife? I grew up with a knife in...

An Updated Look at the Adirondack Rail Trail Including a sneak peek at renovations underway inside the Rail Trail’s historic train depot! (I am, after all, still an Adirondack Outlaw. Gotta keep up my street cred.) Since I was in town for the weekend, I thought I’d trek a...

An adirondackoutlaw.com Book Review Because when one of an Adirondack Outlaw’s Saranac Lake brothers writes and publishes his own book, that’s what brothers do. ********** I’ll be totally honest. When my sister-in-law announced that Dermott Morgan had just written a book, if she had said: “Did you guys hear?...

An On-Site Saranac Lake Upper Locks Construction Project Update As I packed, planned and prepped for a weekend trip to Saranac Lake to undertake some personal agenda items and attend my best friend’s father’s funeral, the word on the street was that the NYSDEC’s tentative opening of Saranac Lake’s...

A Nostalgic Look at Some Bear Truths of Adirondack Economics As I sit here penning this story to page, the minimum wage here in New York State is $15.00 an hour. $15.00 an hour! To an old bear like me, that seems a king’s ransom. But there it is....

When high tech intruded, the hunter went old school. They suddenly began showing up on his trail cams in mid-May. Strange glowing images hovering low over his back fields at night. He did not know what to make of them. Folks all thought he was a bit overly paranoid...

“This Arbor Day Message is Ari Rae Approved” My spring arbor order arrived April 12th. With chilled early spring temps, April’s shower spigot flooding most everything, and full-on mud season going full force, my initial plan was to let things dry out a bit before planting. 30 white pine...

A Connectivity Experience Being One with the Moment As April 8th and eclipse day approached, I found within myself a growing urge to make plans that would somehow allow me to uniquely experience totality’s moment. For a brief while, it appeared our northern New York State Watertown hacienda would...