The People & Places of the Adirondacks collection contains a variety of story types: original works of hard history, the lives of unusual people, noteworthy accomplishments, groundbreaking inventions, remarkable mishaps, oddities, and humor. They all have one thing in common: each is rooted in the North Country, defined here as the Adirondacks and foothills. The region's past is filled with relative or complete unknowns who were, in fact, highly accomplished individuals. Many of the chapters here reveal their stories, which are well worth preserving. Those and others are presented with a purpose that is threefold: to educate, amuse, and entertain. In this volume: Hats for Horses: Was it Really a Thing? You Bet!; The Mandrake Tupper Family's Remarkable Civil War Record; Chicken Theft: Once a Prison-Worthy Crime; Catamount Mountain: A Dynamite Movie Role; Homing Pigeons in the Adirondacks; Eddie "Phat Boy" Babbage: Big, Bold, and Beloved; The Greatest Rescue in Adirondack History; An Adirondack Photograph Makes Newspaper History; Ticonderoga Canines: Doggone Good Friends; Lake Champlain Fishing Shanties: Faster than a Speeding Bullet ...; John C. Austin: Wanted--But was He Dead or Alive?; No Bones Were Broken: True Tales of Tumbling Linemen; Rouses Point, Border Village: So Many Famous Visitors!; Garrett Cashman: The Birdman of Albany; George Cheney: Pioneer Recorder of World Music; Fecund Families of the North Country; Henry Harrison Markham: Wilmington to West Coast Governor; Rooftop Highway Déjà Vu; The Dueling Sheriffs of Hamilton County; Robert Emmett Odlum: Public-Safety Daredevil; Thomas William Symons: Building America from Coast to Coast; Rock Eaters? No Way ... But Anything Else Will Do!; Adirondack Swindles: Deceptive and Detestable; North Country vs. KKK: Battling in the Streets; It was Nearly Pok-O-Rushmore!; John L. Dunlap: A Character with Character; Leonard J. Farwell: Wisconsin Governor and Forever Tied to Lincoln; Taylor-Made Communications: Schenectady to Lake Desolation.

Archival photographs and text describe the history, social life and customs of the Adriondack Mountain region in New York.

The Adirondacks have been an Indigenous homeland for millennia, and the presence of Native people in the region was obvious but not well documented by Europeans, who did not venture into the interior between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, by the late nineteenth century, historians had scarcely any record of their long-lasting and vibrant existence in the area. With Rural Indigenousness, Otis shines a light on the rich history of Algonquian and Iroquoian people, offering the first comprehensive study of the relationship between Native Americans and the Adirondacks. While Otis focuses on the nineteenth century, she extends her analysis to periods before and after this era, revealing both the continuity and change that characterize the relationship over time. Otis argues that the landscape was much more than a mere hunting ground for Native residents; rather, it a “location of exchange,” a space of interaction where the land was woven into the fabric of their lives as an essential source of refuge and survival. Drawing upon archival research, material culture, and oral histories, Otis examines the nature of Indigenous populations living in predominantly Euroamerican communities to identify the ways in which some maintained their distinct identity while also making selective adaptations exemplifying the concept of “survivance.” In doing so, Rural Indigenousness develops a new conversation in the field of Native American studies that expands our understanding of urban and rural indigeneity.

Barbara McMartin narrates the history of Adirondack environmental policy in depth, beginning with the 1970 formation of the Adirondack Park Agency, set up to regulate private development and to oversee the planning of public terrain. Although hailed as the most innovative land-use legislation of its time, it ignited a wildfire of controversy, creating a landscape of conflict. Park residents protested. Government stood firm. Over the decades, disparate groups have sought to shape an effective program to protect Adirondack wildland but cannot seem to work together. This is the first comprehensive account of that ongoing drama: a stirring story of the environmental movement, public action, and government failure and success.

An evocative and personal history of a unique historic place in the Adirondacks. In 1968 Fran and Jay Yardley, a young couple with pioneering spirit, moved to a remote corner of the Adirondacks to revive the long-abandoned but historic Bartlett Carry Club, with its one thousand acres and thirty-seven buildings. The Saranac Lake–area property had been in Jay’s family for generations, and his dream was to restore this summer resort to support himself and, eventually, a growing family. Fran chronicles their journey and, along the way, unearths the history of those who came before, from the 1800s to the present. Offering an evocative glimpse into the past, Finding True North traces the challenges and transformations of one of the world’s most beautiful, least-celebrated places and the people who were tirelessly devoted to it. “Fran Yardley is a superb storyteller, and this is a superb story—of a camp and of a marriage, illuminating a key corner of the slightly out-of-time paradise that is the Adirondacks.” — Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance “Fran Yardley has given us an emotionally moving book, combining memoir and Adirondack history. With a singular and powerful voice, in a tightly organized narrative, she deftly weaves together two distinct strands: her own remarkable story and the history of Bartlett’s Carry.” — Philip Terrie, author of Seeing the Forest: Reviews, Musings, and Opinions from an Adirondack Historian “Fran Yardley—storyteller, actress, writer, and stalwart Adirondacker—takes us behind the balsam curtain to a truly magical place on the Saranac Lakes. Finding True North is the tale of families, forests, tragedy, and triumph told from the heart with deep insight. It’s a terrific, immersive read.” — Elizabeth Folwell, editor-at-large, Adirondack Life “Gifted storyteller Fran Yardley has harnessed her many voices to the printed page in this remarkable memoir. Yardley interweaves her firsthand experience hinged to historic documentation with her imagination as she reveals the lives and ways of those who went before and coexisted with her and Jay Yardley at Bartlett Carry. Finding True North is a must-read love story about Adirondack place and people.” — Caroline M. Welsh, Director Emerita, Adirondack Museum “In Finding True North, Fran Yardley has produced an immediate and necessary addition to the body of Adirondack literature and history. Long in the making, it is beautifully written, authoritative, and moving.” — Christopher Shaw, author of Sacred Monkey River: A Canoe Trip with the Gods and former editor of Adirondack Life “Author and master storyteller Fran Yardley tells of the early history of the aquatic Adirondack crossroads known as Bartlett Carry, the later history of the place as a club for families eager to swap conventional orbits outside the mountains for the natural world within, and the reinvention of the place by the author and her visionary late husband, Jay. The stories that flow together here touch the heart and bring the reader to tears and laughter. For lovers of the Adirondacks and particularly for those keen on understanding how the past shapes the present and the future, this is a must read.” — Ed Kanze, author of Adirondack: Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East